Dietary Oils: A Multi-Part Series – Palm Fruit Oil
June 14, 2011 § 4 Comments
There are many kinds of oils our birds should have in their weekly diet. And each of the oils we will be discussing has their own special and unique health benefit to add to a living body.
Let’s begin with the more commonly known oil to the parrot community, palm oil or palm fruit oil. This oil is orange to orange/red in color and is derived from the fruit of the palm fruit, not the kernel. It is dense, rich in carotenoids, the stuff that gives it rich color. Palm fruit oil contains about equal parts of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. The unsaturated fatty acid is about 38% oleic acid and 11% linoleic acid. Therefore palm oil cannot be “technically” classified purely a “saturated” oil or purely as an “unsaturated” oil because it is equally both. The fatty acid derived from palm fruit oil is commonly known as Palmitic acid.
Palmitic acid, however, is generally classified as a major saturated fatty acid because of its density and the rich flavor it has. But it gives very little affect to any rise in blood level lipids and lipoproteins. It fails to impact plasma lipids when total fat intake is within recommended levels. This is a very important factor to remember because so many people are fearful in feeding oils to their birds for the very reason of raising the “fat content” in their bird’s diet, thus causing a high cholesterol blood panel. This is virtually an untrue effect when feeding palm oil to your feathered friend if you are feeding oils in moderation. Even if you are feeding a little more than what is considered “moderate” it is difficult to overuse, read on and you’ll learn why. Pay close attention to how these fatty acids interact with blood, arteries and cholesterol .
Fatty acids are responsible for moving oxygen through the body. They also aid in cell membrane development, and they are necessary for strong organs. Fatty acids rebuild tissue keeping the skin healthy, hydrated and supple. One of the main functions of fatty acids is to actually rid the arteries of cholesterol build up. They also assist the adrenal and thyroid glands regulating weight.
Oleic acid is an odorless and colorless monounsaturated omega-9 fatty acid and is responsible for protecting the brain and adrenal glands as well as regulating blood pressure.
Linoleic acid is a polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acid necessary for proper skin and feather health.
In addition, because of the carotenoids, palm fruit oil is a rich source of natural vitamin A. So many birds are deficient in this vitamin and are in need of supplementation. But I am a strong supporter of natural supplements, not laboratory-produced, synthetic vitamins that are found in highly processed diets. There is still no concrete proof that organic living creatures can appropriately digest, absorb and fully metabolize laboratory produced, synthetic vitamins. It’s always best to use what Nature supplies as the organic means of basic nutrition. And Nature has provided a wide array of natural nutrients, why not use them? –Vitamin A is an antioxidant and it is responsible for good skin, proper feather growth and replacement, bone health, eyesight, a healthy respiratory system, healthy, moist mucous membranes, and it may affect overall energy as well as support the thyroid and assist with diabetes related problems.
Palm fruit oil also contains Vitamin E and is an antioxidant responsible for skin health especially body tissue and blood cell growth and repair. It also helps to defend the immune system. Palm fruit oil contains both the tocopherols and the tocotrienols by virtue of the presence of Vitamin E. Palm fruit oil is one of the richest natural sources of tocotrienols.
Tocopherols contain anti-inflammatory properties, thus help the skin heal faster when bruised or wounded. One of the side benefits of tocopherols are their antioxidant properties as a natural spoilage retardant. This is good to know because you can be sure that your palm fruit oil, although you will need to refrigerate it once opened, will have a long and lasting shelf life in your refrigerator.
Tocotrienols help prevent brain cell damage, prevent cancer, and reduce cholesterol, thus improving cardiovascular health. These functions are not performed by tocopherols, so it’s easy to see why Nature placed both tocopherols and tocotrienols side-by-side in the same food, palm fruit, together they work miracles!
It is easy to see why palm fruit oil is so good for our birds. This should be a staple item in our bird’s health program, fed in moderation along with other oils we will soon be discussing on The BEST Bird Food blog. It’s absolutely imperative to know how to keep our birds healthy and vibrant! Palm fruit oil is only very small part of that plan. Palm fruit oil, when you can find a good, reliable source, can help resolve many problems you may be experiencing with your bird from dry skin, to feather problems, to mood disorders, to respiratory problems and even offer a fair amount of cardiovascular health benefits. It’s worth a try. Alone palm fruit oil may not solve all of your bird’s problems completely; however it may start eliminating some of the problems. But don’t expect miracles overnight; give a month or even three or four before you begin to see a real change.
