The BEST Bird Food -"We Have A Passion For Birds!" -For people who want to understand "how" nutrition works!

Foods such as potatoes, yams, rice, corn, wheat and other grains as well as legumes such as peas, lentils and beans contain multi-unit carbohydrate complex polysaccharides known as starch and glycogen. These are termed “storage polysaccharides” because they are stored in the liver and slowly metabolize into the blood as useable sugars as the body needs them for energy reserves. However, if the body is over-supplied with these sugars, and cannot utilize the stored energy fast enough, the sugar turns into fat and is deposited in various places within the body, often within the liver itself.

As stated above, the accumulation and decomposition of glycogen in the liver of humans and higher animals is a means of controlling the glycogen level in the blood which in turn is used for energy. But what about an animal who’s body is not designed to make use of starches?  Where does the starch and glycogen go?

We must take a long and hard look at what our exotic companion birds would consume in their natural habitats, and corn, wheat, rice and many other grains, vegetables and legumes that contain starch are not normally found in their native lands. If those foodstuffs are now there, they are there only because humans have invaded those lands and planted crops, as a result the wild birds are now consuming those foods because their natural foods are beginning to disappear, in other words they are consuming those foods out of sheer survival because this invasion of planted crops is causing the natural food stuffs to face possible extermination.

The berries and other fruits, seed and nuts our companion birds would normally consume in their native lands, by and large, do not contain complex polysaccharides like glycogen and starch, which are not only classified as a carbohydrate, but also a sub-class of carbohydrates known as “cellulose”. Birds would normally consume foodstuffs that are mostly multi-unit simple, or “neutral” essential monosaccharides and disaccharides, those that contain fructose and sucrose, not starches. Birds need quick and abundant energy that starches do not provide.

Our exotic birds have very fast and high metabolisms, you can verify this simply by noticing how fast the heart of an exotic bird beats. For this reason birds need reliable and quick energy. They receive most of their energy from “good fat” mainly from seed and nuts (medium-chain fatty acids from plant sources), and then from the simple sugars they consume in the fruit and berries they eat. All of these foods are sources that are digested fairly quickly, then absorbed and metabolized into the metabolic system literally within minutes allowing a bird to take to flight immediately. If they were to consume foods that required long periods of time to fully metabolize they would be grounded for extended periods of time and they would also be much bulkier creatures, probably unable to fly long distances.

It’s important to understand that our exotic birds don’t store energy for long periods of time like many other animals do, they are not of the “mammal” species, they are of the class of “aves”, a class all its own. It’s also important to remember that parrots, specifically, do not have that one little organ known as the “cecum” that helps to digest complex polysaccharides in the form of cellulose known as starch, as well as hemicelluloses found in many vegetables. For these two reasons we need to begin shifting our ideology surrounding feeding our birds what we think is a “well-rounded” diet, based on what a good diet would be for humans, and begin thinking what a “well-rounded” diet would be for, well, a parrot.

This post you are reading right now came about as a result of a recent discussion in our corresponding “community group” on Facebook, “BirD-elicious! Feeding Feathers of Parrots & Birds with Food & Toys” in which one of the members asked why I am such a proponent of feeding certain fruits that are much higher in sugar content than I am of feeding carrots that are actually lower in sugar content, when my reasoning for not feeding carrots is because of their high sugar content. Well, I didn’t explain my reasoning very well to begin with which is obviously a mistake and oversight on my part.

Some of the “sugar” in carrots, let’s call it “carbohydrate”, because that’s what sugar is, is made up of “starch” the multi-unit carbohydrate complex polysaccharide mentioned above. This is basically an almost indigestible, un-useable kind of carbohydrate for a parrot because the parrot doesn’t have a cecum to extract the multi-unit carbohydrates from the cellulose in starch, some of the “kind” of sugar contained in carrots. Unfortunately the un-useable starch doesn’t get stored as useable energy, it ends up getting stored in the liver where it begins to form “fat”, and henceforth fatty liver disease can ensue. Most fruits, not all, but most, consist of nulti-unit, simple, “neutral” essential monosaccharides and disaccharides that are easily converted to useable energy and do not sit in the metabolic system waiting to be converted down to a single unit carbohydrate.

