Brown rice

PETLYTIC SCORE

Good

10/100 risk index

Brown rice is one of the better ingredients you'll find in commercial pet food. Here's why it earns a high score, what to look for on the label, and which brands use it well.

THE HONEST ANSWER

Digestible carbohydrate source. Brown rice retains more nutrients than white rice.

FDA PET STATUS

GRAS

FDA HUMAN STATUS

Not evaluated

EFSA STATUS

Not evaluated

NTP CARCINOGEN

Not listed

What Brown rice actually is

Digestible carbohydrate source. Brown rice retains more nutrients than white rice.

Why it's still in pet food when human food has moved on

Two reasons: cost and regulatory inertia. Pet food regulation lags human food regulation by decades. Premium brands have largely moved away from it. The cheap ones still use it.

WHICH BRANDS STILL USE BROWN RICE

We checked every brand in our database. Here's the partial list — the products with the highest sales volume that still include this ingredient.

BRAND	PRODUCT	CATEGORY	RECALLS (5YR)	SCORE
Blue Buffalo	Blue Buffalo Life Protection Formula Adult Chicken & Brown Rice Dry Dog Food 30 lb	dry dog	2	73
Blue Buffalo	Blue Buffalo Indoor Health Adult Chicken & Brown Rice Dry Cat Food 15 lb	dry cat	2	71
Solid Gold	Solid Gold Hund-N-Flocken Adult Lamb & Brown Rice Dry Dog Food 28.5 lb	dry dog	0	68
Hills Prescription Diet	Hill's Prescription Diet k/d Kidney Care Dry Dog Food 27.5 lb	dry dog	0	68
Performatrin	Performatrin Adult Salmon & Brown Rice Dry Dog Food 17 lb	dry dog	0	66
Kirkland Signature	Kirkland Signature Canned Chicken & Rice Dog Food	wet dog	0	66
Royal Canin	Royal Canin Breed Health Nutrition Labrador Retriever Adult Dry Dog Food 30 lb	dry dog	0	66
Performatrin	Performatrin Adult Chicken & Brown Rice Dry Dog Food 30 lb	dry dog	0	65
Authority	Authority Adult Chicken & Rice Dry Dog Food 35 lb	dry dog	0	62
Purina One	Salmon Adult Cat Food	dry cat	0	60
Pure Balance	Pure Balance Adult Chicken & Brown Rice Dry Dog Food 30 lb	dry dog	0	58
Beautifully Balanced	Beautifully Balanced Adult Chicken Dry Dog Food 20 lb	dry dog	0	58
Hartwick Fields	Lamb and Whole Grain	dry dog	0	46
Mara	Minestra di Vegatali	wet dog	0	46
Cosma	Snackies Huhn	dry dog	0	40
Fido	Croq Mix	dry dog	0	40
nutrivia	nature	dry dog	0	40
nutrivia	Nutrivia	dry cat	0	40
Real nature	real nature country	dry dog	0	40
Premiere	Best Meat kurczak z karczka	wet dog	0	40

Want a Brown rice-free food at a similar price point?

We can show you the top-scored foods in this category that don't contain it.

RELATED INGREDIENTS WORTH UNDERSTANDING