Raw Food vs. Cooked Food for Cats... Which is Best?
Raw Food vs. Cooked Food for Cats... Which is Best?
As loving pet parents, we all want our pets to be healthy so they can live long and happy lives with us. Nobody likes a sick pet and while some illness is part of sharing your life with animals, there is a lot that you can do to ensure your pets remain in good health.
The very first thing is to ensure their diet is optimal. You’ve heard the adage “you are what you eat” - well never is this more true than for our pets. One of the best things you can do for your pet is to feed them the raw diet they are designed to eat.
But…Bacteria…I hear you cry, raw food is dangerous! Don’t worry, your pet's body is perfectly capable of processing raw food. Remember, you might have a pampered little house kitty, but cats were only domesticated around 10,000 years ago. The trick is to prepare the raw food safely and correctly.
Let me explain why a raw food diet is so much better for our pets than a cooked diet. There are a couple of reasons for this:
1. Cooking Breaks Down All the Good Stuff
When we cook food, including meat, vegetables, and even fruit, we denature it and break down the natural amino acids, proteins, and vitamins present in the food. This makes all the nutrients less bioavailable for our pets. Consequently, they absorb less of the healthy stuff into their system and get less energy from the foods they eat.
2. Cooking Makes Food Harder to Digest
Research continually points to the importance of gut health and how our gut microbiome affects every organ in our body. It makes sense when you think about it, after all, the gut breaks down the foods we eat and is responsible for absorbing the nutrients that support our bodily functions. It’s exactly the same for our pets. When we cook meat in particular it becomes harder to digest. It spends longer in the digestive system and requires more energy to process than raw meat. Your kitty's body has to work much harder to get what it needs from a cooked food diet.
So giving our pets a fresh raw meat and vegetable diet is the healthiest, easiest way for them to get the maximum nutrition from their food. It also optimizes the health of the gut which is vital in supporting your pet's immune system and preventing disease. If you really want to supercharge your pet’s gut health, try these probiotics for an extra boost.
I can show you how to make your own fresh pet food safely and in only a few minutes per week, or you can check out my list of recommended commercially made fresh pet foods here.
If you are still skeptical, here is all the proof you should need to see raw is best. If you want to know more, you can buy the book of the full study here or download the pdf version here.