Start out with just anywhere from just a pinch on the end of toothpick once a week for the very small Budgie, to a 32nd of a teaspoon for a Ringneck size bird once a week, to a 16th of teaspoon for an African Grey to Cockatoo sized parrot, or similar size, once a week, to an 8th of a teaspoon for the larger parrots like the Macaws once a week if you aren’t feeding any other oils. If you are feeding other oils, cut it back by just a couple times a month.
Some people will say that’s not enough, others will say it’s too much. Everyone has their preferences. I personally believe that these wonderful creatures need more oil in their lives than generally believed. Out in the wild they would naturally forage for items containing these oils to keep their skin and feathers well-oiled and also to give them the amount of energy their high metabolism calls for, which brings me to another very important point.
Do your birds receive the amount of exercise they need? This is a vital and necessary part of their daily lives. Just like a small child who begins to go “stir crazy” if they stay in the house all day and doesn’t receive a chance to run off their energy, our birds are the very same way. If they don’t get a chance to get out of their cages and exercise, play and flap their wings they are going to go “cage crazy” and begin to give you behavioral problems. If you are beginning to have “behavioral problems” with your bird, think about the amount of time you allow your bird out of its cage to play and interact with you, its favorite playmate!
*If at any time you begin to see black spots on your bird’s feathers, you may be feeding too much oil or fat to your bird, back off and consult your licensed avian veterinarian. You may need to have your bird’s blood lipid / lipoprotein panel checked and/or checked for fatty liver disease and/or place your bird on a liver detox regimen.(Or this may this may be a sign of “Iron Storage Disease”)
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© 2012 All Rights Reserved Machelle Pacion / The BEST Bird Food™ / BirD-elicious!™ / Passion Tree House LLC
*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.
Another Evil Ingredient-Cellulose (aka: Sawdust)
June 5, 2011 § 2 Comments
Just when you think you have it all figured out, just when you think, “Okay, I have a grip on the pesticides and the preservatives, I totally understand that I’m not supposed to feed processed foods to my beloved feathered friend, I get the fact that foods high in carbohydrates lack the nutrition my bird needs to stay healthy; I know not to feed these to my bird”, another evil ingredient comes along and you have to look even closer into the ingredient listing on the package-back of your pet’s favorite food. Sigh…when will it ever stop? Never.
As companies feel the belt tightening on their economical pocket book, and they will because of the World Trade Market, you are going to find that your pet’s food, as well as your own, is going to become less and less nutritious and more and more “bulky” all of the time. And this “bulk” is not going to be packed full of nutrition, it’s simply going to be placed in the food-like product to make you and your pet simply feel fuller as the food enters the digestive system and plops down into your gut.
All of this makes for a body that becomes fatter and fatter and fatter, looking like it is over-consuming food, when, in fact it may very well be under-nourished because the “food” going into the body is only empty bulk, no nutrition.
At one time we had to worry about food that was packed with carbohydrates like wheat, corn and rice. We learned that those ingredients, even though the manufacturers touted they were “wholesome and full of nutrition”, when it came right down to it, no, they were not as nutritious as the food manufacturers claimed them to be. Those ingredients just filled the product up, extended it with bulk so the manufacturer could sell the product at a high price and make a large profit. Now, even these ingredients are becoming too expensive on the World Trade Market for manufacturers to use in their highly-processed foods, so they are turning to less expensive ingredients that can’t even be classified as a “food”, but can still be classified as “an organic substance” by the FDA.
Ingredients such as corn, wheat and soy that manufacturers once touted as “highly nutritious”, simply for their profit-driven motives of selling their foods to the non-suspecting public at prices that didn’t equal the actual nutrition their foods lacked, now are being replaced with even less nutritious ingredients and they are being touted as “fat-free!” And it hasn’t stopped the prices of all of these foods from climbing even higher!
What will you see as the bulk of the nutrition on the package backs? Even more forms of laboratory-produced chemical vitamins at the end of the ingredient list on the package-back.
First of all we had to watch labels and make sure the empty, simple carbohydrates mentioned above were not listed in the first few ingredients, then we realized that the pesticides and preservatives were probably even more dangerous than the carbohydrates. Because we realized we had to worry about the pesticides and preservatives found in conventional ingredients we began moving to organic ingredients.
Later we learned that the highly processed foods weren’t good for our pets either, that our pets need whole foods; raw foods their digestive tracts have to break down and utilize what they are intended to be used for in order to stimulate their digestive juices and get all of the body’s systems “ticking” like Nature intends.
Ahhh…this has been one learning curve after another, hasn’t it?
Now comes along this new menace. What is it? Who has introduced it? And what do we do about it?
