Dog Food Quality Ratings

Ingredients in Dog Food: Additives to Avoid

Reading a typical dog food label can leave most pet owners feeling mentally exhausted. Once you are past the recognizable ingredients (which says nothing about their quality) you are often left with various chemical components, which can be difficult to pronounce and decipher: BHA, BHT, propylene glycol, propyl gallate, ethoxquin, pyridoxine hydrochloride, dl methionine, and so on.

To assess every ingredient in your pet’s food would require several pages of explanation, and would be about as fun to read as an actual dog food label. Thus, in this article, I will only highlight very specific additives that should be avoided.

Before jumping in, I wanted to share two important items:

1) First, I am a huge, huge fan of feeding your dog a diet of homemade recipes. Testimony after testimony confirms the dramatic changes that occur in dogs when owners make the switch from commercial to homemade recipes. However, since not everyone is inclined to prepare meals for their pets, then the next best option is to be aware of the ingredients in your pet’s food.

2) Secondly, we should have a healthy skepticism regarding the ingredients in dog food, but not an overstimulated one. Not everything that has a strange-sounding name is harmful or even potentially dangerous. Pyridoxine hydrochloride, for example, is simply another name for vitamin B6. We should be informed consumers not easily scared ones.

All right then, the five additives that you should avoid in dog food are: BHA, BTA, ethoxquin, propylene glycol and propyl gallate. Many dog food rating systems will downgrade any food that contains these ingredients. Let’s take a closer look at each:

Ethoxquin – Ethoxquin is a chemical preservative that keeps the fat additives in pet food from going rancid. Come again? The extreme processing conditions of commercial pet food require that fat flavoring be added to the finished product in order to make it appealing to your pet.

The FDA has rated ethoxquin a safe food additive, however, there is much speculation and controversy that surrounds this chemical. The Department of Pathology at Nagoya City University Medical school in Japan has found ethoxyquin to promote kidney and bladder cancer as well as stomach tumors.

BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) & BHT (butylated hydroxytolulene) – BHA and BHT are antioxidants used to keep the fat additives in dog food from becoming rancid. (Again, we will set aside this unpleasant notion of having to spray fat on dog food to make it taste good.)

The U.S. National Institute of Health reports that BHA is reasonably expected to be a human carcinogen. (See Report on Carcinogens, CAS No. 25013-16-5) In high doses, it has been linked to cancer in rats and hamsters. Thus far, BHA remains on the FDA’s GRAS list.

BHT is a controversial ingredient, which has been linked to elevated cancer risks (See Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT)”, IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, 1986;40:161-206.)

Both BHA and BHT have been banned as food additives in many countries for decades.

Propyl gallate – Propyl gallate is used as a dog food preservative. It is a controversial ingredient, which has also been linked to cancer.

Propylene glycol – Propylene glycol is a chemical compound with many commercial applications. Among other things, it is used as a solvent in many pharmaceuticals, as a moisturizer in cosmetics, as a non-toxic antifreeze and of course, as an additive to dog food to preserve soft-moist foods and treats. To be fair, it is also used as an additive in some human foods as well.

Though propylene glycol appears on the the FDA’s “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) list of dog food additives, it has been banned for use in cat food because of its adverse affect on feline red blood cells. The bottom line is that it remains a controversial ingredient with many pet experts and the toxicity to cats (particularly in its connection to cat food) provides reason enough to avoid this ingredient in their pet’s food.

Even this cursory review of these preservatives should give any dog lover pause when feeding their pet a steady diet of processed commercial dog food. As I continue to mention, homemade recipes put you in charge of the ingredients in your dog food and will steer you clear of so many damaging additives. But barring that, it is imperative that you read your dog food labels and avoid the above-mentioned chemicals.

About the Author

Kent Simmons believes that homemade dog food recipes are the best thing that ever happened to your dog!

For more great information on ingredients in dog food, visit www.recipes4dogfood.com.

Dog Food Reviews