# Raw vs home cooked food



## designsbyisis (Dec 27, 2011)

I've been feeding Dexter raw for a little while now and I am happy with it. I do occasionally give him some kibble as we have massive bag left & sometimes I forget to defrost meat etc. 

My question is just one of interest really. I feed raw because I like to see what he's eating and didn't want too many additives, fillers etc to be a large part of his diet (although I am not too obsessive over this & try to keep reasonably relaxed re different treat brands etc) So would Dexter derive the same benefit from eating the meat & veg cooked ? I ask this because I have been given a doggy cookbook & wanted to try some of the recipes but wondered if it was a 'bad' thing to do. 

I know it's not recommended to mix kibble & raw, so does the same apply to home cooked & raw ? 




Sent from my iPhone 
Lisa - mum of 3 boys, Dexter Cockapoo & 4 hens !


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## Kody&Beau (Aug 18, 2012)

Hi I'm just getting into the home cooked food now for my two, I haven't tried raw feeding and not sure I will if I'm honest but like you wanted to make sure they were getting good food. I am just researching the best kibble you can buy and a new UK produced one called Eden holistic food has just been voted 5 stars on which food so I'm going to give that a try, but also I'm going to give the home cooking a go too for some variety. I know you are not meant to feed raw and kibble together because of different digestion times but I would probably be inclined to feed either a raw meal or a cooked meal rather than mix them together.


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## Janev1000 (Oct 4, 2011)

I've been looking into food too as Honey is so picky and am currently feeding raw with the occasional kibble. I've looked at cooking food but have read it's not nearly as good as raw as the cooking process completely alters the food (most importantly the enzymes) in such a way that it is not so beneficial to a dog's dietary requirements. I'd personally stick with either the raw or a top quality kibble. x


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## Kody&Beau (Aug 18, 2012)

Janev1000 said:


> I've been looking into food too as Honey is so picky and am currently feeding raw with the occasional kibble. I've looked at cooking food but have read it's not nearly as good as raw as the cooking process completely alters the food (most importantly the enzymes) in such a way that it is not so beneficial to a dog's dietary requirements. I'd personally stick with either the raw or a top quality kibble. x


I had heard that too Jane, I think I'll just add a little cooked to the kibble once a day just for variety as they seem to love it, but think your right not good idea to feed cooked solely  maybe worth looking into the Eden food for a kibble for Honey if she's fussy it's got fab reviews. x


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## Florida Cockapoo (Aug 24, 2012)

I'm sure it can't hurt as a treat every now and then. I plan feeding our dog canned and raw. Which both I will buy, as right now I can't spend the time making raw foods up.


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## colpa110 (Jul 5, 2011)

It won't harm to give cooked food but it will take out a lot of the nutrients - especially veg. I got a bit hung up on the 'right' way to feed - especially when trying to do a bit more of a DIY barf diet but have am much more relaxed about it now.


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## 2ndhandgal (Aug 29, 2011)

Interesting! Any links about the disadvantages of cooking vs raw?

I have just ventured into this myself with Molly - she will not eat raw but as she needs to eat a low fat diet I am currently experimenting with home cooking for her to get her both eating and satisfied with what she eats. 

Any info gratefully received!


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## colpa110 (Jul 5, 2011)

I have read sooo many sites about raw feeding and can't find the one now about feeding cooked food losing nutrients but the attached link is worth a read. The author believes that even fruit, veg and supplements are all a waste of time as dogs are carnivores not omnivores. Interestingly she also believes pre package food such as NI is also not a great option.
As I say there are so many differing opinions on the subject and I got quite confused by it all so now just use my own common sense approach.

http://www.rawlearning.com/rawfaq.html


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## Kody&Beau (Aug 18, 2012)

I've been just adding vegetables to any cooked meat or mince, or sometimes I do a fish meal and they have tinned sardines,tuna etc with some veggies mixed in you can add some egg too, I stick it all in a mini chopper machine, normally anything that we could eat raw like carrots etc i keep raw but i think peas have to be cooked I always lightly steam our veggies for the family anyway so hoping that some nutrients stay in but as mentioned in previous post I would not feed a home cooked meal as my dogs sole diet, I tend to add a bit of home cooked as a topping to their evening kibble to make it a bit more interesting for them and they love it, I always have nice clean evening meal bowls from both of them when they've finished.


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## Cat 53 (Aug 26, 2012)

I give Max raw apple and carrots as a treat but his main diet is all raw. I don't bother too much about anything else. He has pigs ears sometimes and various manner of treats for training. He is lively, happy with a glossy coat, great teeth and good skin. Very calm and loving. So I have no regrets over feeding raw.....it took me a while to dive in but so please I did. Can't Mollie have tripe....it's low fat and dogs adore it.


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## 2ndhandgal (Aug 29, 2011)

Thanks for the link Colin. 

I am already breaking a load of the rules then as I am feeding a third meat, third carbs and a third veg at the moment - but I need to feed the carbs and veg to bring the overall fat level of the meat down. She won't touch raw veg at all so no chance she is going to snack on carrot or apple!

