I have always been a fan of the phrase "eating your own dog food" and my old boss used to cringe every time I said it in front of a customer. He kept telling me, "Rodos, don't say that, its Drink your own Champagne".

Now I feel vindicated. As John Troyer has dug up the phrase "Eating Our Own Dogfood" was actually coined by none other than Mr Ruby-On-Rails himself, Paul Maritz.

Here is what wikipedia reports.

The idea originated in television commercials for Alpo brand dog food; actor Lorne Greene would tout the benefits of the dog food, and then would say it's so good that he feeds it to his own dogs. In 1988, Microsoft manager Paul Maritz sent Brian Valentine, test manager for Microsoft LAN Manager, an email titled "Eating our own Dogfood" challenging him to increase internal usage of the product; from there, the usage of the term spread through Microsoft, as chronicled in the book Inside Out: Microsoft—In Our Own Words (ISBN 0446527394). The phrase became slang during the dot-com craze, and is used most commonly in reference to technology companies.

Now I feed vindicated and I will state "eat our own dog food" proudly wherever I go!

Rodos