My kids love to eat crisps. Me too by the way. I don't know how they are made, but it is really delicious. Yum. When we decide to make an aperitif with the children, we have a strange little ritual: next to the crisps, we add, to compensate, some healthy snacks (cut vegetables, olives, crackers without salt, ...) and we insist so that these are eaten before starting the chips. Generally this announcement throws a chill, because what, in the end, are the crisps that everyone is interested in... There is therefore always a small moment of hesitation where we, parents, insist on the benefits of vegetables, until until finally, we let go and all the chips go in one, two, three. The vegetables end up in the soup the next day.
Nutritionists will tell you that. Crisps are not in the food pyramid. Too much salt, too much fat, not enough nutrients. These are products created for our greatest pleasure. It's important too, but definitely doesn't form a good base for our diet.
Over the many generations before us, the tastes of our ancestors were shaped to favor certain rare foods that were able to keep them healthy: fatty, sweet or salty. Indeed, imagine a hominid looking for food in the African savannah. If he has the good fortune to come across a tree full of ripe, sweet fruit and the animals haven't already eaten it all, isn't he in the best interest of taking his chance and eating as much of it? that he can ? The chance may not come again this year. The same analogy goes for salt or fat, which are also very necessary and energy foods…
...as long as they are eaten in reasonable quantities. And that's the rub. Since agriculture and trade have replaced hunting and gathering to feed us, these once scarce foods have become abundant. And for good reason. The market is huge for foods that everyone wants to eat. These commodities have become very abundant. Just like our waistlines.
What does this have to do with dogs? It is reasonable to assume that the tastes of dogs have, like ours, been shaped by a long evolution so that they have a preference for certain foods, which are rare in the natural environment and beneficial to them. It is also reasonable to think that, thanks to trade and agriculture, these foodstuffs are now more abundant than when the wild ancestors of our dogs foraged 20-30,000 years ago.
Most dogs love Bazoef kibbles and we are very satisfied. But we still sometimes receive the little remark that kills 'My dog preferred his old croquettes'.
So yes, dogs all have a different relationship to food and as my daughter often says 'Tastes and colors cannot be discussed'. That said, she says it more often about tomatoes than chips. And that's where I'm coming from.
Dogs all have different tastes, of course, but if we want to manufacture at low cost, the food that the greatest number of dogs love, it must make the equivalent of chips for dogs. Just take a few cheap ingredients and add what is called a palatant: a mixture of ingredients that will make the kibble ultra-appetizing.
These palatants are not good or bad in themselves . Their use does not mean that the kibble is of good or bad nutritional quality. My point is rather that these products can be used to mask products of questionable quality, guaranteeing that dogs will enjoy them.
When choosing your dog's food, his nose will not be enough. You will have to pay close attention to its composition: source of high quality protein, presence of vegetables, carbohydrates, fruits, and not relying solely on the fact that your dog likes them.
At Bazoef, we chose to appeal to a vegetarian palatant. Indeed, we consider that insect proteins should be the only ingredient of animal origin. In addition to insect protein, we have added sources of vegetables (peas, rice, chicory) and fruits (apples, pumpkins, cranberries) to complete our fiber recipe and give it an appetizing taste. We rely on the quality of the ingredients present in our food so that its flavor is pleasant to the dog.
So yes, it is possible that your dog preferred his previous kibbles. It is also almost certain that your child prefers chips to salad.
