When cooking you should keep your bird in its cage for its own safety. I think there is a thread here somewhere on a bird who was badly burned by flying into a pot of boiling water
Is is possible for you to just put some of the same food you eat into a separate container either on the table with you or in its cage? I know a cockatiel is not very big and so not as annoying as a maybe a bigger bird at the dinner table, but if it was to walk over your dinner or the guests dinner and poo in it that would not be very nice
I do allow my birds to eat with us sometimes but I put Skyes dinner in a different plate to mine and she just sits on my hand while it is resting on the table and eats from her bowl. when she starts to wander about and checking out the other plates then I put her in her cage with her dinner as she is a big bird and we do not want her walking over our food and going to the toilet in it. But mostly when we eat at dinner time she knows she gets her bowl of our dinner in her cage too and she lets me know if I forget her.
It is not cruel to do these things because it is for the safety of our birds as well as our own personal health and well being also sometimes our dinner can be hot on our plates too and if the bird walks through it they could burn their little feet.
My birds do eat a bit of cooked meat like chicken and beef or even a cooked sausage, but never raw, it needs to be very well cooked.
Oh I do keep heart, tripe, liver etc in the fridge from time to time. The heart and tripe are for the dogs they love it as a training treat and we eat the liver cooked with fried eggs and toast (yuuuummy).
