Looking past the recent vegan drama, have you ever wondered why your pet might not like particular foods? Have you ever actually tasted the food yourself?
I have, and some taste more like a chemistry lab than actual nutrition.
Yep. I’ve tasted kibbles and baked treats / cookies. They’re generally not great, but the ones that taste ok are also my dogs favorites. Usually just like a sugar free human snack.
I do a lot of dried sardines as snacks and a couple Chinese coworkers tried them, they said they taste just like their version but without the salt and spices.
I feed my pets raw, so haven’t tried those. They seem to love it though.
Cool cool 👍
Someone donated some dog biscuit treats for our recently adopted dog Brownie, but he wouldn’t eat them. I tried a bite, but it didn’t taste anything like nutrition, it just seriously tasted like a chemistry lab… ☹️
He likes soft Chicken Gravy Train though.
it just seriously tasted like a chemistry lab…
Have you ever tried your pet’s food?Have you ever tried your son’s chemistry lab?
I was the son, and yes I tasted half the chemicals. Lucky I’m still alive.
Animals don’t taste the same way we do. For example, cats don’t have the receptors for tasting sweet things…so they can barely detect sweetness at all.
Dogs only have 25% as many taste buds as humans, so most things have a very mutes taste for them. Plus, every dog I’ve ever had absolutely LOVED cat shit covered in kitty litter, so I never put much faith in their sense of taste.
Yeah, they’ll have flavors they like more or less, just like us, but even we can’t trust our sense of taste as a metric for nutrition…if we could, we’d all be addicted to brocolli and spinach instead of processes foods and sugar.
Guess what?
If my dog refuses to eat what’s supposed to be a dog treat, and I try it and it tastes like a chemistry lab, then I think me and my dog both agree it tastes more like chemicals and more toxic than garbage.
Even if humans and animals have different taste buds, if the food tastes wrong, ain’t nobody gonna eat it.
How do you know that the only reason you don’t like cat shit is because you have a cultural revulsion to it?
My wife fucking loves coagulated blood. Like just big old chunks of blood which was packed into casings and boiled until it became a massive chunk of scab. Meanwhile I legit cannot be in the same room with it. As far as I’m concerned it might as well be cat shit
I recall seeing in a special card at a Chinese restaurant “Pigs Blood with Mixed Vegetable”. Sounds awful to me but some people must like it.
black pudding? white pudding?
I also wouldn’t know what my dog thinks of the taste of cat shit, as that’s not on his menu. Not sure where that thought came from even, that’s not even food.
I’m referring to actual food products for pets. If the pet doesn’t like it, there’s probably a reason why, and that reason is likely that companies tend to make substandard foods not suitable for human consumption for pets.
I had a Jack Russell who was crazy about eating out of the litterbox. Just horrifying, obviously. Maybe it tastes like meat, idk, who knows what it smells like to a dog.
lmao nobody feeds their dog cat shit. but they try to eat it anyway because they are dogs and they’ll eat a dirty diaper if you don’t throw it away out of reach. smh
Man y’all got some dumb dogs out there apparently.
I’d say I love spinach just as much as sugar and processed food chomps on corncob pipe
I always taste test my pet’s food to make sure it’s not poisoned.
wondered why your pet might not like particular foods?
No. It’s the same reason that you don’t like particular perfectly good foods. They’re attuned to different factors, but it’s the same process to appeal to them.
Back in the day, my mom fed their cat 9 Lives outdoor food. After a while she quit eating.
After I figured out the difference between outdoor and indoor food (basically extra preservatives), and got the same exact food, but the indoor variety, kitty chowed down!
Animals can taste the fucky chemicals as well.
A friend of mine back in middle school did a science project on what cat food tastes the best. He used his cat as the main experiment, but when he presented his project he also had samples for everyone to try and vote on their favorite. The cat liked Science Diet. The consensus among our classmates was Meow Mix.
Interesting. At the end of the day though, what matters is what’s healthy for your pet and what they like best.
I never suggested that humans and pets have the same taste buds and appetites, but when your dog refuses to eat a dog treat, and you taste it yourself and it also tastes like chemical garbage, then it only stands to reason that those particular dog treats are trash.
I didn’t realize you were trying to present some sort of argument here, I was just sharing a fun story that answered the post title.
All food tastes like chemicals. Taste is a function of chemical receptors on your tongue. Btw you are made entirely of chemicals, but many people have already told you this today.
I don’t know the exact brand of dog treats, but they tasted like they were soaked in diesel fuel and dried out. That’s what I mean when I say they tasted like chemicals.
Whatever brand they were, they were colored red and green. I don’t even think ants would eat those things.
His real science project: How many classmates can he get to eat cat food.
The result: more than you’d expect.
I got some “human grade” dog treats that are little sliced sausages and they smell delicious. Like actual edible salami. Haven’t tried them yet but I’m tempted to.
I’ve just returned to Lemmy after a while so I’m OOTL. Can anyone give me a gist of what happened with the recent vegan drama on here? Or maybe link to a post I can read?