It’s called “cellulose”? It’s nothing new. You see it everywhere and you’ve been using it for years, probably without even knowing it. Sometimes cellulose is nothing but a harmless vegetable-derived ingredient. But if it is derived from a vegetable the manufacturer will most likely be state that on the label because they are proud about that fact. But another word for it is “sawdust” and when this form of cellulose is used the manufacturer does not disclose this information because they are not proud about this fact, they are using it simply to bulk up the product to make a quick buck off their customers. Even if the package label states “plant” derived, we still have to wonder because sawdust is derived from a plant. The label must be clearly marked as “vegetable-derived” in order to be sure the cellulose is not actually sawdust.
You would normally see this being used in products like glue, plastics, pet litter, brake pads, asphalt, emulsion paints and a list of other inedible items. Then food manufacturers began adding it to gum to make it thicker so it would last longer for the avid gum-chewer. Then they found if they added it to food it would actually mimic fat and make people feel like they were getting that warm-fuzzy feeling after consuming fat, when in fact they were eating no fat at all. They began adding it to meats and eventually adding it to foods, especially weight-loss foods. Hmmm…
It’s being used WIDELY in human and animal foods to “bulk up” or “extend” processed foods without adding fat content. And the FDA allows it because it’s an “organic” substance.
And here we go again, if the manufacturer of your pet’s food doesn’t add it directly at the plant where your pet’s food is made, if the cellulose is added to an ingredient that the manufacturer orders outside of their own manufacturing plant, and then has that ingredient shipped to their plant and then adds the ingredient containing the cellulose to the processed food, alas your manufacturer isn’t legally required to disclose the cellulose on the package ingredient list!
So you, your infant (in baby formula), your dog, cat, bird or any other pet you have may be consuming it right now without you even knowing it! Even if you are feeding raw meat to your dog or cat, you might want to check out your source, it may be an additive to any ground meat you are feeding to your animal. A way to avoid this is to purchase a whole piece of meat and have it ground right in front of you. And remember the melamine scare? When we found it was being added to baby formula and animal food? It’s similar to that.
I’m concerned about this “cellulose” and what it might be doing to our digestive tract as well as our pet’s “innards”. I personally don’t believe that cellulose, commonly known as “sawdust” is digestible. What if it just sits there in the gut and doesn’t go anywhere? Could this be one of the reasons people seem to actually gain weight when they eat weight-loss foods? Could this be one of the reasons our animals are gaining weight when they consume these processed foods, even when we follow the manufacturer’s directions on the amount to feed according to age and weight of our pet? I think it well could be.
At any rate, in the case of human food we are finding cellulose in foods ranging from meats to fast foods, to weight-loss foods, “high-fiber” foods, to milk shakes, to frozen breakfast foods, to French fries and tator tots, to crackers, breads, muffins, pizza dough, and pancakes, the list is almost endless. If this is true, and it is, what are we to think about “animal foods”? We know there is less control and supervision over animal food.
Yes, we have another evil monster to be on the lookout for. We have to realize there is no way to stop this. The FDA isn’t going to be our police, we HAVE to be. It’s up to each of us, individually to watch what we consume and what our pets consume. And it’s going to become more and more difficult as food prices increase. Just last week I heard on the news that food prices are expected to double in the next 20 years. Now that may not sound like a big deal, but when you break it down in more realistic terms such as “$100.00 worth of groceries today will cost $200.00 by the time you are 20 years older”, then it really means something. Will you be 20 years richer or 20 years poorer by then? When you think in terms that the wage index has remained flat for the last decade, meaning that wages haven’t increased to match the cost of living, then this is pretty scary stuff. Well, the food manufacturers are realizing this and they are preparing for it now by adding “bulk” and “extenders” to their foods now. And it’s going to get worse in years ahead. Clearly all of us have to set our priorities and decide where our hard-earned money is going to go, our luxuries, or our health? For me and my pets it’s no question, I have chosen organic, pesticide-free and preservative-free since the early 90’s and I try my best to avoid processed foods. I will continue to do so for as long as I can. As a result I have very few doctor and veterinary bills. What I spend on the front end, I save on the back end. And I save myself and my pets a lot of worry and heartache to boot. To me that’s worth every dime.
