Consumers' Ability to Distinguish Between Milk Types: Results of Blind Taste Testing.

The objective of this study was to assess consumers' ability to correctly identify different types of milk in a blind taste test and correlates of plans to purchase lower fat milk. Adults from 8 supermarkets in low-income neighborhoods tasted 3 types of unlabeled lower fat or fat-free milk samples and guessed the type of each sample. Of the 1074 participants, only 7.6% were able to identify all 3 unlabeled samples correctly. Most adults in this study reported consuming higher fat milk and could not correctly identify milk type by taste alone. Blind taste tests may encourage consumers to drink lower fat milk.