As a dog owner and pet food consumer, it pays to be informed about the ingredients that go into your dog’s food. Big companies rely on their brand image and marketing strategies to win sales, but you reclaim your power when you look past the slick marketing and focus on what matters most: the ingredients. These are what ultimately determine your dog’s health, yet this is precisely where manufacturers often cut costs to increase profits.
In my previous blog, 🚩 Dog Food BINGO: The Red Flags Edition 🚩, I provided an overview of problematic ingredients found in commercial dog food by way of a game of BINGO. Today, we’ll be diving deeper.
Let’s explore nutritional “red flag” ingredients that signal low quality, offer little nutritional benefit to your dog and may even carry negative health risks. Keep this guide handy along with our "Red Flag” dog food ingredient BINGO card when evaluating pet food labels, but remember, scoring a BINGO isn’t cause for celebration! A “winning” card actually signals that your dog’s food contains multiple low-quality ingredients and it’s time to reconsider your current choice.
I’ve organized the problematic additives we’ll be examining into seven key categories: unnamed animal ingredients, artificial colours, flavour enhancers, synthetic preservatives, texturizing agents, plant-derived proteins and cellulose. Let’s dive right in!
Unnamed Animal Ingredients: The Mystery Meat Issue
One clear sign of low-quality product is when manufacturers fail to name the specific animal protein sources contained in their ingredients, like “chicken,” “salmon,” or “lamb.” When instead you see generic terms like “animal,” “meat,” or “poultry” with no identification of the specific species, consider it a red flag.
Why do companies use these vague terms? Simple economics. Unnamed ingredients allow manufacturers sufficient wiggle room to switch protein sources based on market prices and availability without updating their packaging. This practice creates inconsistent nutrition from batch to batch and makes it impossible to identify potential allergens if your dog develops sensitivities.
For optimal nutrition and transparency, look for labels that specify exact protein sources: “chicken” rather than “poultry” and “lamb meal” rather than “meat meal.”
🚩 Red flag ingredients include:
- Meat by-products (unspecified sources)
- Meat meal (mystery meat)
- Animal fat (unnamed source)
- Animal byproduct meal (unspecified source)
- Poultry byproduct meal (could be chicken, turkey, duck, or any combination)
Note: We won’t even get into the issue of “by-products” and “by-product meals” for the purposes of this post, although these can be taken as red flags in their own right. For our present purposes, we’re focusing solely on the issue of unnamed animal ingredients in pet food formulations. Onward!
Artificial Colours: Purely Cosmetic, Potentially Harmful
Artificial colours serve absolutely no nutritional purpose in dog food. These synthetic dyes exist exclusively to make products visually appealing to human shoppers. Your dog couldn’t care less about the colour of their kibble.
These petroleum-derived colourants come with documented health risks, including:
- Allergic reactions and hypersensitivity
- Behavioural changes including hyperactivity
- Gastrointestinal inflammation
- Immune system disruption
- Potential carcinogenic effects
🚩 Red flag ingredients include:
- Yellow #5 (Tartrazine)
- Yellow #6 (Sunset Yellow)
- Red #40 (Allura Red)
- Blue #2 (Indigo Carmine)
- Caramel Colour
Flavour Enhancers: Masking Poor Quality Ingredients
In pet nutrition, palatability refers to how appealing a food is to an animal’s senses, ultimately determining whether or not they will readily consume it. Manufacturers use palatability enhancers to make even nutritionally inferior foods irresistible to dogs. While this ensures your dog eagerly eats their food, it often masks the use of low-quality ingredients they might otherwise reject.
These flavour additives also provide manufacturing consistency, ensuring that each batch tastes identical despite variations in raw ingredients. This standardization allows companies to use cheaper base ingredients while maintaining palatability.
🚩 Red flag ingredients include:
Animal Digest: Animal digest is a common flavour enhancer used in commercial pet foods, defined by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) as “material produced by chemical or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean animal tissue that has not undergone decomposition.” It’s essentially a cooked-down broth or gravy made from unspecified animal parts. The hydrolysis process breaks proteins down into amino acids and peptides that stimulate taste receptors, creating an intensified meaty flavour that dogs and cats find highly appealing.
Natural Flavour: Despite its wholesome-sounding name, “natural flavour” is a deliberately vague term that can legally include dozens of ingredients and processing aids like solvents and carriers. While derived from animal or plant sources, these flavours undergo extensive processing and may contain undisclosed allergens or flavour-enhancing compounds such as glutamates, which like MSG consumption by humans, can cause symptoms of restlessness and digestive upset.
