Raw or cooked?
Let's first remember the three main ways to feed your animal: kibble or mash, the household ration, and the BARF. While the BARF should, for most of its users, be composed only of raw foods (with the exception of certain raw toxic foods, which need to be cooked), the household ration can be distributed raw or cooked, thus suffering of a bad image when given cooked.
" This bad image is due to a belief that aims to consider that cooked foods are dead foods, which no longer contain nutrients, the latter having been destroyed by heat.Also, it is considered to be less natural than a raw diet, considering the animal in its natural state without human intervention. This is also one of the motivations of some owners to feed with a BARF diet, although this last remark is rather of a philosophical nature and can be discussed."
So should cooking be avoided?
" Concerning the idea conveyed on the destruction of nutrients, it is first necessary to take an interest in the sensitivity of these nutrients to heat. While some won&39;t have a problem with it and will stay stable, like some minerals, the B vitamins will be more sensitive to it. It is therefore a point to take into account when the ration is formulated, in terms of quantity of food or supplementation (thanks to brewer&39;s yeast for example), but that does not make it a dead diet. "
Cooking food, depending on the mode used, notably increases the digestibility of amino acids.For example, boiling or steaming gives meat greater digestibility than raw meat (1). In addition, it reduces the risk of bacterial contamination for the animal or its environment when they are particularly at risk (sick animal or entourage, pregnant women, immunocompromised people).
Raw meat is mainly made up of water, which therefore requires, when used, to give larger quantities in order to cover nutrient needs. Cooking has the advantage of reducing this water content, thus reducing the volume of the ration and concentrating the nutrients, which can be useful for certain animals which are not able to swallow too large a ration. It is always possible, to recover the water-soluble B vitamins and retain maximum hydration, to keep the cooking water or the steam residues to distribute them.
For fussy dogs, cooking reveals smells and flavors that will make it more palatable. It would then be a shame to do without a fresh diet by simply refusing to cook doggie meat.
Finally, the choice of raw or cooked food must be assessed taking into account the particularities and needs of the animal and the constraints of the owner. There is no ideal and universal solution, but a solution adapted to each animal.
(1) https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/148/10/1564/5094772