Terrine of Alpo?

A new study from the American Association of Wine Economists:

Considering the similarity of its ingredients, canned dog food could be a suitable and inexpensive substitute for pâté or processed blended meat products such as Spam or liverwurst. However, the social stigma associated with the human consumption of pet food makes an unbiased comparison challenging. To prevent bias, Newman's Own dog food was prepared with a food processor to have the texture and appearance of a liver mousse. In a double-blind test, subjects were presented with five unlabeled blended meat products, one of which was the prepared dog food. After ranking the samples on the basis of taste, subjects were challenged to identify which of the five was dog food. [...] Subjects were not better than random at correctly identifying the dog food.

Before you run to Petco for a snack, there's more:

Even with the benefits of added salt, a smooth texture, and attractive presentation, canned dog food is unpalatable compared to a range of similar blended meat products.

We conclude that, although human beings do not enjoy eating dog food, they are also not able to distinguish its flavor profile from other meat-based products that are intended for human consumption.

[HT: Tyler Cowan]