The Puffer Forum

At the Kroger down the street from me they have bags of "live" mussels for 2.49 a pound. Should I try some for my F8?

id by a bag and freeze em

I used to work as a companion animal nutrition advocate, so I don't know how much of this translates to fish as most of my research related to obligate carnivorous mammals.
When food is heated above 107° F, along with many vitamins, the digestive enzymes are also destroyed. Raw food contains the appropriate enzymes to break itself down into something the body can use. Freezing food does not destroy enzymes, but it will destroy vitamins. I'm not certain at what rate, or what vitamins, but I did read somewhere that food frozen longer than a couple of months should be discarded.
These enzymes are also present in the human being's stomach and saliva, the pancreas is responsible for producing enzymes. We humans have had many generations to adapt to eating cooked food, even still, our pancreas has to work extra hard to produce these enzymes that are destroyed upon heating, and this has been linked to certain diseases.

Animals don't have a method to cook their food, (No thumbs lol) so they have had no way for their digestive systems to adapt to eating cooked food, and still be able to break down the food into something the body can use. So along with the vitamins that are destroyed, the proteins will also not be available or as available to them. I did read that certain people theorize that the illnesses in humans related to this also applies to mammals.

Again, I don't know how much of this is relative to fish, but considering that they live underwater, they are even less likely to have been able to cook their food, so I can only suspect that they will not get any, or very little, nutritional value from cooked food since they are not adapted to do so.

Great explanation.

Although, I bet Filbert could cook a good steak!

Pufferpunk wrote:
Although, I bet Filbert could cook a good steak!

Haha!!!

Always raw! Proteins get denatured when cooked (change structure) and since fish cannot cook for themselves, Filbert being the exception, changing the protein structure can be bad for a fish. Here's the question to ask yourself, these fish are taken out of the wild where their food is naturally un-cooked, why change? Parasites are a concern but if treated properly are a low risk.

Humans are the only animals to eat cooked meat, and we had to adapt extensively do it. No reason to suddenly change it up on our pets. Heck, I'd be feeding raw meat to my cat if I could afford it.