If you read pet food ingredient panels closely, you may have come across agar-agar and wondered what it is, why it is used, and whether it is safe for your dog or cat.

Those are fair questions.

At Identity Pet Nutrition, we believe every ingredient should have a reason for being in the recipe. We don't formulate around what simply sounds good on the front of a package. We evaluate what an ingredient does, how much is needed, how it affects the finished food, and whether it helps us make the type of diet we believe is best for dogs and cats.

In our canned pâté recipes, we use agar-agar at 0.4% or less. Its job is simple: it helps give the food structure and the consistent pâté texture pets and their people expect.

It also allows us to accomplish that without relying heavily on starches or using animal-derived gelatin that could interfere with our approach to single-protein recipes.

So, what exactly is agar-agar?

What Is Agar-Agar?

Agar-agar, often simply called agar, is a naturally derived hydrocolloid obtained from certain species of red algae. A hydrocolloid is simply a substance that interacts with water to create structure, viscosity or a gel.

Agar is primarily composed of polysaccharides called agarose and agaropectin. Its ability to form a stable gel is why it has been used for centuries in food preparation and is also widely used in scientific laboratories.

Agar is not a new or experimental food ingredient. Published reviews trace its use as a food ingredient back more than 350 years, with applications ranging from gels and confections to baked goods and other foods. [1]

In the United States, agar-agar is specifically addressed in federal animal-food regulations. 21 CFR §582.7115 states that agar-agar is generally recognized as safe when used in accordance with good manufacturing or feeding practice. [2]

That distinction matters: agar isn't simply an ingredient that happens to appear in pet food. It has an established regulatory history as a food and feed ingredient.

Why Does Identity Use Agar-Agar in Canned Pet Food?

Open a can of Identity and you'll find a moist, meat-rich pâté.

Creating that texture is more complicated than it may appear.

Meat naturally contains a significant amount of water. Additional moisture is also necessary in canned foods for processing, palatability and hydration. During commercial canning, proteins, fats and liquids respond differently to heat.

Without something providing structure, a very meat-rich canned recipe can become significantly looser, with more separation between the meat and naturally occurring liquid.

That doesn't necessarily make the food nutritionally inferior. But texture matters.

Pet food nutritionist Greg Aldrich, Ph.D., writing about agar-agar for Petfood Industry, has noted the importance of consistency, texture and uniformity in canned pet foods and specifically identified agar-agar as an option for creating that structure. [3]

We agree.

We want the food inside every can to remain recognizably meaty while still holding the pâté texture our customers and their pets expect.

And we want to accomplish that with as little functional ingredient as necessary.

That's why our canned recipes contain agar-agar at 0.4% or less.

Why Not Just Use More Starch?

There are many ways to make a canned food thicker.

One of the easiest is to formulate with more starch-containing ingredients.

That's not the direction we wanted to take.

Identity was built around high-meat nutrition, and most of our canned recipes contain approximately 95% meat and broth. When we're deciding how to achieve a particular manufacturing function, we don't want to substantially change the nutritional character of the food simply to create a certain appearance.

A very small amount of agar allows us to create structure without adding substantial quantities of potato, tapioca, peas, chickpeas or other starch-heavy ingredients solely for their thickening properties.

In other words, agar serves a specific technical purpose while allowing the rest of the recipe to remain focused on what matters most to us: meat.

Why Not Use Gelatin Instead?

Gelatin is another effective gelling ingredient, and at first glance it might seem like an obvious solution for a meat-based food.

There is one important complication.

Gelatin is derived from animal collagen.

Commercial gelatin may come from bovine, porcine, fish or other animal sources. That becomes important when you're trying to formulate foods around specific animal proteins.

For example, if we are making a single-protein pork recipe but use bovine gelatin to create the texture, the finished food is no longer truly limited to pork-derived animal ingredients.

