sodium carboxymethylcellulose

What it is

Cellulose — plant fiber — chemically modified to dissolve in water. The label's scariest-looking word ('cellulose gum' is the same substance in softer type) is functionally one of its most inert: unfermented, unabsorbed, in and out as viscosity.

Why it's in pet food

Moisture control and binding in wet foods and dental chews, at fractions of a percent. Its long human-food history (ice cream, toothpaste) is a tolerance record, not a warning.

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. A good calibration page for chemical-name anxiety: the engine's deductions target substances with adverse literatures and disclosure games, not syllable counts — and eleven-syllable cellulose is still cellulose.

Read the full methodology

Foods that list sodium carboxymethylcellulose

No food on the shelf lists sodium carboxymethylcellulose yet. Scan a bag that does and its label joins the catalog — versioned from the day it arrives.

Sources

• WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee — Selecting a pet food
• AAFCO Dog & Cat Food Nutrient Profiles (2016)

Related ingredients

• agar-agar
• locust bean gum
• pectin
• sodium alginate
• tara gum
• xanthan gum

Further reading

• Reading a cat food label — what cats actually need
• Wet food vs dry: the honest tradeoffs