Purina Beyond Organic Dog Food Review (Canned)

Purina Beyond Organic wet dog food is made up of two recipes which each receive the Dog Food Advisor’s rating, 3.5 stars.

This organic range is made without synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, added antibiotics, growth hormones or artificial colors, flavors and preservatives.

The table below shows each recipe in this range including our rating and the AAFCO nutrient profile: Growth (puppy), Maintenance (adult), All Life Stages, Supplemental or Unspecified.

Recipe and Label Analysis

Purina Beyond Organic Chicken and Carrot was selected to represent the other products in the line for a detailed recipe and nutrient analysis.

Ingredients Analysis

The first ingredient is organic 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 10 essential amino acids required by a dog to sustain life.

The second ingredient is organic chicken 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 wet products.

The third ingredient is organic chicken liver. This is an organ meat sourced from a named animal and thus considered a beneficial component.

The fourth ingredient is organic carrots. Carrots are rich in beta-carotene, minerals and dietary fiber.

After minerals comes organic guar gum, a gelling or thickening agent found in many wet pet foods. Refined from dehusked guar beans, guar gum can add a notable amount of dietary fiber to any product.

The seventh ingredient is carrageenan, which 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 Carrageenan Controversy, published in Scientific American, does a good job of addressing this topic.

The eighth ingredient is choline chloride is an essential B vitamin that naturally occurs in both plants and animals. It is found in meat, eggs, fish, liver, soybeans and wheat germ.

Because a dog cannot store choline chloride in its body, the nutrient must be replenished to avoid a deficiency. Cholinechloride is a supplement required by both AAFCO and the FDA.

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 the product.

This recipe has two notable exceptions:

Sodium selenite, a controversial form of the mineral selenium which appears to be nutritionally inferior to the more natural source of selenium found in selenium yeast.

Since this recipe contains a number of organic ingredients, we feel compelled to grant this line a more favorable status as we consider its final rating.

That’s because organic ingredients must comply with notably more stringent government standards – standards which significantly restrict the use of any synthetic pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, hormones or antibiotics.

Nutrient Analysis

Based on its ingredients alone, Purina Beyond Organic Chicken and Carrot looks like an above-average wet product.

The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 35%, a fat level of 30% and an estimated carbohydrate level of 27%.

As a group, the brand features a protein content of 35% and a mean fat level of 30%. Together these figures suggest a carbohydrate content of 27% for the overall product line, alongside a fat to protein ratio of 86%.

This means this Purina Beyond Organic range contains below-average protein, above-average carbohydrate and above-average fat, when compared to typical wet dog food.

Purina Dog Food Recall History

The following automated list (if present) includes all dog food recalls related to Purina through January 2025.

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

Our Rating of Purina Beyond Organic Dog Food

This organic wet recipe features organic free-range chicken raised without antibiotics, plus carrots, which are rich in beta-carotene, minerals and dietary fiber. It’s also Non-GMO Project Verified. Per USDA organic standards, each ingredient is grown with no prohibited synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. 

Recommended with Reservations

About

William H. Danforth founded Purina in 1894 and after a long history of company and brand development, it is now owned by Nestle. Purina sources ingredients for its dog food from various locations, including the United States, Europe, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand.

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