Synthetic Preservatives: Increased Shelf Life at a Price
Commercial pet foods often rely on potent synthetic preservatives to achieve multi-year shelf stability. BHA, BHT and ethoxyquin are petroleum-derived compounds that prevent fat oxidation (rancidity), but come with significant health concerns.
Research has linked these preservatives to liver and kidney damage, hormonal disruption and potential carcinogenic effects. Ethoxyquin, originally developed as a rubber stabilizer, has been associated with reproductive issues and immune dysfunction.
Even more concerning, manufacturers sometimes incorporate BHT and BHA into packaging materials rather than directly into the food. These preservatives can migrate from the packaging into the food over time, but don't require disclosure on ingredient lists due to their classification as “indirect additives.” This can also be an issue in packaged commercial breakfast cereals for humans.
🚩 Red flag ingredients include:
- BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole)
- BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene)
- Ethoxyquin (coal tar derivative)
Texturizing Agents: Texture Troublemakers
Texturizing additives create the perfect consistency in commercial pet foods, from maintaining moisture in semi-moist treats to preventing ingredient separation in wet foods.
Propylene Glycol: This petroleum-derived humectant (chemically related to antifreeze although less toxic) keeps semi-moist treats soft and prevents dry kibble from hardening. While considered “generally recognized as safe” for dogs (though banned in cat food), it has been linked to organ damage at high doses and digestive sensitivity in some dogs.
Carrageenan: Extracted from red seaweed through alkaline processing, this thickener creates the perfect gel-like consistency in wet foods. Research has associated carrageenan with intestinal inflammation, disrupted digestion and immune system effects, with degraded forms (poligeenan) showing clear inflammatory properties. Note that even food-grade carrageenan has been associated with intestinal inflammation, disrupted digestion and potential immune system effects in sensitive individuals.
Plant-derived proteins: how do they stack up against animal sources?
Many commercial pet foods rely heavily on plant-derived proteins like corn gluten, soybean meal, and wheat gluten, often while animal proteins remain conspicuously sparse or absent in the ingredient list.
These plant-based ingredients represent protein-containing by-products from human food production. It’s no accident that the biggest players in commercial pet food are large scale producers of cereal-grain-containing foods and snacks for humans. Major pet food manufacturers (often divisions of human food conglomerates) leverage these inexpensive by-products to boost protein percentages in their formulations while minimizing costs.
While technically sources of protein, these plant-based ingredients are nutritionally inferior to animal proteins which demonstrate superior amino acid profiles and nutritional bioavailability to dogs that thrive on meat-based diets. By contrast, most plant proteins lack certain essential amino acids (particularly taurine and methionine) and contain anti-nutritional factors like phytates that can inhibit nutrient absorption.
It’s worth noting that beyond their protein content, these plant-based ingredients serve functional manufacturing roles: wheat gluten binds ingredients, corn provides inexpensive calories and soy boosts protein content more cost effectively than animal protein.
🚩 Red flag ingredients include:
- Corn gluten
- Corn protein meal
- Soybean meal
- Ground wheat
- Ground whole grain corn
- Wheat gluten
- Wheat starch
Cellulose: Wood Pulp Filler
Last but not least is cellulose, which is essentially plant fiber: the structural component that gives plants their rigidity and form. While that sounds natural enough, the cellulose in most dog foods isn’t coming from vegetables. Instead, it’s typically sourced from wood pulp (yes, actual trees), which undergoes intensive processing. Pet food companies add cellulose primarily as an inexpensive bulking agent that creates volume and weight to formulations without adding calories. You’re most likely to find it as an ingredient in “light” or “weight management” dog food formulas, or in recipes touted as being high in fiber.
While technically not toxic, cellulose represents a nutritional compromise. Dogs lack the digestive enzymes to break down cellulose, meaning that it passes through their system largely unchanged. This indigestible bulk increases stool volume and can potentially reduce the absorption of beneficial nutrients in the gut. For some dogs, particularly those with sensitive digestive systems, high-cellulose diets may cause uncomfortable gas, bloating, or irregular bowel movements.
The More You Know
Kudos to you for reading this far. I hope you’ve found this article helpful in advocating for your dog’s health. While our Dog Food Bingo game makes learning about ingredients fun, your dog’s nutrition is serious business. By recognizing these red flag ingredients, you’re empowered to make more informed choices about what goes into your beloved companion’s bowl.
If you’d like personalized guidance navigating the complex world of canine nutrition, I offer one-on-one consulting services tailored to your dog’s unique needs. Reach out today for a free 15-minute discovery call to see if my services are the right fit for you and your dog.
Disclaimer: This article is intended for educational purposes and to help pet owners become more informed consumers.