Blue Buffalo Life Protection Formula Healthy Weight Adult Chicken & Brown Rice Recipe

The average dog food we reviewed has 39 total ingredients, with 1 controversial ingredient. This product has 1 controversial ingredient which is the powdered cellulose.

Top 5 Ingredients

Dog food ingredients are listed in descending order of weight. So when looking at dog food label, take a close look at the first 5 ingredients. They make up about 80% of the total weight.

• Deboned Chicken
  Chicken is generally a healthy dog food ingredient that provides nutrients like protein, fat and B vitamins. Raw meat contains about 75% water which is cooked off during the making of dog food. This leaves only a fraction of the protein content in the final product weight. We recommend looking for dog foods that also include meat meals in the first five ingredients (pre-cooked meat powder that contains four times the amount of protein). De-boned simply means that the bones have been removed.

• Chicken Meal
  Meat meals are the result of cooking. Water is removed from meats to create a protein-rich meal powder. Meat meals contain about four times the protein meats do, so generally, they're a good source of nutrients. Chicken meal is generally a healthy dog food ingredient.

• Brown Rice
  Brown rice is whole-grain rice with the inedible outer hull removed. It provides calories, complex carbohydrates and a few other nutrients to dogs. We generally consider it a quality dog food ingredient.
  
  
• Barley
  Barley is a type of grass and a cereal grain. It is a source of calories and several nutrients, including protein, dietary fiber, B vitamins, niacin and various minerals. Barley provides carbs, energy, fiber and other healthy nutrients for dogs. Barley is generally a healthy dog food ingredient.
  
  
• Pea Fiber
  Pea fiber is an extract made from peas and a good source of dietary fiber. We consider this a healthy dog food ingredient.

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‍Controversial Ingredients

1. Powdered Cellulose
2. Powdered cellulose can be made from many plant sources and is often added as a low-quality fiber or binding agent. While it is technically safe for dogs to ingest and can have benefit's related to digestion, it is often used in excess as an inexpensive filler that provides no nutritional value to your dog.

‍Country of Origin

This Blue Buffalo product is made in the United States.

Meat & Fat Quality
In the nutrition section above we identified the significantly below-average amount of protein. From looking at the ingredients we can also assume that quite a bit of this protein is coming from plant-based sources. Although we can’t tell exactly how much of this food is meat-based, we can at least see the meat is coming from the named quality sources: Deboned Chicken, and Chicken Meal. While the meats are providing a lot of the fat source, there is also Chicken Fat listed. With any meat or fat we want to see the specific source named, so Chicken Fat is considered a quality source of fat.

Artificial Preservatives

Blue Buffalo does not use any of these artificial preservatives in this food which is great.

It’s good to know that ‍not all artificial preservatives are bad. That’s because they serve an important purpose, which is to prevent food from spoiling. However, we consider 11 artificial preservatives as controversial because of their potential link to cancer and other serious health conditions.

Artificial Colors

This product does not use artificial colors.

Artificial Flavors

This food also does not use artificial flavors.