Feeding an excess of food stuffs high in complex polysaccharides could be one of the reasons we are beginning to witness obesity in our exotic companion birds. With increased “domestication” and the sedentary lifestyle it naturally brings upon their lives, combined with the slow metabolism of so many starchy foods in their diet, it is no wonder so many birds are not only fighting the battle of the bulge, but also beginning to experience avian diabetes as well.  The ability to break down starch depends on the number of “amylase genes” in the DNA of any given living creature. For example the human DNA contains a higher number of amylase genes than the chimpanzee does. Human saliva is rich with the amylase enzyme allowing starch to begin metabolizing before it ever reaches the upper digestive tract. However the parrot’s mouth is dry and does not contain a significant measurable amount of amylase. It is not until the small intestine that starch comes into contact with a minimal amount of amylase and then the liver and pancreas after that. The pancreas, the main insulin regulator, is left to perform the metabolizing of starch in a parrot’s diet, with no quantitative help from the main digestive organs. This enzyme “amylase”  must take care of the breaking down of the starch and often this overtaxes the endocrine system in parrots because as previously mentioned, parrots are not genetically designed to digest and metabolize large quantities of starch. In fact elevations of amylase have been associated with “acute pancreatitis”. (ref: 1) But unfortunately in our human way of thinking we are adding a lot of starch to their daily diets thinking we are creating a well-rounded diet for them by quantitative variety when all we are doing is adding a long list of different starches.

If you take away nothing else from this post please understand that our companion birds’ digestive and metabolic systems, even though they are forced by domestication to be more sedentary than wild birds, and even though their metabolism still operates at a very fast rate, are not designed to digest and metabolize foods that are designed by Nature to process slowly through the digestive system. These two factors alone should tell us that we must try our very best to mimic the kind of nutrients they would consume in their natural habitats from vitamins and minerals to amino acids as well as fatty acids and carbohydrates, including the type of dietary fiber in the class of carbohydrates.

Having said all of this, and hopefully explaining why individual foods that contain starches should be greatly reduced and limited in our exotic birds’ diets, understanding that most of the food stuffs they would most likely consume in the wild only contain a very minimal amount of starch, with the exception of maybe a couple of isolated foods, how do we begin to shift our thinking regarding the diets of our companion birds’ and still be sure to feed a “well-rounded” diet? We must take that long, hard look at their natural habitat and attempt to mimic the vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids and carbohydrates. No, we cannot supply the same exact food stuffs, but we can mimic them. We know that common vegetables, legumes, and most grains do not naturally grow in the wild in our birds’ native lands. So we must look deep into the nutrients contained in the food stuffs that do grow in our birds’ native lands and find foods here in our land that are similar, but do not contain those hard to digest starches. We must supply the good fats through limited seed and nuts and high quality dietary oils and we must provide organic tropical berries and fruits. Finally, but not least on the list, tender young grasses and herbs that do not contain tough fibers are absolutely essential in providing necessary nutrients like balanced amino acids as well as fatty acids and even beta-carotene the precursor to vitamin A. All of these ingredients are those that are going to supply a vast array of nutrients in the form of reliable, but quick energy, to our birds without weighing them down with hard to digest long-chain fats or starches that tend to move slowly through the digestive tract.

1) http://www.elsevierhealth.co.uk/media/us/samplechapters/9780702028748/Chapter%2004.pdf

If you would like to become a part of our Facebook community group, contact me, Machelle, at https://www.facebook.com/machellecartier with a Private Message letting me know that you would like to become a member of our Private Group “BirD-elicious! Feeding Feathers of Parrots & Birds with Food & Toys!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sign up to our blog so you will be sure to receive more educational articles like this one! Just return to our home page at http://TheBestBirdFood.com and click on “Sign Me UP” in the upper right hand corner of the blog!

Be sure to visit our “forum” on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Parrots-The-BEST-Bird-Food/169623509768097

Machelle Pacion / The BEST Bird Food / BirD-elicious! / Passion Tree House LLC © 2012 All Rights Reserved

*Information supplied by The BEST Bird Food or any of its contributors, associates, et al, does not intend to diagnose, treat or cure any symptom, illness or disease. Any information provided is strictly for the purpose of “sharing” resources. Should a reader decide to use any such information they do so at their own risk and holds author(s) and associates, et al, of The BEST Bird Food blog harmless in any and all legal matters concerning their health and the health of their family and/or friends and/or colleagues who they may share the information with as well as all of their pets and/or livestock whom they may practice the information upon.