PEDIGREE® Chopped Ground Dinner Chicken, Beef & Liver Wet Food

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

• Carrageenan · ingredient 9Worth knowingA seaweed-derived (Chondrus crispus) thickener and gelling agent used mainly in some wet and canned dog foods. Low-molecular-weight 'degraded' carrageenan (poligeenan) is inflammatory in lab-animal studies and is not permitted as a food additive, but food-grade undegraded carrageenan (E 407) is authorized by regulators; EFSA's 2018 re-evaluation kept only a temporary group ADI of 75 mg/kg body weight per day pending better data, and its specific effect in dogs is unresolved.
• By-Product Meal (Meat / Poultry By-Product Meal) · ingredient 3NeutralA rendered concentrate made from clean, non-muscle parts of the carcass (organs, necks, feet, and similar), defined by AAFCO. It is more variable and lower-transparency than a named muscle meal, but it is not inherently unsafe or low-nutrition: controlled feeding trials in dogs report high protein digestibility (roughly 92-95%) for poultry by-product-based diets, and some by-product organs are nutrient-dense.
• Brewers Rice · ingredient 5NeutralAn AAFCO-defined ingredient consisting of the small, broken fragments of rice kernels separated during milling. It is a digestible carbohydrate and energy source nutritionally similar to other rice; the 'brewers' name reflects how the fragments are sourced, not lower nutritional quality.
• Xanthan Gum · ingredient 13NeutralA fermentation-derived polysaccharide used as a thickener and stabilizer, mainly in wet and gravy-style foods. EFSA's 2017 re-evaluation found no safety concern and concluded no numerical ADI was needed; direct studies in dogs are limited, but at the small amounts used it acts as a non-absorbed, largely fermentable fiber.
• Guar Gum · ingredient 16NeutralA soluble, viscous fiber from the guar bean used in small amounts to thicken and stabilize foods, mostly wet formulas. At higher dietary inclusion it can lower the digestibility of dry matter and protein in dogs, but it also produces metabolic effects such as reduced post-meal insulin and cholesterol; at the low levels used as a thickener these effects are minor.