My Focus Group: Quotes

So I got some blowback (what else is new?) from my personal focus group, the "volunteer" taste testers for our peanut butter challenge. Apparently the preference for commercially prepared peanut butter was not unanimous. The results were more nuanced, more about texture than taste.

Which is good news, really. Because we are not going back to store-bought: preferences be damned. And the further we get into the Unprocessed Project, the more I realize that preferences don't really matter--they will change in time. We've been conditioned to prefer the very sweet&salty; we're accustomed to the luxury of many choices. If our kitchen offers every packaged, dyed, preservative-laced snack food available on the market, why would a child of mine (or anyone) choose to eat a piece of fruit? Or toast with peanut butter (both homemade)? There will still be choice in this household, but more thoughtful choices, and likely a narrower range--is that so terrible? Especially if the new options replace crap quantity with delicious quality?

I hope it was obvious that our peanut butter taste test was rigged every which way, wholly unscientific, and good fun. I give you now the feedback, verbatim.

     --It looks like hummus, eww. [Ed note: stay tuned for the hummus/baba ghanouj challenge, coming soon; taste testers are not yet aware of this.]

    --I don't want to taste it.

    --Wait, it's peanut butter?

    --Mmm--that's good [ re the commercial peanut butter, sample Y]

    --They all taste bad.  [And then, re: Y] Actually, it tastes bad, but it's smooth. The other ones are gritty, like dirt.

    --It literally tastes like you're eating sand--maybe even cat litter. It would take you like an hour to eat that sandwich.

    --They're all the same, grossness-wise. I hate Y the most [for taste].

    --Yup, gritty, wet sand.

    --We should call child services.