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Grains are the oldest ingredients in dog food and, for most dogs, perfectly good ones: rice, oats and barley bring digestible energy, fermentable fibre and a panel that does not need legumes to hold together. This list ranks the grain inclusive corner of our database by label score, and shows the first grain line on each pick so you can see what the recipe is built on.
Our rubric flags a short list of cheapest calorie grains (whole grain corn, corn protein meal, wheat, soybean meal, brewers rice) inside its filler signal, and those flags are already inside these scores. Brown rice, oatmeal, barley and millet are never flagged; they are whole foods doing ordinary work.
Pool: the 114 recipes with at least one grain line in the ingredient list. Shown: the 10 highest scores.
Scores come from the rubric published on the dog food hub: nine signals read from each recipe's own label and the FDA record, scaled to 100 across the signals we could verify. Stars are the score divided by 20, rounded to the nearest half, so the two never disagree. One exclusion applies to every list: a recipe whose label is supplemental only (a topper or mixer, not a complete diet) is never ranked as a dog food here, however simple its panel is. Labels were read in November 2026; when the database grows or a label changes, the list is re-run and recipes move on their new numbers, not on anyone's say so.
| Rank | Recipe | Score / 100 | First grain line | Protein | Format | Brand FDA events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amazing Grains Original Orijen | 98 ★★★★★ | oat groats | 38% | Dry food | 0 |
| 2 | Amazing Grains Puppy Large Orijen | 98 ★★★★★ | oat groats | 38% | Dry food | 0 |
| 3 | Amazing Grains Regional Red Orijen | 98 ★★★★★ | oat groats | 38% | Dry food | 0 |
| 4 | Wild Reserve Free-Run Chicken & Grain Orijen | 98 ★★★★★ | oat groats | 38% | Dry food | 0 |
| 5 | Amazing Grains Small Breed Orijen | 97 ★★★★★ | oat groats | 38% | Dry food | 0 |
| 6 | Amazing Grains Puppy Orijen | 95 ★★★★★ | oat groats | 38% | Dry food | 0 |
| 7 | Amazing Grains Six Fish Orijen | 95 ★★★★★ | oat groats | 38% | Dry food | 0 |
| 8 | Amazing Grains Fit & Trim Orijen | 94 ★★★★½ | oat groats | 42% | Dry food | 0 |
| 9 | Raw Blend Farm Chicken Recipe Victor | 94 ★★★★½ | Grain Sorghum | 34% | Dry food | 1 |
| 10 | Raw Blend Rancher's Beef Recipe Victor | 94 ★★★★½ | Grain Sorghum | 34% | Dry food | 1 |
Score 98 of 100 · ★★★★★ · Orijen brand review
Grains are part of this panel by design: oat groats is the first grain line, at position 8 of 56. The panel opens with Chicken, a named whole meat. Protein reads 38% as labelled. Fat reads 18% as labelled. Calories run 490 a cup. Our November 2026 check found no FDA posted recall events for Orijen. Its adequacy claim rests on formulation against the AAFCO profiles rather than on feeding trials.
Score 98 of 100 · ★★★★★ · Orijen brand review
Grains are part of this panel by design: oat groats is the first grain line, at position 8 of 56. The panel opens with Chicken, a named whole meat. Protein reads 38% as labelled. Fat reads 16% as labelled. Calories run 483 a cup. Our November 2026 check found no FDA posted recall events for Orijen. Its adequacy claim rests on formulation against the AAFCO profiles rather than on feeding trials.
Score 98 of 100 · ★★★★★ · Orijen brand review
Grains are part of this panel by design: oat groats is the first grain line, at position 8 of 60. The panel opens with Beef, a named whole meat. Protein reads 38% as labelled. Fat reads 18% as labelled. Calories run 483 a cup. Our November 2026 check found no FDA posted recall events for Orijen. Its adequacy claim rests on formulation against the AAFCO profiles rather than on feeding trials.
Score 98 of 100 · ★★★★★ · Orijen brand review
Grains are part of this panel by design: oat groats is the first grain line, at position 8 of 57. The panel opens with Chicken, a named whole meat. Protein reads 38% as labelled. Fat reads 18% as labelled. Calories run 490 a cup. Our November 2026 check found no FDA posted recall events for Orijen. Its adequacy claim rests on formulation against the AAFCO profiles rather than on feeding trials.
Score 97 of 100 · ★★★★★ · Orijen brand review
Grains are part of this panel by design: oat groats is the first grain line, at position 8 of 50. The panel opens with Turkey, a named whole meat. Protein reads 38% as labelled. Fat reads 18% as labelled. Calories run 444 a cup. Our November 2026 check found no FDA posted recall events for Orijen. Its adequacy claim rests on formulation against the AAFCO profiles rather than on feeding trials.
Score 95 of 100 · ★★★★★ · Orijen brand review
Grains are part of this panel by design: oat groats is the first grain line, at position 8 of 55. The panel opens with Chicken, a named whole meat. Protein reads 38% as labelled. Fat reads 20% as labelled. Calories run 528 a cup. Our November 2026 check found no FDA posted recall events for Orijen. Its adequacy claim rests on formulation against the AAFCO profiles rather than on feeding trials.
Score 95 of 100 · ★★★★★ · Orijen brand review
Grains are part of this panel by design: oat groats is the first grain line, at position 9 of 51. The panel opens with Salmon, a named whole meat. Protein reads 38% as labelled. Fat reads 16% as labelled. Calories run 488 a cup. Our November 2026 check found no FDA posted recall events for Orijen. Its adequacy claim rests on formulation against the AAFCO profiles rather than on feeding trials.
Score 94 of 100 · ★★★★½ · Orijen brand review
Grains are part of this panel by design: oat groats is the first grain line, at position 8 of 50. The panel opens with Chicken, a named whole meat. Protein reads 42% as labelled. Fat reads 13% as labelled. Calories run 411 a cup. Our November 2026 check found no FDA posted recall events for Orijen. Its adequacy claim rests on formulation against the AAFCO profiles rather than on feeding trials.
Score 94 of 100 · ★★★★½ · Victor brand review
Grains are part of this panel by design: Grain Sorghum is the first grain line, at position 3 of 38. The panel opens with Chicken, a named whole meat. Protein reads 34% as labelled. Fat reads 18% as labelled. Calories run 390 a cup. The brand carries one FDA posted recall event in our check. Its adequacy claim rests on formulation against the AAFCO profiles rather than on feeding trials.
Score 94 of 100 · ★★★★½ · Victor brand review
Grains are part of this panel by design: Grain Sorghum is the first grain line, at position 3 of 38. The panel opens with Beef, a named whole meat. Protein reads 34% as labelled. Fat reads 18% as labelled. Calories run 380 a cup. The brand carries one FDA posted recall event in our check. Its adequacy claim rests on formulation against the AAFCO profiles rather than on feeding trials.
Grain inclusive does not mean grain heavy by default: read where the first grain sits in the order. A panel that opens with two named meats and meets its grains at position five is a different food from one that opens with them.
Whichever food you choose, change over about a week, mixing more of the new food into the old each day, and portion by calories rather than by the look of the bowl. Our feeding calculator works out a daily amount from your dog's weight once you have the recipe's calorie line, which every review page here prints.
Every recipe above also has its own review in the reviews index, and every brand's record is on the recall tracker.
Last updated: November 2026. Checked against the sources named on this page.