The company Wild Life claims to have created a nutritionally complete vegan cat food, even though it’s common knowledge that cats need meat proteins and nutrients in their regular diet.
https://lemmy.ca/post/27549478
I am no expert in the field, maybe they’re onto something, maybe not. 🤷♂️
Edit: Guess they dropped the link ☹️
Proteins are just amino acids. You can find the same proteins in plant foods as meat. There are other details about what different types of basic foods contain, of course, but it’s theoretically possible to create something that contains all the same nutrients as meat out of plants.
When I briefly skimmed over the original article, they made a point to mention their food contains taurine. You know, like one of the things they put in Monster Energy drinks…
I’m no animal nutrition expert, so I don’t know how that does or doesn’t help with kitty nutrition, but I’d just as soon feed my kitty actual chicken or tuna and call it a day.
Well, check it out: https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/taurine-in-cats
Taurine is an amino acid that’s an esssential nutrient for cats.
I’ve tasted a couple of cookies/treats. Milkbones, stuff from 3 dog bakery and what not. Milkbones have no flavor that I can discern. The boutique dog cookie was fine, I can see how a dog would get down on it.
Wet food tho. Nah. I’m good fam.
I was tricked into eating dog biscuits when I was a little kid. Tasted like ash more than anything else. But dogs like vomit too, so our tastes are not very similar.
But maybe some vomit can be tasty?
I’ve eaten cat biscuits. They don’t taste offensive, but there’s nothing in them for me to enjoy. Even so, they’re the one thing all my cats agree is worth eating.
I bought some fancy biscuits for my dogs from a local company. Ingredients are basically oats, cheddar, bacon, rosemary. I could 100% kill this whole bag if my dogs didn’t look so devastated when I ate their special treats.
I did, I can say that it tastes mostly like nothing, but my dog loves it because the smell is so strong (I think)
My 13 years older sister gave me a chocolate piece when I was a kid, and asked afterwards if I liked it. I did. She gave me more, and didn’t tell me they were dog “chocolates”.
Tried one a few years ago - not as good as I remembered, and wouldn’t ask for another.
Dog chocolates are so waxy it’s crazy
Probably because it’s not chocolate. Chocolate is toxic to cats and dogs
Fair, but it still tastes like a candle.
I have tasted the “gravy” in the wet food. Not disgusting, but definitely not interested in trying it again. When I worked at a pet store one of those birthday biscuits came in broken so my manager has written it off. He offered me to try a piece and those were honestly not bad. A less sweet cookie basically.
Not really. I don’t Have a wish to try eating live insects.
Regarding pets that eat insects, at least you know they’re not some chemical processed garbage. No need to be curious what that tastes like, nor would I expect you to, you know it’s natural.
“natural” doesn’t mean “good”. Arsenic is natural. Oleander is natural. Hemlock is natural.
I think you understood exactly what I meant. It’s natural for certain pets to eat insects. I never mentioned anything about poisons.
I did understand what you said. “You don’t need to taste that, it’s natural, and natural things don’t contain chemicals”. Everything contains chemicals, and whether those chemicals are natural or artificial has no bearing on whether or not they’re harmful. You’re spreading hippie-dippy misinformation. Knock that shit off.
Look, if I give my dog something that’s supposed to be a dog treat, and he refuses to eat it, then I get curious and try a little nibble myself. When I taste it and it tastes like pure chemical shit, then I’m like no wonder he won’t eat that, guess I ain’t going for that brand again.
It’s like almost half the comments here are like ‘aNImAls tAStE dIfFerEnt tHaN pEopLE’. Yep, no kidding. But if the animal won’t eat what’s supposed to be a treat, then maybe it’s the humans that manufactured the food that ain’t got a clue.
If the pet ain’t eating what’s supposed to be pet food, maybe just maybe the pet is trying to tell you the shit tastes horrible.
Literally everything you taste or smell is a chemical. Taste and smell are just biological chemical detection systems.
Preference for taste varies by individual. Every family has that one weirdo who likes black jellybeans. I don’t understand it, and those people are actually members of my own species. You’re taking a sample size of one hominid and one canid and saying that since you agree, this taste is objectively bad. Do you honestly think the manufacturer invested in marketing this product without ever giving it to a dog? Is it possible that there are things your dog likes that you wouldn’t like, and vice versa? It just seems like you’re leaping to a lot of conclusions here, like you started out with a conclusion and are trying to prove it. That is not good science.
It’s not exactly a ‘science’ to figure out when your pet refuses to eat a particular food. It just makes me curious, like what is he actually experiencing when he tastes the foods he don’t like.
There are a plethora of other pet foods out there, I’m not gonna force him to eat anything he don’t like. If he doesn’t like a particular food, and I think it tastes horrible as well, then maybe just maybe the dog has a point, certain foods taste terrible.
Well, guess what? He refuses the chemical infused dog treats, but he loves ham and hot dogs, and also Gravy Train Chicken Flavor, ground up version, not chunky.
I think we can both agree that’s nutrition, and also the dog is basically saying without words that the dog biscuit treats taste like absolute shit.
Our adopted dog definitely ain’t starving, we’re just tuning into what he does and doesn’t have more of an appetite for.
No “chemicals” in hot dogs, nosiree lmao
Obviously everything is made of chemicals, you don’t have to keep thumping that book. I think you understand everything I’m getting at and are just trolling now.