Here’s a link if you would like to read more about cellulose being used in foods:
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11012915/2/cellulose-wood-pulp-never-tasted-so-good.html
If you are still wondering if there is any validation to this post, I found a website of a paper and pulp manufacturer that actually produces FDA approved “pulp” for use as a food filler. Here is there statement regarding their pulp food filler:
“Southern Bleached Hardwood Kraft (SBHK)
High brightness mixed hardwood kraft pulp is manufactured at XXXXX Paper’s Riegelwood, NC, Eastover, SC, and Saillat, France mills. These pulps are well-suited for use in a variety of printing and writing, tissue, and specialty grades of paper. They are FDA approved for food contact and food filler.“
If that isn’t enough proof that “sawdust”, “wood” and “pulp” is being used in our food, and most likely in our pet’s food, I don’t know what is. It is being openly and freely advertised on manufacturer’s websites as a viable FDA approved filler for food products! Scary stuff!
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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.
Organic VS Conventional
February 23, 2011 § Leave a Comment
What does this mean?
I find in speaking with individuals abut organic foods that most people just don’t really understand the difference between truly organically produced foods and conventionally produced foods, and that’s why people don’t think it’s all that important to buy organic foods. Once a person really understands the difference, they almost always choose organically produced foods.
No doubt, I am a strong advocate of organically produced foods. But I’m not a strong advocate of the “Certified Organic” label. Once again, with the label, bureaucracy is attempting to sneak its way back into our lives and in doing so the prices of our luscious and pure foods are climbing sky high. If you will go the distance and shop your local farmers markets, most of the time you can find fruits and vegetables that have been grown organically. They may not have gone under the rigorous tests that allow them to be legally labeled “Certified Organic”, but they are organic just the same if they have been grown without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Knowing the farmer and his or her product requires developing a long and lasting relationship, and possibly getting to know their other customers as well, but its well worth your time and effort.
Just what is the difference between organically and conventionally grown products? That’s what we will be attempting to explore and answer in this particular article.
Organically grown is a term we would have never run across years ago. Not long ago, the majority of us would be consuming fruits and vegetable without even giving a thought to the chemical fertilizers to make our foods grow larger than life and prevent our foods from being taken over by insects. In fact, all of us thought those two things were a pretty innovative idea! Wow, we could have fresh fruits and vegetables year round without the worry of spoilage or infestations of pests! What a new and wonderful idea. And this meant that prices would be lower across the board for all of our produce as well. The American people literally ate this idea up with enthusiasm. Again, “organically grown” was a term that virtually didn’t exist among the savvy and hip American middle class even fifty years ago.
Today, “organically grown” is developing a new standard by which most people who are concerned about the amount of possible carcinogens we are exposed to each and every day of our lives desire to live by. Those of us who are truly concerned about the amount of possible carcinogens that goes into our bodies, through various delivery methods, foods, the air we breathe, the water we drink and bathe in, the creams and lotions we apply to our skin, the medical procedures our bodies undergo, and more, want some amount of control, and we are controlling those methods first beginning with the food we eat, the first line of defense against aging and disease.
100% Organic – “Organically grown” means that a product, or the base product, such as corn, wheat, rice, etc., in a boxed product, was grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides used on it, and that the ground it was grown in has to be free of chemicals for a period of at least 7 years. This product may use the USDA Certified Organic seal after meeting all of the legal requirements and filling out all of the tedious applications and passing all of the tests, and paying all of the applicable fees.
Organic – This product only has to have 95% organically produced ingredients in the total package. But it must meet the same requirements as the 100% organic foods. “Organically grown” means that a product, or the base product, such as corn, wheat, rice, etc., in a boxed product, was grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides used on it, and that the ground it was grown in has to be free of chemicals for a period of at least 7 years. This product may use the USDA Certified Organic seal after meeting all of the legal requirements and filling out all of the tedious applications and passing all of the tests, and paying all of the applicable fees.
Made With Organic Ingredients – This product must contain at least 70% organically produced ingredients and may contain up to 30% non-organic ingredients. The USDA seal may not be used, but the package may be marked as “Made with Organic Ingredients”. **When we were producing our bird foods, this is the label we used. However, that being said, over 95%, close to 100% of our ingredients were actually certified organic. But because we didn’t have our foods tested, because of the high cost and bureaucracy involved, we could not label our foods “Certified Organic” or “Organic”. But we were using ingredients that were labeled as such and actually came to us with the certification labels. This is where the bureaucratic water gets really, really murky. It’s like double certification, and those costs get passed down to the consumer. We didn’t think that was fair, so we didn’t go to the expense of having our bird foods “double-certified” so we decided to go with the “Made with Organic Ingredients” label and then educate our customers that our foods contained over 95% certified organic ingredients.
“Transitional organically grown” means that a product or the base product in a boxed product has to be grown in ground that was free of chemicals for a period of at least 3 years. The USDA is no longer allowing this label to be used.