Novel-protein and limited-ingredient diets are particularly important to many Identity customers. We don't want an ingredient used only for texture to unnecessarily introduce another animal protein source.

Using algae-derived agar helps us avoid that problem.

It is a small formulation decision, but it illustrates something we think pet parents should consider when evaluating an ingredient panel:

Sometimes the ingredient that sounds simplest isn't actually the ingredient that best supports the purpose of the recipe.

Is Agar-Agar the Same Thing as Carrageenan?

No.

This is one of the most common misconceptions we see online.

Agar and carrageenan are different substances.

Both are hydrocolloids associated with red algae, and both can be used to modify the texture of foods. That similarity sometimes leads people to treat the terms as interchangeable.

Chemically, however, they are distinct families of polysaccharides with different molecular structures and different functional characteristics. Scientific reviews of algae-derived hydrocolloids distinguish agar and carrageenan based on their chemical composition, degree of sulfation and resulting physical properties. [4]

Calling agar-agar “the same thing as carrageenan” simply because both can originate from red algae would be inaccurate.

The more useful question isn't whether two ingredients came from the same broad category of organism.

It's what the particular ingredient is, how it is produced, how much is being used and why it is in the food.

Is Agar-Agar Safe for Dogs and Cats?

Based on the regulatory and scientific evidence available, we have no reason to believe that the very small amount of food-grade agar-agar used in Identity's canned diets presents a health concern for dogs or cats.

FDA regulations specifically classify agar-agar as generally recognized as safe for use in animal food when used in accordance with good manufacturing or feeding practices. [2]

A comprehensive scientific re-evaluation of agar conducted by the European Food Safety Authority also reviewed toxicology, genotoxicity and carcinogenicity data. The panel reported no concern regarding genotoxicity and reported no carcinogenic effects in the animal studies at the highest doses tested. [5]

It is important to put that research into perspective.

Toxicology studies typically evaluate exposure at levels dramatically different from the small amount of a functional ingredient used in an actual pet food formulation. Identity uses agar-agar at no more than 0.4% of our canned recipes.

We are sometimes asked whether agar causes inflammation or gastrointestinal disease in pets. We have not found credible scientific evidence establishing that food-grade agar, at the low levels used in properly formulated pet foods, causes inflammatory disease in dogs or cats.

That doesn't mean every individual animal will tolerate every food or every ingredient identically. Dogs and cats are individuals, and gastrointestinal sensitivity can have many causes. However, at the very low levels used in our foods, agar-agar would not generally be considered among the most likely causes of gastrointestinal upset.

But an anecdote involving an individual pet is not the same thing as evidence that an ingredient is inherently unsafe.

What About Digestion and Stool Quality?

Ingredient safety is only one part of our formulation process.

A food also has to work in the real world.

Through our product development, palatability testing, customer experience and the feeding of our foods to thousands of dogs and cats, we have not observed evidence suggesting that the small amount of agar used in our diets creates a systemic problem with stool quality, digestion or palatability.

In fact, texture can itself affect how readily a pet accepts a food.

Cats in particular can be extremely sensitive to changes in aroma, moisture, firmness and mouthfeel. A nutritionally excellent food provides little benefit if a pet refuses to eat it.

This is why palatability and physical characteristics matter alongside nutrient formulation.

Why Does Identity Use Only 0.4% or Less?

Because functional ingredients should be used for a function, not as the foundation of the recipe.

We aren't trying to turn agar into a nutritional feature.

It isn't there because we think your dog or cat needs to eat more agar.

It's there because a very small amount helps us turn a moisture-rich, high-meat canned food into a consistent pâté.

Once it has accomplished that job, we don't need more of it.

That's part of our broader formulation philosophy at Identity: use ingredients deliberately and use only what is necessary to accomplish the intended purpose.

The Ingredient Panel Doesn't Tell the Whole Story

One of the challenges with modern pet nutrition discussions is the tendency to label individual ingredients as simply “good” or “bad.”

