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| http://themomfessional.com/2011/12/29/momfession-17-our-new-puppy/ |
Things my party guests sometimes say to me:
- Julie, where’s the bathroom?
- Julie, what a nice collection of dog books you have.
- Julie, we need a lot of paper towels right now.
- Julie, do you have any dog food? I’m hungry.
I’ve never met him, but I have to imagine John Bohannon woke up one morning and thought, “What does dog food taste like?” That, or “How can I make a lot of people voluntarily eat dog food?”
Either way, the outcome was the same. Bohannon gathered eighteen people together to voluntarily consume dog food in a study exploring whether people can distinguish between pâté and dog food.
If you haven’t yet noticed, out-of-the-ordinary studies get me going — from Gosling’s exploration of personality differences between dog and cat people to whether there is a difference in how dogs sniff a stranger’s crotch and an owner’s crotch (there is).
Bohannon's study is similar, in that it is "different." Bohannon and his colleagues crafted an experiment to investigate the intrinsic palatability of dog food by performing a run-of-the-mill, double blind, taste test.
The study was not simply a frolic and a detour. If dog food were found comparable in taste to pâté, “it could be a suitable and inexpensive substitute for pâté or processed blended meat products such as Spam or liverwurst” (Bohannon et al., Abstract).
Eating Dog Food: Methods
To explore the palatability of dog food, Bohannon and his colleagues hosted an unusual dinner party. What better time to eat dog food than on New Year’s Eve! On December 31, 2008, 18 subjects, also known as party-goers, gathered in Brooklyn, NY where they dined on 5 different spreads. Four were human-intended, meat-based products and one was the infamous dog food.
If you haven’t yet noticed, out-of-the-ordinary studies get me going — from Gosling’s exploration of personality differences between dog and cat people to whether there is a difference in how dogs sniff a stranger’s crotch and an owner’s crotch (there is).
Bohannon's study is similar, in that it is "different." Bohannon and his colleagues crafted an experiment to investigate the intrinsic palatability of dog food by performing a run-of-the-mill, double blind, taste test.
The study was not simply a frolic and a detour. If dog food were found comparable in taste to pâté, “it could be a suitable and inexpensive substitute for pâté or processed blended meat products such as Spam or liverwurst” (Bohannon et al., Abstract).
Eating Dog Food: Methods
To explore the palatability of dog food, Bohannon and his colleagues hosted an unusual dinner party. What better time to eat dog food than on New Year’s Eve! On December 31, 2008, 18 subjects, also known as party-goers, gathered in Brooklyn, NY where they dined on 5 different spreads. Four were human-intended, meat-based products and one was the infamous dog food.
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| Dog food party |
All five samples — duck liver mousse, pork liver pâté, liverwurst, Spam and dog food — were pulsed in a food processor to give them the same mousse-like consistency. Each sample was then placed in a serving bowl, chilled to 4 degrees Celsius and garnished with parsley. Subjects sampled all the spreads, as many times as needed, on Carr’s Table Water Crackers.
So how do you determine the palatability of dog food? See who vomits first? Nope. After tasting all the samples, subjects provided two pieces of information:
So how do you determine the palatability of dog food? See who vomits first? Nope. After tasting all the samples, subjects provided two pieces of information:
- They ranked the samples from best to worst
- They guessed which of the five was dog food
Eating Dog Food: Results
The first part of the results are not surprising. Humans don’t like the taste of dog food. Over half the subjects, 72% (13 people) ranked the dog food dead last. On the other hand, the duck liver mousse was ranked first by 55% (10 people).
But here’s where things get weird. Although the majority of subjects ranked Sample C, the dog food, as the worst, when asked to report which sample was in fact dog food, most people did not guess Sample C! In fact, only 3 of the 18 subjects correctly identified Sample C as dog food!
As the authors suggest, the subjects could have been primed to expect the dog food to taste better than it did. After all, the dog food was Newman’s Own, and who doesn’t love anything and everything Paul Newman has contributed to this planet?
There are two morals to this story:
The first part of the results are not surprising. Humans don’t like the taste of dog food. Over half the subjects, 72% (13 people) ranked the dog food dead last. On the other hand, the duck liver mousse was ranked first by 55% (10 people).
But here’s where things get weird. Although the majority of subjects ranked Sample C, the dog food, as the worst, when asked to report which sample was in fact dog food, most people did not guess Sample C! In fact, only 3 of the 18 subjects correctly identified Sample C as dog food!
As the authors suggest, the subjects could have been primed to expect the dog food to taste better than it did. After all, the dog food was Newman’s Own, and who doesn’t love anything and everything Paul Newman has contributed to this planet?
There are two morals to this story:
- If you serve your guests dog food, they won’t like it. But they also won’t necessarily know it’s dog food, so it's worth a try.
- People are weird, better to study dogs.
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| No idea... http://www.funnypictures.net.au/family-photos/ |
References
Bohannon et al., 2009. Can People Distinguish Pâté from Dog Food? American Association of Wine Economists. Working Paper No. 36
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