Yes but I think the point is that whole and skim milk are even more dissimilar than Coke & Pepsi.
Well I think they’re missing a marketing opportunity. They should brand skim milk as “I can’t believe it’s not whole milk”</snark>
This conveniently explains both the initial question and why you didn’t simply accept your wife’s answer.
It’s just strange you left it out of the OP…
</doublesnark>
Johnny correctly read my meaning.
Yep.
I wonder if there is much difference between the following:
- a gallon of skim milk
- a gallon of the following mixture: 3 parts whole milk, one part water
You really thinkg “I don’t believe X” means the same thing as “I believe X is lying”?
Note that if the cited percentage is valid, it tends to support your (to some extent, anyway). It says the difference is strong enough that a little over half the people out there can tell the difference. Whereas I was asking whether it’s even possible for anyone to tell the difference.
“Cite please?” Really? Okay then.
Why is it strange? Since you called it “snark” it appears you think you’ve scored some point of some kind? A point in what game?
I’ve been drinking skim milk for so long that whole milk has an unpleasant stench to my taste.
Well, not to dwell on this, but if your Wife says she can tell the difference, why don’t you believe her? I would say that you think she is lying.
Well, yes–this is precisely what was asked for in the OP.
Do you think it is silly for anyone to ask for research on the topic? Well, the researchers who did research on the topic disagree! Take it up with them, I guess?
Exactly what I was looking for, thanks.
I now see that there are indeed people who can tell the difference.
I am certain I can’t tell the difference–but perhaps I’ll go buy a couple of pints of differently-fatted milks later to test it out again.
What a bizarre thing to think.
“I don’t believe you” means “I think you’re wrong.” In many contexts, it also implies a belief that a person is lying. But this is not one of those contexts.
:shrug: Bizzarre? Um, you think her opinion that she can tell the difference is wrong? I would say that is what’s bizzare here.
People have misapprehensions about this kind of thing all the time. If they haven’t actually had the two experiences abutted next to each other in fairly controlled conditions, they are likely to think they are discerning differences between the experiences when they are actually being affected by external cues.
Frylock, just based on basic taste alone – as if someone squeezed a few drops of a medicine dropper out onto your tongue – there probably isn’t a ton of difference. The difference is much more about mouth feel, IMHO … and yes, appearance.
It’s not really a missed oportunity…but I’m beginning to wonder how widely distributed it is (I mean, you probably don’t know the joys of Redsox ice cream outside of the north east, either). Hood’s Simply Smart milk plays up on the fact that their milk tastes like milk with higher fat contents. 1% tastes like whole etc.
If you can’t tell the difference now, I’d bet money you could learn to distinguish them in less than an hour through experimentation. Drinking with gusto out of a glass (as opposed to careful sipping or using a straw) should amplify the diffferences.
You could start with half-and-half vs skim at first. Or heck, even whipping cream vs. skim. Then work your way down.
Ick ick ick. 
I haven’te mentioned yet, have I, that I really hate milk.
Except when I am eating either a bowl of chili or certain brands of frozen microwaveable pizzas. (And in cereal I guess.)
Other than that–I find milk to be extremely disgusting, as in, I have no idea how you people drink it.
But in the interest of science I may still try it. If you guys are all discerning a difference I haven’t discerned than by golly I’m going to learn to discern it. Maybe. If it can be done via sipping.
I don’t like the expression “scoring points”, “poking fun” is more what I was doing.
But yeah it’s strange.
The OP says skim and whole taste identical to you. And that your wife claims to be able to tell the difference between 1 and 2% but you’re skeptical. So two anecdotes.
Then, after a few responses, you happen to recall that you were once at a public taste test for skim vs whole milk. The results of a whole day of testing were no better than chance, and your wife even took part and failed the taste test…
Why did you leave out that far more significant anecdote, especially since it changes the character of one of the things you did mention?
I don’t understand how it changes the character of one of the things I mentioned. Can you explain that further?
The anecdote from the past did occur to me while I was writing the OP, but it didn’t seem relevant–I just wanted to know if there is research on the topic, and I wrote a minimal tale just to make the question feel motivated because I know people tend to like questions better when there’s a tale behind them.
Moreover the older event, as I said, I don’t consider to be very indicative of anything since it wasn’t very well controlled. I mentioned it later as an excample of an “anecdote of my own” to add to the ones already in the thread, but as I said in that very post, I don’t actually take it to have much evidentiary value–hence, given the nature of my OP, not much relevance. That, again, is why I didn’t mention it in the first place: It wasn’t relevant in the first place.
Anway, what I really wanted to type was just this:
But I’ve found that people get weird about such direct uncontextualized questions around here. Strange but what can you do? So I appended a tale.
This might be why you struggle to tell the difference, as when comparing something you hate to something else you hate, you may well be less likely to consider the finer points that distinguish them.