IAMS Proactive Health Adult Chicken, Peas and Carrots Recipe Wet Dog Food

7 ingredients in this list are ones we hold sourced evidence on , and 1 of them is genuinely contested rather than merely unpopular online.

• Peas · ingredient 7ContestedA pulse (legume) used in many grain-free foods as a plant protein and carbohydrate source. Peas are central to an open FDA investigation, begun in July 2018, into a possible link between diets high in peas, other pulses, and potatoes and canine dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM); 93% of reported products contained peas and/or lentils.
• Beet Pulp · ingredient 9Well supportedThe fibrous material left after sugar is extracted from sugar beets, included as a moderately fermentable fiber source (commonly around 5 to 7.5% of the diet). Controlled feeding studies show it supports firm, good-quality stools and short-chain fatty acid production without impairing overall nutrient digestibility, so the 'cheap filler' characterization is not supported by the evidence.
• Wheat Gluten · ingredient 5NeutralThe concentrated protein fraction of wheat, used as a plant protein and binder; it is highly digestible in dogs (about 88% crude-protein digestibility in one feeding study). The 2007 pet-food deaths linked to wheat gluten were caused by criminal melamine adulteration of imported product to fake protein readings, a contamination event rather than a property of wheat gluten itself.
• Powdered Cellulose · ingredient 10NeutralPurified plant cell-wall fiber (typically from wood pulp) used as an insoluble-fiber source, bulking agent, and anti-caking aid, often in weight-management diets. It is not absorbed and is poorly fermentable, so it firms stool and dilutes calories but yields little of the short-chain fatty acids that more fermentable fibers produce; EFSA's 2018 re-evaluation found no safety concern and no need for a numerical ADI.
• Tapioca · ingredient 11NeutralA nearly pure starch extracted from the cassava root, used as a carbohydrate base and binder in grain-free foods (it is a root starch, not a cereal grain). Because it is almost entirely starch with little protein, tapioca contributes essentially no amino acids and is not implicated in the taurine hypothesis; it was not a highlighted ingredient in the FDA's DCM investigation, which focused on pulses and potatoes.
• Flaxseed (ALA omega-3) · ingredient 13NeutralA plant source of the short-chain omega-3 ALA. Dogs convert ALA to the long-chain omega-3s inefficiently: a controlled feeding study (Dunbar 2010) found flaxseed raised serum EPA but produced no measurable DHA.