Which Pedigree Chopped Ground Dinners Recipes Get Our Best Ratings?

Pedigree Chopped Ground Dinner Dog Food receives the Advisor’s second-lowest tier rating of 2 stars.

The Pedigree Chopped Ground Dinner product line includes the 13 canned dog foods listed below.

Each recipe includes its AAFCO nutrient profile when available… Growth (puppy), Maintenance (adult), All Life Stages, Supplemental or Unspecified.

Recipe and Label Analysis

Pedigree Chopped Ground Dinner Chicken and Rice was selected to represent the other products in the line for detailed recipe and nutrient analysis.

Label and nutrient data below are calculated using dry matter basis.

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Ingredient Analysis

The first ingredient in this dog food is chicken. Chicken is considered “the clean combination of flesh and skin… derived from the parts or whole carcasses of chicken”.¹

Chicken is naturally rich in the ten essential amino acids required by a dog to sustain life.

The second ingredient is water, which adds nothing but moisture to this food. Water is a routine finding in most canned dog foods.

The third ingredient includes meat by-products, an item made from slaughterhouse waste. This is what’s left of slaughtered animals after all the prime striated muscle cuts have been removed.

With the exception of hair, horns, teeth and hooves, this item can include almost any other part of the animal.²

What’s worse, this particular item is anonymous. So, the meat itself can come from any combination of cattle, pigs, sheep or goats — which can make identifying specific food allergies impossible.

Although most meat by-products can be nutritious, we do not consider such vaguely described (generic) ingredients to be as high in quality as those derived from a named animal source.

The fourth ingredient is chicken by-products, what’s left of a slaughtered chicken after all the choice cuts have been removed.

In addition to organs, this item can also include feet, beaks, undeveloped eggs and almost anything other than prime skeletal muscle.

The quality of this ingredient can vary, depending on the caliber of the raw materials obtained by the manufacturer.

The fifth ingredient is brewers rice. Brewers rice is a cereal grain by-product consisting of the small fragments left over after milling whole rice. Aside from the caloric energy it contains, this item is of only modest nutritional value to a dog.

The sixth ingredient is locust bean gum, a gelling or thickening agent found in some wet pet foods. Extracted from the seeds of the carob tree, locust bean gum can add a notable amount of dietary fiber to a do food.

From here, the list goes on to include a number of other items.

But to be realistic, ingredients located this far down the list (other than nutritional supplements) are not likely to affect the overall rating of this Pedigree product.

With 2 notable exceptions…

First, carrageenan is a gelatin-like thickening agent extracted from seaweed. Although carrageenan has been used as a food additive for hundreds of years, there appears to be some recent controversy regarding its long term biological safety.

The article, The Carrageenan Controversy, published in Scientific American, does a good job of addressing this topic.

However, this food contains chelated minerals, minerals that have been chemically attached to protein. This makes them easier to absorb. Chelated minerals are usually found in better dog foods.

Nutrient Analysis

Based on its ingredients alone, Pedigree Chopped Ground Dinner looks like a below-average canned dog food.

The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 39%, a fat level of 27% and estimated carbohydrates of about 26%.

As a group, the brand features an average protein content of 39% and a mean fat level of 26%. Together, these figures suggest a carbohydrate content of 28% for the overall product line.

And a fat-to-protein ratio of about 68%.

Near-average protein. Above-average fat. And near-average carbs when compared to a typical wet dog food.

Free of any plant-based protein boosters, this looks like the profile of a wet product containing a moderate amount of meat.

Our Rating of Pedigree Chopped Ground Dinner Canned Dog Food

Pedigree Chopped Ground Dinner is a grain-inclusive canned dog food using a moderate amount of named and unnamed meats and by-products as its main source of animal protein, thus earning the brand 2 stars.

Not recommended.

Pedigree Dog Food Recall History

The following automated list (if present) includes all dog food recalls related to Pedigree through November.

• Mars Petcare Recalls Bags of Pedigree Adult Complete Nutrition Due To Potential Loose Metal Contamination (5/20/2024)
• Pedigree Dog Food Recall Expanded (9/1/2014)
• Pedigree Dog Food Recall (8/27/2014)
• Pedigree Dog Food Recall (6/30/2012)

You can view a complete list of all dog food recalls since 2009 here.

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More Pedigree Reviews

The following Pedigree dog food reviews are also posted on this website:

• Pedigree Dog Food Review (Dry)
• Pedigree Dog Food Review (Pouch)
• Pedigree Homestyle Meals Dog Food Review (Canned)