Say no to a cooked diet

Most cat and dog owners that opt out of buying commercial pet food and decide to make the food themselves automatically choose to cook the food.  This in itself is the first problem before even mentioning the ingredients.
Cooked food for pets that may contain meat, some form of carbohydrate such as potatoes, rice or pasta and some vegetables.  this diet appears balanced and fairly healthy to many people however the problems are:
Cooked food is deficient in essential fatty acids
Deficient in vitamins (having been destroyed in the cooking process)
Deficient in minerals, in particular calcium
Depleted of natural digestive enzymes found in raw food
Depleted of anti-oxidants due to cooking process
Soft, mushy food that does nothing to assist dental health
Another problem with homemade diets is that many owners will give in to their pets whims and start to feed a restricted diet favouring certain foods to make their pet happy.  Examples of such diets are:
Meat only diets leads to arthritis, eczema, kidney, heart disease, cancer
Fish only diet leads to deficiency of Vitamin E and if raw, B1 deficiency
Organ meat only diets can lead to lethargy, skin problems, arthritis, kidney disease, calcium deficiency associated problems.
Such diets are a disaster as they lead to serious deficiencies and perhaps even more health problems than if the pet was on a commercial diet.
In my own experience of feeding my pets on a homemade raw diet, my cats in particular would dearly love me to feed them organ meat on a more regular basis.  However, knowing the high content of phosphorus and protein, the effect this would have on their kidneys (especially at 18 years of age) would be a disaster.
Reference text:
Billinghurst, I 1993, ‘Give your dog a bone,’ Warrigal Publishing, Australia.