Accidentally gave my cats microwave raw food

[antran96]

I just recently started raw feeding my cats and started mixing a small amount of raw food (~10–12 g per cat) with their usual wet food. I feed them this brand called Vaisto (VAISTO® CAT YELLOW - MUSH), which is grounded chicken and beef (including mean, liver, heats, cartilage, lung, and bones)

I made a silly mistake by thawing the raw food inside the microwave. The food was half cooked and half raw when I gave it to my cats, and they ate it all. I then later found out that it must not be heated in the microwave, as some bone materials will firm up and irritate cats' digestion.

Given the amount of microwaved raw food that I fed my cats (10–12 g per cat), are they safe to go?

 

[iPappy]

When I first started playing around with raw, I always thawed it in the microwave. Everyone was fine.
When I need to thaw in a hurry I put it in a dish of warm water and submerge it (sometimes I fill a jar with water and put on top of it to hold it down), and within a few minutes it's ready to go.

 

[antran96]

iPappy I was told that cooked bones are not good for cats.That's why I'm a bit worried that the raw food I gave them contains bones and could be cooked while microwaved.

 

[Caspers Human]

Most fears about microwave ovens are overblown. Yes, microwaves can make certain foods less appetizing but it is also beneficial for cooking other foods. You don't want to heat bread in the microwave because it drives out all the water and makes the starch get hard. On the other hand, green vegetables are better when cooked in the microwave because they cook faster and all the nutrition isn't washed away by boiling in water.

No, microwave ovens aren't secretly turning our food to poison. They are tools for cooking that must be used properly, just like anything else. There's a difference between cooking on an electric stove or a gas stove. Isn't there? If you learn how to cook on one kind of stove then switch to another, doesn't it take a little time to learn how to use the new one? Of course it does. Why should microwave ovens be any different. You just have to know how to use it. But, in order to use a microwave oven well, you need to learn to understand it. That's where people get the belief that microwave ovens are, somehow, bad.

If something, cooked in a microwave, comes out terrible it's not because some kind of "invisible radiation" changed its "molecular structure." It's probably because the microwaves heated the food too fast before it could properly cook. That's why meat sometimes seems to turn to rubber when it is cooked in a microwave oven. Throw a piece of steak directly into the fire of your barbecue for five minutes and tell me how it turns out.

I don't think your microwave oven did anything bad to your cat food. It think it, basically, got cooked too fast. You just wanted to thaw it out a little but, for some reason, the meat started to cook more than you wanted it to. I'm sure that it's still good to eat, for your cats. It's just not what you wanted for your cats to eat. No harm done, IMO.

I still side with you. I don't think thawing your cats' food in the microwave is the right way to do it. I think that the best way to do it is to take some out of the freezer and put it into the fridge the night before. You can serve your cats the fridge-thawed food or, better, take the day's meals out of the fridge, beforehand, to let them come up to room temperature.

The reason why you shouldn't feed cooked bones to a cat is because some bones (especially chicken bones) can become brittle and fracture into small, needle sharp pieces which will harm your cat's intestinal tract. If a cat eats a small piece of cooked bone it can cause bleeding but, if the damage is moderate, the cat will eventually heal with proper care. If a cat eats a lot of bone, that could easily mean the end of the road!

If you thawed the cat food in the microwave and it was enough to partially cook some of the meat, I'm not convinced it would be able to cook the bone. If your brand of cat food has bone or bone meal it it and that's the way it's supposed to be, I don't think a quick thaw in the microwave will do any harm.

Bottom line: I wouldn't worry about it but I also wouldn't thaw the cat food in the microwave, anymore. It's just better that way.