Product May Have Been Discontinued
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On Company Website¹

Which Purina Bella Pate Recipes Get
Our Best Ratings?

Purina Bella Pate Dog Food receives the Advisor’s second-lowest tier rating of 2.5 stars.

The Purina Bella Pate product line includes the 10 recipe cups 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

Purina Bella Porterhouse Steak Flavor in Juices 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 beef. Beef is defined as “the clean flesh derived from slaughtered cattle” and includes skeletal muscle or the muscle tissues of the tongue, diaphragm, heart or esophagus.²

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

The second ingredient is beef broth. Broths are of only modest nutritional value. Yet because they add both flavor and moisture to a dog food, they are a common component in many canned products.

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.³

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 next ingredient is liver. Normally, liver can be considered a quality component. However, in this case, the source of the liver is not identified. For this reason, it’s impossible to judge the quality of this item.

The fifth ingredient is chicken. Chicken is considered “the clean combination of flesh and skin… derived from the parts or whole carcasses of chicken”.⁴

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

The sixth ingredient is carrageenan, 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.

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

But realistically, items located this far down the list (other than nutritional supplements) are not likely to affect the overall rating of this Purina product.

With 2 notable exceptions…

First, the minerals listed in this recipe do not appear to be chelated. And that can make them more difficult to absorb. Chelated minerals are usually associated with higher quality dog foods.

And lastly, this recipe contains sodium selenite, a controversial form of the mineral selenium. Sodium selenite appears to be nutritionally inferior to the more natural source of selenium found in selenium yeast.

Nutrient Analysis

Based on its ingredients alone, Purina Bella Pate Dog Food looks like a below-average wet product.

The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 44%, a fat level of 28% and estimated carbohydrates of about 20%.

As a group, the brand features an average protein content of 42% and a mean fat level of 28%. Together, these figures suggest a carbohydrate content of 22% for the overall product line.

And a fat-to-protein ratio of about 66%.

Which means this Purina product line contains…

Above-average protein. Above-average fat. And below-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 notable amount of meat.

Our Rating of Purina Bella Pate Dog Food Cups

Purina Bella Pate is a grain-free moisture-rich dog food using a significant amount of named meats and unnamed meat by-products as its dominant source of animal protein, thus earning the brand 2.5 stars.

Not recommended.

Has Purina Bella Dog Food Been Recalled?

The following automated list (if present) includes all dog food recalls since 2009 related to Purina.

• Purina Recalls Pro Plan Vet Diet Product Due to Elevated Levels of Vitamin D (2/9/2023)
• Purina Recalls Pro Plan Vet Diet Product Due to Mislabeling (12/6/2022)
• Purina Beneful and Pro Plan Dog Food Recall (3/11/2016)
• Purina One Beyond Dog Food Recall (8/30/2013)

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

Get Free Recall Alerts

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More Purina Brand Reviews

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

• Alpo Chop House Dog Food Review (Canned)
• Alpo Dog Food Review (Dry)
• Beneful Dog Food Review (Dry)
• Beneful Dog Food Review (Tubs)
• Purina Beyond Dog Food Review (Canned)
• Purina Beyond Dog Food Review (Dry)
• Purina Beyond Superfood Blend Dog Food Review (Dry)
• Purina Dog Chow Dog Food Review (Dry)
• Purina Moist and Meaty Dog Food Review (Semi-Moist)
• Purina One Dog Food Review (Canned)
• Purina One Dog Food Review (Dry)
• Purina One SmartBlend True Instinct Dog Food Review (Canned)
• Purina One True Instinct Dog Food Review (Dry)
• Purina One True Instinct Grain Free Dog Food Review (Dry)
• Purina Pro Plan Bright Mind Dog Food Review (Dry)
• Purina Pro Plan Dog Food Review
• Purina Pro Plan Dog Food Review (Canned)
• Purina Pro Plan Puppy Food Review (Dry)
• Purina Pro Plan Sport Dog Food Review (Dry)
• Purina Pro Plan Veterinary Diets EN Dog Food Review (Dry)
• Purina Pro Plan Veterinary Diets HA Dog Food Review (Dry)
• Purina Puppy Chow Review (Dry)