I got interesting feedback from readers on my last column about feeding pets a raw diet, with strong opinions on both sides of the issue.

A veterinarian took me to task for even suggesting a raw diet is a healthy alternative. Mark B. Taylor, who practiced at the Banfield Pet Hospital in Blacksburg, was co-author of an article in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association about a puppy that became severely ill eating a raw diet.

“What I read shocked me and gave me great concern,” Taylor wrote in an e-mail about my column. “Raw diets are not only extremely dangerous but also very unhealthy.”

Other readers were not happy that I didn’t go far enough in detailing a true raw diet.

“My dogs don’t get veggie(s),” Maria Shutters of Roanoke wrote. “I’ve given them whole prey before, such as rabbits and a goat kid.” She said her dogs and ferrets have
eaten a raw diet for almost four years and she has butchered squirrels, a beaver and deer to feed her animals.

But after considering everything I’ve learned, I just can’t go raw. It just doesn’t feel like the right choice for my dogs or my cat.

I am certainly no nutrition expert. The only reason I regularly look at the Food and Drug Administration’s updated food pyramid is to see if chocolate and wine have been added. (Alas, no. And I’ve stopped hoping.)

I am, however, an avid home cook, so I decided to try making dinner and treats for my pack.

Cooking the food, I reasoned, destroys parasites and bacteria and lets me control the quality of the ingredients. But I know, just like converting my human family to a
healthier diet, that if it’s too costly or too difficult, I won’t stick with it.

So this was my mission: Buy the raw ingredients for a few recipes, cook dinners and snacks, track the time invested and calculate the cost per serving.

Tab: $38.72

I found the recipes on the Web and adapted a few from a dog food cookbook. Some of these recipes called for garlic, and I am not comfortable adding that because the
ASPCA puts it on the “foods to avoid” list for dogs.

I spent $38.72 on ingredients, including chicken, turkey, various veggies, rice, yogurt and a few pantry staples like peanut butter, honey and plastic storage containers. That
total included two tubes of cooked, fresh dog food — another alternative to kibble — so I could compare the price per serving.

I got home with my groceries and did what any reasonable person would do: I made dessert first.

Treats were worth it

I had a recipe for frozen treats that I got from a Web site. This would be our substitute for the dogs’ weekly treat, Frosty Paws, a doggy “ice cream” that makes my pooches
dance and drool.

I blended a banana, peanut butter, honey and fat-free vanilla yogurt.

I poured the mixture into half-cup plastic containers and put them in the freezer. It took less than 10 minutes to make these treats from start to finish, yielding 12 servings. It
cost just pennies compared to Frosty Paws. The canines’ review? They loved it.

Then I made meatballs from ground turkey, pureed veggies and rice as a substitute for the Loved Dog refrigerated dog treats that my dogs eat daily. It took about 45
minutes, including baking time, the cost was half the price of the pre-packaged treats, and I had enough to last for weeks.

Preparing actual meals, however, was not so economical.

Dinner a different story

Adapting a recipe I found in a cookbook — leaving out the garlic and subbing turkey in one batch for chicken liver — I made two skillets of cooked meat with pureed veggies
and rice.

While this was on the stove, my husband said the house smelled like Thanksgiving. The intangible benefit of home-cooked dog food is that it smells more appetizing than
opening a bag of fresh kibble.

After a couple of hours of prepping and cooking, I had enough food to feed three, 60-plus-pound dogs for three days. They gobbled their homemade meals, but then again,
they don’t exactly have discriminating palates. We bought trash cans with nose-proof lids to keep them from snacking on garbage.

The cost of cooking the food was less per serving than the pre-packaged fresh food — $3 per day per dog — and was about the same as the cost of premium kibble. But I
worried that there was not enough vitamins and minerals in the foods I chose.

So making treats will work for me, but we will stick with the very best commercially made dog food we can afford and that our vet recommends. This is the best, informed
decision I can make for my family.

And that’s all I can recommend that any pet parent do.