Ingredient database › BHA
Is BHA good or bad in dog food?
BHA is a preservative and rates as Avoid in our analysis.
Avoid Bottom line: BHA is best avoided — it has no real place in dog food and pulls a recipe's grade down.
Artificial preservative; flagged as a possible carcinogen — avoid.
This is an ingredient we'd avoid. When it shows up — particularly near the start of the list — it pulls the whole recipe's grade down.
Better alternatives in this category:
Built on AAFCO & FDA pet-food criteria · Last updated June 2026 · How we rate
What is BHA?
BHA is a preservative used in dog food. On a label it may also appear as: bha, butylated hydroxyanisole.
What to look for on the label
Ingredients are listed by weight, so the ones near the top make up most of the recipe. BHA ideally should not be in your dog's food at all. The fastest way to judge a whole product is to paste its full ingredient list into our free dog food checker, which grades it A–F and flags every ingredient like this one.
How BHA affects the WoofScore
Our grade rewards named whole proteins, vegetables, fruit and beneficial supplements, and penalises vague by-products, cheap fillers, artificial colours and controversial preservatives. BHA contributes as a avoid-tier item; read the full scoring methodology to see exactly how the grade is calculated.