At the moment I am going for a bit of a variety of meats with rice and a variety of veg mixed in and hope we cover her nutrients that way. I am using the prize choice mince blocks at the moment as they have bone minced in too so hopefully calcium levels will be OK. Even with those I am restricted as there are only a couple of them which are low enough in fat for me to to use. 

I have not tried her with raw tripe but she would not touch raw chicken or heart so have no reason to think she might make an exception for tripe!

Raw bones are too high in fat generally as are things like pigs ears.


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## Janev1000 (Oct 4, 2011)

colpa110 said:


> I have read sooo many sites about raw feeding and can't find the one now about feeding cooked food losing nutrients but the attached link is worth a read. The author believes that even fruit, veg and supplements are all a waste of time as dogs are carnivores not omnivores. Interestingly she also believes pre package food such as NI is also not a great option.
> As I say there are so many differing opinions on the subject and I got quite confused by it all so now just use my own common sense approach.
> 
> http://www.rawlearning.com/rawfaq.html


You're right Colin....it is very easy to get hung up with the Barf diet! I can seem so complicated with all the right ratios of bone, veg, etc. I also read that they don't really need all that and thought 'thank goodness for that!"

Strangely enough, Biscuit went off NI quite quickly as a puppy (although will eat ANYTHING now!) and it hasn't taken Honey long to go off it. In fact, she almost runs away from it lol! She used to love tinned fish too but is fussy about that too.

She just loves chopped up pieces of chicken carcass and I also give her raw eggs and offal but I worry that if the majority of her diet is raw chicken, then it's not going to be balanced and wonder if I should go back to half kibble. half raw. She wolfed down some minced lamb this week and then brought it all back up!

They do keep you on your toes these poos! x


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## Janev1000 (Oct 4, 2011)

Well after reading the link below, I've totally changed my mind about still feeding kibble when giving raw. I've been doing it with Biscuit to use up his Barking Heads before I put him back on to a totally raw diet but now I've read that this can increase their chance of getting salmonella from the raw, I will keep the kibble just for training treats!
http://thedogsdinner.webs.com/quickstart.htm


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## colpa110 (Jul 5, 2011)

Janev1000 said:


> You're right Colin....it is very easy to get hung up with the Barf diet! I can seem so complicated with all the right ratios of bone, veg, etc. I also read that they don't really need all that and thought 'thank goodness for that!"
> 
> Strangely enough, Biscuit went off NI quite quickly as a puppy (although will eat ANYTHING now!) and it hasn't taken Honey long to go off it. In fact, she almost runs away from it lol! She used to love tinned fish too but is fussy about that too.
> 
> ...



I'm lucky as both of mine still both love NI. I use it every third day or so ( between giving wings/ cheaper ( Berriewood) minces etc..) just to cover all bases!!! I don't feed any kibble at all any more.


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## Janev1000 (Oct 4, 2011)

My main reason for feeding Biscuit half and half is because I have about £40 worth of Barking Heads still and hate wastage and just can't bring myself to throw it away! I've thought of using it as training treats but the 'raw police' even say that that is not advisable. Not sure though as you read so much conflicting info! The thing I hate the most about feeding raw is worrying whether it is balanced or not, which I'm sure it is but I still have the words of my vet saying it doesn't matter which food I choose as long as it is a complete food, which can start to make you neurotic as to whether they are getting the right nutrients. Not great for worriers like me! x


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## colpa110 (Jul 5, 2011)

Janev1000 said:


> My main reason for feeding Biscuit half and half is because I have about £40 worth of Barking Heads still and hate wastage and just can't bring myself to throw it away! I've thought of using it as training treats but the 'raw police' even say that that is not advisable. Not sure though as you read so much conflicting info! The thing I hate the most about feeding raw is worrying whether it is balanced or not, which I'm sure it is but I still have the words of my vet saying it doesn't matter which food I choose as long as it is a complete food, which can start to make you neurotic as to whether they are getting the right nutrients. Not great for worriers like me! x


I totally agree , there is SO much conflicting information out there...and the more you read the more confused you get. 
It would be great if someone could put a weekly menu together which had all the right ratios. The guide line is 80 % meat, 10% bone , 10% offal but if you give a chicken carcass what percentage of that is meat to bone!!!

I too have quite a few bags of kibble in my garage....can't quite bear to throw it away either!!


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## colpa110 (Jul 5, 2011)

Secondhandgal

This was the link I was looking for....


http://rawfed.com/myths/cookedfood.html


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## colpa110 (Jul 5, 2011)

Jane

I have just joined this group - lots of friendly advice ( just in case you haven't already joined!!)

http://www.facebook.com/groups/rawfeedinguk/


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## MillieDog (Jun 1, 2011)

Millie has NI and Barking Heads. She usually chooses the NI over Barking Heads, but I have discovered through trial and error, that she likes her NI really fresh and not plain chicken. So now I have to divide the NI into four portions as soon as its semi defrosted, keep one out and freeze the rest. 

Now she eats it. She especially loves the green tripe, the smell is bad but she likes it 

I decided not to be too hung up on raw v kibble v cooked etc as they eat so much rubbish/thrown way food/sticks/dead things etc when out on walks, that whatever I feed has to be better.

