cassia gum

Thickener

Cassia gum is the wet-food gel-setter that works in partnership — and the one gum whose purification grade is genuinely worth a sentence.

Also appears on labels as: e427

What it is

Ground endosperm of Cassia tora/obtusifolia seeds, a galactomannan that forms firm gels in combination with xanthan or carrageenan — the chemistry behind sliceable loaf textures. Feed-grade cassia is purified to strip anthraquinones (compounds in the raw seed); regulated specifications set that purity, which is the quality sentence labels don't print.

Why it's in pet food

Loaf and chunk-in-jelly textures that survive canning. It rarely works alone — cassia plus a partner gum is the standard gel system in European-style wet foods.

How Bowlmark scores it

Scores are deterministic math over the printed label — the rules below apply to every product identically, and nothing estimates or fills in a blank.

Neutral: no deduction, no flag. Its frequent partner carrageenan carries the shelf's one informational flag (−8 on wet formulas, contested-literature note on that page); cassia itself has no equivalent literature and rides at zero. Purified feed-grade is what commercial food uses — the anthraquinone story belongs to unprocessed seed, not your can.

Read the full methodology

Foods that list cassia gum

Ranked by score where scores exist. Placement here is never sold.

Compare foods that list cassia gum

Same species, same form, both scored — closest scores first, so the comparison is a real one.

Sources

Further reading

Cite this page

Bowlmark. "Cassia gum in pet food — what it is and how it scores." https://www.bowlmark.com/ingredient/cassia-gum

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Last verified August 12, 2026

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