I've been feeding 50% raw food to my cats for about 2 years now. Their coats are gorgeous, i have no obesity problems (and I have a cat who was overweight when we started).

I feed my cats whole ground chicken with a concentration of heart and liver. The only thing they never get are the thighs (which I eat) It really makes me feel good to know that they are eating food that I would eat, after the melamine scare, I have a thing about that.
Meanwhile, I am also feeding them some dry cat food, it's made locally and i always add water to it before I feed it to them.

It's a pain in the butt to grind the meat up, but so is doing laundry, etc, etc.. it's just another chore that i do.