Am I wrong?

Our house has six cats, Momma, Princess, Slipper, Asia, Spot, and Ra. Here's the situation that got everyone upset with me, and I'm asking if what I did was wrong. Last night I was fixing chicken breasts for dinner (AWM gets these huge  packages of chicken breasts at Sam's) and since it was way more meat than we can eat in one, or even two sittings I set aside one of the breasts while I was cleaning them. (The chicken breast was clean and trimmed of fat.) I cut the raw chicken breast into chunks, divided the chunks into six equal sized portions, and gave them to the cats.

AWM was horrified. She said that it's not good to give raw chicken breast earmarked for humans to cats. I pointed out that at least one of our cats hunts and kills small animals (I assume it's animal, could be bird) and eats that  raw. She pointed out that chickens raised to for human consumption have frequently been tampered with to make them bigger (we're not organic eaters here) and we don't know what that could do to the cats.

She's right: I don't know what that would do the cats. However, as the person who cleans the litterbox (although you'd think in a house of five adults I wouldn't be the only  one) I kept an eye on their stool to see if anything was wrong. Their behavior didn't change, their stool has been normal--but now I'm concerned. Did I do something wrong? (And yes, the meat was unseasoned.)

I don't know what AWM means but no you weren't wrong. It's completely fine to give cats unseasoned meat as a treat as long as it doesn't make up more than 15% of the cats' diet. 
(Someone correct me if 15 is the wrong number)

Tallyollyopia said:

AWM was horrified. She said that it's not good to give raw chicken breast earmarked for humans to cats. I pointed out that at least one of our cats hunts and kills small animals (I assume it's animal, could be bird) and eats that  raw. She pointed out that chickens raised to for human consumption have frequently been tampered with to make them bigger (we're not organic eaters here) and we don't know what that could do to the cats.

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I don't really understand what she is worried about. Does she think the meat used in commercial processed pet foods is organic or in some other way raised in a special manner for use in pet foods??? The ingredients used in pet foods is for the most part lefts overs from human food production. There is nothing special about it.

There is an entire sub-forum here at TCS dedicated to feeding raw meats to cats.  A lot of people just use regular, non-organic, grocery store meats. I'm one of them. I've been feeding a home-made raw diet to my cats for over 7 years without any problems. 

Heh, no, not wrong at all!  Perfectly fine thing to do if the cats enjoy it.  (I've tried it with mine and not had any takers between the two of them.)

Now, she's not wrong that chickens have been "tampered with" to make them bigger, but this is mainly as a result of breeding and not anything fed to them while they are living.  The big problem with this is not so much what it does when we consume it but whether it is inhumane treatment of the chickens for them to be so big that they can't walk and so forth.

There can be some types of hormones or antibiotics used in chicken production, which maybe aren't allowed to be used in organic chicken.  But this will also be true of most chicken put into pet food because the chicken all comes from the same place.  Yes, most pet food will be cooked, but that only kills any bacteria or such.  The cooking doesn't change any effects from how the chicken was fed.

The main thing to be worried about in giving cats raw chicken is the same thing is when you are handling it:  surface contamination of bacteria like salmonella and HUMANS being infected.  The interesting thing is that even though you give raw chicken to your cat, the bigger harm is to yourself in handling the chicken.  Even if the chicken were contaminated, cats very rarely show any significant effects from salmonella.  So, as usual, you just want to thoroughly wash all the tools, bowls, your hands, anything the chicken touched or dripped on.  But that's it.

All right, after extensive interrogation, I finally pinned AWM down on why this upset her. I don't know how much any of you know about dogs, but there are times, occasionally, when being given raw meat can change a dog's temperment. We had one; she had been a sweet and affectionate darling and, almost overnight, turned into a slathering monster that attacked everything--animal, plant, and human--that went into the backyard. She was afraid that the same thing might happen with the cats, and I brought up your post, mschauer, and pointed out that there are perfectly valid cat diets that include raw meat. She was much relieved, and I think I won't get the same reaction the next time something like this happens.