Food formulation is more nuanced than that.

An ingredient should be evaluated in context:

• What exactly is the ingredient?
• Why is it being used?
• How much is in the finished food?
• What function does it perform?
• What alternatives would have to be used if it were removed?
• How would those alternatives change the nutritional or functional characteristics of the recipe?
• What does the available scientific and regulatory evidence actually show?

Agar-agar is a perfect example.

If we removed it simply because someone on the internet put the ingredient on a list of things pet parents should avoid, we would still need to create structure in the food.

We could add more starch.

We could use a different gum or thickener.

We could use animal-derived gelatin and potentially introduce an additional animal species into recipes intended to remain single-protein.

Or we could use a very small amount of an established, algae-derived gelling ingredient that performs exactly the function we need it to perform while maintaining single-protein recipes without legume-derived ingredients.

We chose the latter.

Our Philosophy: Understand Ingredients, Don't Fear Their Names

At Identity Pet Nutrition, we're constantly evaluating ingredients, suppliers, processing methods, nutritional specifications and the science behind the foods we make.

Sometimes those decisions involve tradeoffs that aren't apparent from an ingredient panel.

That's why we encourage pet parents to look beyond ingredient fear lists and ask a more meaningful question:

Why is this ingredient actually in my pet's food?

For agar-agar, our answer is straightforward.

We use 0.4% or less to provide the structure necessary for our meat-rich canned foods, maintain the pâté texture pets enjoy, minimize our dependence on starch-based thickeners and avoid introducing an unrelated animal source through gelatin.

It has a specific job.

And that's exactly how we believe ingredients should be used.

Want to see what that philosophy looks like in the finished food? Explore Identity's canned cat foods and canned dog foods, including our limited-ingredient and single-protein options.

 

Frequently Asked Questions About Agar-Agar in Pet Food

Is agar-agar safe for dogs?

FDA regulations specifically list agar-agar as generally recognized as safe for animal food when used according to good manufacturing or feeding practice. Identity uses agar-agar at 0.4% or less in our canned recipes to create pâté texture.

Is agar-agar safe for cats?

Based on available regulatory and scientific evidence, there is no established reason to consider the small amount of food-grade agar used in properly formulated cat food inherently unsafe. Identity uses 0.4% or less in our canned diets.

Is agar-agar the same as carrageenan?

No. Agar and carrageenan can both be derived from red algae and can both function as hydrocolloids, but they are chemically distinct substances with different molecular structures and functional properties.

Why is agar-agar used in canned dog and cat food?

Agar acts as a gelling and texturizing ingredient. In Identity's canned foods, a very small amount helps bind naturally occurring moisture and meat into the consistent pâté texture pets and their owners expect.

Does Identity Pet Nutrition use carrageenan?

Identity uses agar-agar to provide structure in our canned pâté recipes. Agar-agar should not be confused with carrageenan; they are distinct ingredients.

Why doesn't Identity use gelatin instead of agar?

Gelatin is animal-derived. Depending on its source, using gelatin could introduce another animal species into a recipe. Agar allows Identity to create pâté texture without unnecessarily compromising our approach to single-protein formulations.

 

References & Scientific Sources

[1] Review of algae-derived hydrocolloids describing agar's composition, food applications and history of use extending more than 350 years. Algae-derived hydrocolloids in foods: applications and health-related issues.

[2] U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulation, 21 CFR §582.7115 — Agar-agar, stating that agar-agar is generally recognized as safe when used in accordance with good manufacturing or feeding practice.

[3] Greg Aldrich, Ph.D., Agar-agar: Gelling agent option for canned dog and cat foods, Petfood Industry.

[4] Scientific review describing structural and functional distinctions between agar and carrageenan as algae-derived hydrocolloids.

[5] European Food Safety Authority, Re-evaluation of agar (E 406) as a food additive, including evaluation of genotoxicity and carcinogenicity data.