Do Other Animals Enjoy Their Food?

I just got back from a long road trip, and that means I had 8 hours of solitary confinement in a car. And THAT means I had a lot of time to think about a lot of stupid things. For example, one of the thoughts that popped into my head was...do other animals enjoy their food?

We've all seen nature documentaries where lions hunt down a zebra or antelope or some other unfortunate beast. They track the animal down, kill it, and then we cut to shots of these lions with their faces covered in blood ripping into the flesh of their hapless victim. As they chew away, one can't help but look at this spectacle and ask whether they actually enjoy what they are eating, or if eating is just something they have to do and pleasure doesn't come into the equation. Does raw zebra taste good to a lion? Is eating that zebra an enjoyable experience for lions??

To us humans, the idea off eating an uncooked animal as blood drips from our teeth seems absolutely disgusting. We do the whole food thing quite differently, obviously. We have things like recipes, where we take multiple ingredients and put them together to create unique flavors and tasty dishes. No other creature appears to do this. When we smell the smells of food cooking on a barbeque or cookies baking in an oven, we salivate and anticipate how good those are going to taste. Does a lion smell a zebra and think, "Mmmmm, that is going to be splendid!"

Humans do love their food in a way that we don't see in any other creatures. I mean, is there such thing as a foodie in the rest of the animal kingdom? Do the afore mentioned lions carefully pick which zebra they want to eat based on how they believe they will taste? Do they ever wish they had a few spices to mix into their bloody meal? Do they discuss through a series of roars how the zebra meal was after it was all over?

Humans eat a wide range of foods, from eggs to pork chops to celery to cherries to corn to rice to potatoes to chocolate to coffee to apples to onions to hot dogs. As a species we have developed thousands of dishes, with different cultures having their own unique cuisines. It is recommended that we eat a wide range of fruits, vegetables and proteins to stay healthy. Most other species seem to have a very limited amount of options when it comes to mealtime. Cows? They eat grass or hay, for example. Not exactly exciting options. And yet, they stay healthy and big. Why do humans need a variety of foods but cows don't??

Animals across the board seem to own taste buds. They have them in their mouths to some degree or another. According to the website Treehugger, humans have some 10,000 taste buds. Meanwhile, plant eaters like cows have 25,000. I mean, they do have bigger tongues, so I suppose that helps. Chickens only have 30 in their tiny little chicken mouths.

That doesn't really answer my question though, and so far I can't really seem to find information on whether animals enjoy the food they eat. The taste buds they have have evolved based on the food they tend to eat and are designed to detect if it is poisonous or rancid, or okay to eat. Or, they are used to detect the types of nutrients they need. But, is the food they eat actually enjoyable? Do these animals like it? Is there even any way to figure that out? I suppose unless lions can start speaking and telling us if they enjoy their bounty, we might never actually know. It's not like lions have the ability to leave reviews online about their various meals. I have yet to see a foodie lion post their dinner to instagram telling us how delish it was.