What is palatability?

The palatability of a food is its degree of acceptability to an animal, as determined by the sensory response to specific chemical and physical characteristics - namely smell, taste and texture. The combination of smell and taste is termed 'flavour'.

The relative importance of these organoleptic qualities that determine food preference differs slightly in dogs and cats; in dogs the ranking is, in order, smell, taste and texture, in cats, smell, texture and taste. Both species are particularly sensitive to odours and tastes associated with meat, but the appearance of the food is of little consequence.

Faced with a choice of foods, dogs will smell them and almost immediately decide their which one they want to eat. However, they will periodically sample the others, even when one food is strongly preferred. If the food originally chosen is more palatable they will quickly return to eating it. In general dogs will pick up the food with their teeth.

On the other hand, cats like not only to smell all the foods that are available but also to taste each one before they decide which to eat, unless the odour of one is significantly more attractive.

Cats will then pick up the food with their tongue, not their teeth – and whilst eating, cats may change their minds a number of times. Both dogs and cats sniff unfamiliar foods extensively before eating, which greatly increases the air flow across the olfactory mucosa.

Texture ('mouth-feel')

The texture or 'mouth-feel' of a food is an important factor in its selection. Located in the mouth are pressure receptors and movement detectors which allow animals to judge such .mod characteristics as hardness, cohesiveness, viscosity, elasticity and adhesiveness.

Dogs and cats prefer food that is easy to chew, and for that reason dogs prefer cooked meat to raw meat and canned meat to the same type of meat freshly cooked. Neither dogs nor cats like sticky foods. Fat, as well as appealing strongly to the sense of smell, also contributes a satisfying moist texture to food.

With dry foods, dogs and cats prefer the ingredients to be finely ground (coarse ingredients give a gritty texture), for the pieces of food (kibbles) to have smooth rather than irregular surfaces, without sharp edges or projections, and for the food not to be so hard that it cannot easily be broken in chewing.

An animal’s dentition influences its textural preferences. Cats do not possess the teeth required to grind hard kibbles and they prefer a crisper, softer texture that is easier to break up. Cats may also develop strong preferences for particular shapes. The size of the kibbles of extruded foods is also important and, contrary to owner perceptions, dogs often prefer larger kibbles.

Hill’s Pet Nutrition ensures that all these factors which influence palatability are taken into account when designing a new pet food.

Owner perception of palatability

A dog or cat owner's perception of the palatability of a pet food is usually determined by,
• how readily the pet eats the food after it is offered,
• the speed of eating (wet foods will inevitably be consumed faster than dry foods),
• the amount of food (if any) that remains uneaten, and
• whether the pet asks for more.

Most dogs and cats that lead an active life (i.e. are not confined and/or bored) will eat approximately the right amount of food to meet their caloric requirements although there are canine breeds and some individuals that will consistently overeat.

Although relatively unimportant to the pet, the visual appearance of the product and its packaging can greatly influence the owner's perception of its quality and palatability. The colour of a food is more likely to enhance its appeal to the owner, since dogs and cats have limited colour vision. Recently there has been an increase in 'gourmet' foods that emphasise these aesthetic attributes rather than any nutritional benefits.

Do pets respond to food the same way that humans do?

The major differences between pets and humans in their response to food are that pets are,
• much less concerned about the appearance, particularly the colour, of a food,
• more influenced by its smell and taste, and
• better able to judge the quality and freshness of ingredients.

The similarity with people is that pets,
• develop individual preferences for certain ingredients and flavours,
• look for novel foods, but
• are wary of foods that are too different from those experienced previously and may need to be introduced to them gradually

Courtesy of Hill's Pet Nutrition, Inc. © 2003 Hill's Pet Nutrition, Inc.