Dry Cat Food With Nothing on the Avoid List
By Pettings · Published Oct 29, 2026 · Scores and prices as of Nov 9, 2026
A dry cat food with nothing on the Avoid List is one whose label lists none of the additives Pettings counts, such as BHA, artificial colors or menadione. Of the 149 dry foods on Pettings, 91 have a count of zero, and the ten cheapest of them are in the table below.
The Avoid List is a count, not a verdict. It tells you how many of a fixed set of additives appear in the ingredient list, so you can find them without reading every line yourself.
What the Avoid List Counts
We count how many of these the label lists, including inside parentheses (the full rules are on How We Score):
- Synthetic preservatives: BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin, TBHQ, propyl gallate.
- Artificial colors: Red 40, Red 3, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, titanium dioxide, caramel color, iron oxide.
- Artificial flavors.
- Menadione (a synthetic form of vitamin K), added sugar and propylene glycol.
The list does not count grains, chicken, peas, by-products or meals. A zero does not mean the food is free of every ingredient you might want to avoid, only of these.
The count is not a legal line either. These additives are allowed in US food. For example, federal rules list BHA and BHT as generally recognized as safe when the total antioxidant content is not over 0.02% of the fat or oil. We list them because many owners want to know whether a label has them, not because the label breaks a rule.
What Puts a Food on the List
On Pettings, 58 foods have at least one item on the Avoid List. The most common one is menadione, on 48 labels, and for 32 foods it is the only item. Artificial colors appear on 26 labels and synthetic preservatives on 9.
So most foods with a count above zero are not there because of a preservative. Every dry food on our list, with or without Avoid List items, names mixed tocopherols (a form of vitamin E) or rosemary extract somewhere in its ingredients, usually to preserve the fat.
The Cheapest Foods With a Zero
A zero costs more on average. The median price of the foods with a zero is $4.53 per lb, against $1.95 for foods with at least one item. These are the ten cheapest foods with a zero, by the lowest price per pound we have checked:
The Ingredient score is the main Pettings score, and it answers a different question. A food with a zero can still score low if its first five ingredients are mostly grains or plant proteins. The cheapest food in the table scores 59, and the highest score in the table is 84.
What a Zero Does Not Tell You
A zero does not tell you the food is complete and balanced, how much protein or carbohydrate it has, or where the protein comes from. The WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee, a group of veterinary nutrition specialists, notes that the ingredient list gives no information on the quality of the ingredients. The count only tells you which of these specific terms are on the label.
How to Use It With the Other Scores
- Start with the nutritional adequacy statement: the food should be complete and balanced for your cat's life stage.
- Compare the Ingredient score, then the Nutrition score, which checks protein, fat and carbohydrate against target ranges.
- Use the Avoid List to rule out the specific additives you do not want, then compare price per pound.
On the home page you can sort every food by Avoid List or by price. If your cat has a medical condition, ask your veterinarian before changing foods.
Related: How to Read a Cat Food Label and our Cat Food Ingredient Dictionary.
Sources
- Code of Federal Regulations, 21 CFR 582.3169 (BHA) and 21 CFR 582.3173 (BHT).
- WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee, "Global Nutrition Guidelines".
- Pettings, How We Score: the Avoid List.
- Food figures and prices from the Pettings food pages; ingredients copied from the makers' labels.
Scores describe what the label says. They are not medical advice.
