Dog Food Ingredient Checker

Paste any ingredient list from a dog food bag and get a color-coded quality breakdown in seconds. Our checker grades against 131 common ingredients and flags the watch-list items that premium buyers avoid.

How the checker works

  1. Paste the ingredient list verbatim from the bag. The checker normalizes spacing, case, and parentheticals automatically.
  2. Matching. Each ingredient is matched against our database of 131 graded dog food ingredients using pattern recognition.
  3. Weighted scoring. The first 5 ingredients weight heavily because they make up the majority of the food. Position 6-10 weights moderately. Positions 11+ contribute to the overall grade but carry less weight.
  4. Watch list scan. The checker flags BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin, artificial colors, and menadione explicitly, with links to the detailed pages explaining why they are concerning.
  5. Pattern warnings. The checker identifies formulation patterns like protein inflation (pea protein near the top), the FDA grain-free DCM cluster (peas + lentils + chickpeas together), and generic unnamed meat sources.

The checker runs entirely in your browser. No data is sent to our servers. You can paste ingredient lists from any brand freely.