The reality of how harmful Carrageenan is?

I feed my kitten Nutro wet food, which is great so far for her, and Carrageenan-free, but I noticed that a lot of the adult flavors had Carrageenan in the ingredients.  I emailed Nutro about my concern with this, and this was the response I got:

"Dear Jessica,

Thank you for taking the time to contact NUTRO[emoji]174[/emoji]. We value the opinions of our consumers and take their feedback very seriously. Your feedback is no exception.

We are aware of the concern that using carrageenan may cause irritation to the gastrointestinal tract of pets. There are two types of carrageenan, un-degraded and degraded. The degraded carrageenan is the type which has caused some concern as there are implications this may be carcinogenic due to inflammatory properties. The un-degraded form is what is used in human food and pet food. Due to pet food labeling regulations this is listed on the ingredient declaration on the package as carrageenan.

NUTRO[emoji]174[/emoji] sources all of our ingredients from approved suppliers and our Supplier Quality Assurance Team audits supplier facilities to ensure they meet our stringent quality standards. We purchase only un-degraded carrageenan for use in our pet food as a natural gravy thickener. Additionally, the carrageenan we use is tested to ensure no contaminants are present"

.....Does anyone know how much truth there is to the fact that they claim un-degraded carrageenan is perfectly safe for cat consumption regularly, or is the company full of sh*t? Every cat nutrition site and article says to just stay away from Carrageenan.

Carrageenan has been discussed widely for human consumption as well. You might have noticed brands of almond milk that now have a big new sign saying "carrageenan free". I found a good summary and explanation of all the studies done here. The gist is that it apparently depends on species. Rats have no problems, pigs get abnormalities in intestinal lining, guinea-pigs get ulcers. Thankfully they didn't actually cut up cats to see what it does to them. But they had human cells in culture, gave them very small quantities of carrageenan, and the cells died.

So it doesn't cause cancer, but will cause ulcer in those unfortunate ones who are prone to them. Bottom line, if you or your cat don't have gut trouble, you are probably fine eating that. If you have or want to prevent any in the future, best stay away from it.

Thanks for that info.  She's still really young- 4 months old so it's hard to tell if she will be prone to any issues in the future so I think I will just stay away from it all together.   I have a couple of alternate brands picked out already that are Carrageenan-free.

It's very hard to find a definitive opinion or definitive research at present.  Moreover, it's close to impossible to avoid wet cat food that contains carrageenan.  An exaggeration but it sure seems to be true.  I continue to offer my gal recipes that contain carrageenan.  My choices are trusted brands and I purchase them in light of the fact that human grade food that I enjoy contain carrageenan.  Hope turns out to be a reasonable choice in the long run.

TheGreyStalker said:

 
  Moreover, it's close to impossible to avoid wet cat food that contains carrageenan.

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there are several that have none: Fancy Feast, Tiki Cat, Hound & Gatos. Ziwipeak recently changed its recipe to carrageenan-free since so many customers have asked for it. You can go to chewy.com for most of them, it has the complete ingredient list for each. 

Merrick Limited Ingredient Diet and Whole Earth Farms (my 2 alternate choices) also are Carrageenan-free.  Some of the more expensive high end brands are as well, but most of us can't afford those on a regular basis of course.