pomegranate
Pomegranate arrives as an antioxidant-halo extract; the whole fruit is a different, seedier matter. Extract doses are trivial, GI upset is the whole-fruit risk.
Also appears on labels as: pomegranate extract · dried pomegranate
What it is
Pomegranate as pet food knows it: an extract standardized for polyphenols (punicalagins), listed near the vitamins at milligram doses. The whole fruit — arils, seeds, tannic pith — is what a curious dog encounters at home, and quantity of it can mean tannin-driven stomach upset.
Why it's in pet food
Antioxidant narrative from human nutrition, where pomegranate has genuine polyphenol chemistry and modest clinical evidence. In pets the extract is safe at label doses and unproven at them too.
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 bonus seat, no deduction, no flag — extract-form botanicals don't move scores, by the same claims-aren't-ingredients rule that governs every functional additive. The practical caution is domestic, not label-borne: a dog that raids a fruit bowl for pomegranate may repay you with an unhappy stomach, not a toxicity event.
For dogs
A few arils are harmless; a whole fruit's worth of seeds and pith often isn't (tannins, GI upset — uncomfortable, not toxic). Extract in food is a non-event.
Foods that list pomegranate
No food on the shelf lists pomegranate yet. Scan a bag that does and its label joins the catalog — versioned from the day it arrives.
Sources
Related ingredients
Further reading
Cite this page
Bowlmark. "Pomegranate in pet food — what it is and how it scores." https://www.bowlmark.com/ingredient/pomegranate
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