pyridoxine hydrochloride

What it is

Vitamin B6, cofactor to the enzymes that shuffle amino acids — transamination, the daily bookkeeping of protein metabolism. The elegant consequence: the more protein a diet carries, the more B6 it needs, so high-meat formulation raises the premix bar.

Why it's in pet food

Completeness, scaled to the recipe's protein. High-protein and performance foods leaning on B6 aren't marketing; they're stoichiometry.

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, per the B-complex rule: water-soluble, urine-forgiving, invisible to scoring by design. If a label's premix looks long, remember it's doing this kind of arithmetic — nutrient needs that scale with the recipe's own composition.

Read the full methodology

Foods that list pyridoxine hydrochloride

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

• Kettle Creek Farmhouse Chicken & Sweet Potato94
• Whisker & Pine Free-Run Chicken & Sweet Potato Recipe94
• Copperfield Cats Kitten Heritage Chicken & Oat Recipe93
• Meadow Farms Chicken & Oatmeal Puppy93
• Open Farm Harvest Chicken & Ancient Grains Recipe93
• Open Farm Large Breed Grain-Free RawMix93
• Open Farm Large Breed RawMix with Ancient Grains93
• Open Farm Small Breed Chicken & Turkey Recipe93

Sources

• NRC Nutrient Requirements of Dogs and Cats (2006)
• AAFCO Dog & Cat Food Nutrient Profiles (2016)

Related ingredients

• folic acid
• menadione sodium bisulfite complex
• niacin supplement
• riboflavin supplement
• thiamine mononitrate
• vitamin a supplement

Further reading

• The guaranteed analysis, decoded
• How to read a pet food label