Only last week she found a rabbits head (dead of course) in park and for the first time in about year, decided she was going to walk with it in her mouth - keeping me obviously at a distance.  I managed to get her back and then had to try and extract her prize (I was wearing a poo bag glove by now), from her tightly shut jaw  I had a 'helpful' passer by commenting on eeewwwhh is that really a rabbits head 

If just reaffirms my belief that whatever I give her, in whatever combination has to be better than that


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## colpa110 (Jul 5, 2011)

MillieDog said:


> Millie has NI and Barking Heads. She usually chooses the NI over Barking Heads, but I have discovered through trial and error, that she likes her NI really fresh and not plain chicken. So now I have to divide the NI into four portions as soon as its semi defrosted, keep one out and freeze the rest.
> 
> Now she eats it. She especially loves the green tripe, the smell is bad but she likes it
> 
> ...



You tell a funny tale but the raw brigade will tell you the bunnies head is better than kibble !!!


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## MillieDog (Jun 1, 2011)

This might be of interest, Wilfiboy posted it some time ago about feeding pure green trip

http://ilovemycockapoo.com/showthread.php?t=11402&highlight=tripe

Not sure I could manage to do this !


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## Janev1000 (Oct 4, 2011)

colpa110 said:


> Jane
> 
> I have just joined this group - lots of friendly advice ( just in case you haven't already joined!!)
> 
> http://www.facebook.com/groups/rawfeedinguk/


Funnily enough, I joined yesterday! x


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## 2ndhandgal (Aug 29, 2011)

Thanks for the links!!

Interesting reading - looks like I need to break all the rules as I need to feed carbs with the meat anyway to bring the fat levels down - and as she won't eat raw meat or veg looks like I am stuck with cooking it and just hoping I can provide enough variety to keep her healthy whilst keeping fat levels low enough to keep her well. I am aiming for around 6% fat in total - and that needs to be each meal rather than averaged over the day/week.


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## Kody&Beau (Aug 18, 2012)

It's so confusing about all this diet stuff, with my old dogs I never had the info from the Internet so it was packs of Caesar which at that time I thought was a great food it probably scores zero in which food now but one of my Bichons went onto to live to 18 yrs. I've contemplated raw but as Jane said I've yet to find one vet who recommends it, my vets have both said they can suffer from diet insufficiencies and more worrying they've found blood test results don't come back within normal ranges which worries me more. I've tried to research the best kibble food but as Colin says is Kibble really healthy being its dried? Although the vets do promote kibble. I've now thought of adding home cooked to the kibble to give some moisture and hopefully make it of more interest to my two. As I say all very confusing knowing what's best really. My latest kibble I'm looking at is Eden scored 5 star in which food and is UK produced like Barking Heads is, anyone use this? x


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## wilfiboy (Sep 18, 2010)

It's a mine field, I think there's an element of finding advice you feel comfortable with and then going for it. As I've said before Dr Ian Billinghurst does it for me.... He advocates veg but states that a dog would get this in the diet from the intestines of its prey. Regarding bone content if your dogs waste is passed easily but small and dry..ish, where's that picture !!! then the bone content is ok if your dog appears constipated then reduce the bone x

Found it ......


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## DB1 (Jan 20, 2012)

Oh Karen!! - just having a quick 5 mins on comp and decided to look at a couple of 'last page's' what a lovely photo to greet me - I know its for useful info, made me think 'now that would be an interesting fri night thread - your poo's poo!!'


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## Kody&Beau (Aug 18, 2012)

DB1 said:


> Oh Karen!! - just having a quick 5 mins on comp and decided to look at a couple of 'last page's' what a lovely photo to greet me - I know its for useful info, made me think 'now that would be an interesting fri night thread - your poo's poo!!'


Oooh noo you wouldn't want to see my poos poo today  let's put it this way it was chicken & rice tonight to firm things up...lol


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## Florida Cockapoo (Aug 24, 2012)

Well you have to do what is comfortable for you. 

I did a lot of research on this for my cat and of course came across a lot of info. also on dogs. There will be a lot of different information out there. Some going with the mainstream view which I think is easy and safe to agree with, then there is the others like alternative natural path people. 

From what I understand any cooked food is losing "nutrients" weather being cooked for humans or animals. Most natural path doctors will say this. Now if you ask a mainstream doctors he most likely will disagree.

As for what I decided to do with our dog is, feed him raw and canned. I tried getting our cat on raw, but she didn't take to it. Although she does love raw liver. So I tried to stick to foods that are more natural for cats. I do use kibble and canned, but keep to the more high quality foods. She eats both during that day. No problems there.

From my understanding dogs do eat more veggies then cats do. They are suppose to be more flexible on their eating. 

I think the food quality of some of the MASS market companies have gone down. I to had dogs that where fed on the those cheap dog foods and live to good old ages for dogs. But a lot of these companies have since been bought out by larger companies, which are probably cutting back on quality ingredients and putting a lot of fillers in.

But these are just my opinions based on the research I did.


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