The Disgusting Food Museum is the kind of institution one can only find in a European city fit to play host to the Eurovision song contest; both require an adventurous palate and have the innate ability to leave one with deep insecurities surrounding our individual proclivities around taste. The museum, among Malmö’s highest-rated attractions, is an all-offending entity – from mouse wine to Scandinavia’s very own fermented herring, no region’s culinary oddities are (and should be) spared from being exhibited as a thing that completely and wholly revolts.
Fierce debate and loyalty by foreign patrons is not a threat to the exhibits but a welcome addition, incorporating the patriotic visitors’ claims that “balut is not disgusting” (for the record, balut is a fertilised developing egg embryo that is boiled or steamed and eaten from the shell) or that “vegemite shouldn’t be on display with this other weird stuff!”.
That’s the beauty of the exhibit, as eloquently expressed by the staff of the museum: While the emotion of aversion is universal, the foods that we find disgusting simply are not.
Sheepishly, we eventually all admit and accept this. I bet that within your own family or circle of closest friends, there is at least one person who just loves the exact thing you hate. Instinctively, we react so strongly to others eating something we find disgusting because, since we don’t like it, it must be unpleasant or harmful for others as well – after all, evolution has hardwired us to be wary of gross.
Luckily, common sense generally prevails, as we do not condone slapping food out of others’ hands or prying it off of a fellow diner’s fork (although that may yet become the diet fad du jour). However, this logic seldom comes into play when our pets are involved. To us, pets represent the best aspects of life that we wish we could embody ourselves. Since we can’t sleep all day or play as much as we want, we project our desires onto them – and by king or country, we swear to ourselves that we’d rather be dead before we let them eat nothing but the best.
Chocolate isn’t good for our dogs
Dog food is off-putting. Or at least it should be – not because we hate our pets, but because they are not us. Their food does not need to make our mouths water, but it does need to be inoffensive enough to be kept in the home and handled by owners. Our pets also have different nutritional needs than our own, making the act of preparing a balanced and healthy canine-suitable meal much different to planning our own dinners.
Then there is the fact that our food is not necessarily suitable for their consumption either (as Oreos liked to remind us in the late 1990s and early 2000s). Ultimately, a different – yet related – understanding is needed to not only make dog food that ticks all of the boxes required for your pet’s health and happiness, but which also tick our own boxes concerning our very high expectations for our furry ones.
Despite their best attempts, dogs cannot talk. This means that, unlike a restaurant chef, dog food manufacturers do not benefit from reliable feedback from their clients. In the end, all we can rely on to infer what exactly our dogs like to eat is trial, error, and observation. What we do know is that dogs like meaty flavours; but we also know that, despite its protein content, meat alone is an expensive, unsustainable, and insufficient source of all the vitamins, fibre, carbohydrates, fats, and minerals required for a dog’s health. Thus, we need to be more creative and cunning when it comes to feeding our pets, turning the whole process of crafting a bowl of dog chow from a mere labour of love into a puzzle, an art form, and a science as well.
Cooking is chemistry
The first puzzle to be solved is that of taste: The best chefs and cooks, whether explicitly or implicitly, understand and appreciate the chemistry involved in food and its consumption. Consider the maillard (or browning) reaction responsible for specific flavours loved worldwide: reducing sugars react with amino acids by the impact of heat to form a complex mixture of flavour compounds found in several brown foods (like beer, bread, chocolate, coffee, and cooked meat). Given that we know dogs prefer meaty flavours, we can use our knowledge of the chemistry behind preparing meat to elevate their eating as well.
The second piece of the puzzle requires us to consider the sustainability and affordability of dog food – luckily for us, the world is gaining significant momentum as it turns towards greener alternatives. Black soldier flies, used in a number of innovative practices – such as to recycle brewers’ spent grain as a source of feed for the flies who, in turn create nutrient-rich soil amendment products (much like fertiliser) – offers us a source of greener protein that can be cultivated and harvested at scale without much of the ecological impact had by other sources of protein, like pork, beef, or mutton. Black soldier fly larvae are an ideal source of protein and, like other proteins we consume, are susceptible to the maillard effect.
And just like that, we have an elegant solution to two problems thanks to the ingenuity and commitment of domestic flavour experts in developing flavours that are able to compete with global giants. Local companies pioneering out-of-the box thinking using alternative sources of protein are at the vanguard of transforming global industries through product innovation and a deep understanding of concepts we often take for granted.
Just like the Disgusting Food Museum, the understanding that something different can be both upsetting and wonderful at the same time for two different groups leads to beautiful outcomes. Just as long we stay away from jello salads, being open to other perspectives will continue to drive innovation and growth.
