{"id":42610,"date":"2025-08-01T12:52:49","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T12:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/?p=42610"},"modified":"2025-10-24T19:52:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T19:52:28","slug":"the-farmers-dog-highly-palatable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/the-farmers-dog-highly-palatable\/","title":{"rendered":"Studies Show That The Farmer\u2019s Dog Is Highly Palatable"},"content":{"rendered":"<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><div class=\"wp-block-group table-content is-content-justification-left is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-8c890d92 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p><strong>In this article: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"#what-is-palatability\">What is palatability?<\/a> <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#the-farmer-s-dog-is-clinically-shown-to-be-highly-palatable\">Is The Farmer&rsquo;s Dog clinically shown to be highly palatable?<\/a> <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#the-farmer-s-dog-regularly-tests-new-recipes-for-palatability\">Does The Farmer&rsquo;s Dog regularly test new recipes for palatability?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<\/div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"><div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div><p>What seems obvious to some is news to others, so we&rsquo;ll say it for the record: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/what-is-palatability-and-why-is-it-so-important-for-a-dogs-food\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">It&rsquo;s important that your dog likes their food<\/a>. Not only does tasty food improve their quality of life, it ensures they are getting the nourishment they need to thrive. Dogs can&rsquo;t benefit from a meal&rsquo;s full nutritional value if they don&rsquo;t eat enough of it.<\/p><h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"what-is-palatability\">What is palatability? <\/h4><p>There&rsquo;s a scientific name for how tasty a food is: palatability. Pet-food companies think about palatability a lot. And, though it may sound like it would be too subjective to measure, there are clinical studies designed to determine which foods dogs find most appealing.&nbsp;<\/p><p>Palatability studies are used because dogs can&rsquo;t tell us, &ldquo;I much prefer this food to that food.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/p><p id=\"One-common-method-for-determining-which-food-a-dog-likes-better-is-the-two-bowl-\">One common method for determining which food a dog likes better is the two-bowl preference study (a.k.a. the versus test). It works like this: at mealtime, two bowls are set before a participating dog, one containing food A and and the other containing food B. The dog is then allowed to eat as they please. This is repeated multiple times over a number of days, and the bowls&rsquo; positions are switched each day to ensure that where they are placed doesn&rsquo;t impact the dog&rsquo;s choice. Humans record the dog&rsquo;s preference, as determined by which food they choose to eat first and <em>how much<\/em> of each food they eat.<\/p><h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-farmer-s-dog-is-clinically-shown-to-be-highly-palatable\">The Farmer&rsquo;s Dog is clinically shown to be highly palatable&nbsp;<\/h4><p>In our commitment to the health and wellness of dogs, The Farmer&rsquo;s Dog sponsored one such study. 50 dogs participated, and were twice given a choice between one of our fresh recipes and kibble. Our fresh diet was the first choice for 95 out of the 100 meals served.<\/p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/simmonspetfood.com\/whitepapers\/2021\/2\/10\/principles-of-pet-food-palatability-evaluation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">A dog shows a &ldquo;clear preference&rdquo;<\/a> in a versus study when they consume twice as much of one recipe as the other&mdash;and we vastly exceeded this benchmark. In our study, dogs chose The Farmer&rsquo;s Dog over a leading kibble brand 86.4 percent of the time.<\/p><p>Since our foods are highly palatable, we don&rsquo;t have to add palatants&mdash;ingredients designed to make food smell and taste more appealing. You&rsquo;ll often find palatants listed on ingredient lists as &ldquo;natural flavors.&rdquo; And the science-backed benefits of The Farmer&rsquo;s Dog don&rsquo;t stop at its proven palatability. Our food is always formulated by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/meet-our-on-staff-board-certified-nutritionists\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">on-staff, board-certified nutritionists<\/a> to be 100% complete and balanced so that your dog will get all of the nutrition they need to thrive; it&rsquo;s clinically proven to be highly digestible, meaning that dogs actually absorb the nourishment it&rsquo;s designed to provide; and it&rsquo;s pre-portioned for easier weight management, which is key because healthy-weight dogs can live up to 2.5 years longer than those who are obese.<\/p><h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-farmer-s-dog-regularly-tests-new-recipes-for-palatability\">The Farmer&rsquo;s Dog regularly tests new recipes for palatability<\/h4><p>We don&rsquo;t just compare our food to kibble. Whenever we work on a new recipe, we run studies to make sure it&rsquo;s as tasty as what we already make&mdash;or tastier. The goal is to design a gently cooked recipe that dogs will love&mdash;so that they can enjoy the full impact of its nutritional benefits and have the best chance at a long, healthy life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Farmer\u2019s Dog gets high marks in a palatability study performed by a third party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":42614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[184],"class_list":["post-42610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nutrition","tag-dog-food"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42610"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42911,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42610\/revisions\/42911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}