(Short Article by the USDA on Organic Labeling)
However, keeping all of this in mind, rules and regulations are more lax when it comes to manufacturing pets foods. The general premises are still held for “certified organic” and “organic”, but the enforcement of these rules and regulations are very lax. There are organizations a pet food manufacturer can choose to become a member of, but moreover it is not required, it’s more of a volunteer situation. Unless a pet food manufacturer is a huge corporation with sales that span the entire country and even International sales, many small pet food manufacturers just don’t see it as absolutely necessary to become accountable to yet another bureaucratic agency if they feel they are reliable and accountable in, of and unto themselves.
The (loosely) governing agencies for pet foods are FDA (Federal Food and Drug Administration), USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), FTC (Federal Trade Commission), AAFCO (Association Of American Feed Control Officials, Inc.), APPA (American Pet Products Association), AFIA (American Feed Industry Association-doesn’t really regulate pet foods, but represents the business, legislative and regulatory interests of the U.S. animal feed industry and its suppliers). In addition, each State has its own controls and regulations.
Conventionally produced fruits and vegetables are a no-holds barred pesticide-ridden, grown big and fast with chemical fertilizer, made to look shiny and tempting-to-eat colorful pieces of wax-coated dinner table center-pieces. In reality, when we take a bite into one of these tempting faux pieces of produce, we are left disappointed in a tasteless state of delusion. And the reasons behind this are the…chemical fertilizers and the pesticides that have seeped into the meat of the product. Chemicals, in my opinion, leach out and cover up the real taste of the individual piece of produce.
When a person compares the sheer difference in taste between the organically grown pieces of produce to a conventionally grown piece, the burst of flavor you get with the organically grown is the obvious difference experienced. A conventional piece of produce may look better, but only because of the potential carcinogenic chemical fertilizers and pesticides and waxy substance to make it shine and keep the pests away. But take one bite and you will know the difference. There is no comparison in taste. And the thought of eating a piece of produce free of potential carcinogens gives you peace of mind too. That in itself is enough reason to eat nothing but organic produce.
There is much controversy about just how much nutrition chemical fertilizers and pesticides actually strip out of the produce too. While chemical companies will tell you that using chemical fertilizers add to the nutrition of the produce, scientists are still at odds about this. And even if the chemical fertilizers do add to the nutrition of the produce, how much of the “chemical” nutrition does a living body actually absorb? How much of a chemical nutritive is bio-available to a living body?
So just how does this affect a parrot? Birds have a much more delicate system than humans do. And you will see how the conventionally grown produce affects their systems faster than you will see how it affects humans. You will see it in feather health, skin health, allergies, and behavior problems. Does your bird scratch a lot? Does it pull its feathers out? Does it mutilate its skin? Does it scream incessantly? Or, is it apathetic? All of these symptoms could be the result of chemicals in the food you are feeding.
And don’t think just because you are feeding a food that says it is “certified organic” that you are doing the right thing for your bird. There’s even more to this story.
All of the base ingredients of the food you are feeding could very well be certified organic, but if during the processing of the food the manufacturer is adding other ingredients, such as preservatives or laboratory-produced synthetic vitamins or food colorings, then you might be right back to the same problem you thought you were getting away from by feeding a food that is labeled certified organic in the first place. And it is perfectly legal for a manufacturer to add these ingredients to their products and the product still be “certified organic” because organic only covers the way a product is grown, whether it is grown with or without chemical fertilizers and/or pesticides, not what is added to the product during the manufacturing process.
When a manufacturer processes their foods so highly that the base ingredients are nothing more than a “mash”, and then they have to highly pressurize the mash so that it sticks together, this literally removes almost all of the real nutrition out of the food. In order to get nutrition back into the food the manufacturer has to add laboratory-produced vitamins back into the food. In addition, usually chemical preservatives are added to the food as well.
We all know how chemical preservatives can harm us as humans. We have read about them, we have heard about them. And MSG is found in virtually everything we eat, even maltodextrin. Maltodextrin is commonly used as filler and a “binder”, something to “glue” other substances together. So even if a brand name manufacturer says, “We don’t add MSG to our foods”, that may well be true, that they don’t actually add MSG to their foods because it is already in the maltodextrin their “outsourcing manufacturer” has in their stock products. In other words, the MSG has been added to the maltodextrin by the manufacturer of the maltodextrin before the “outsourcing manufacturer” of the bird food has received the MSG so the brand name manufacturer of your bird’s food is perfectly legal in saying that they don’t add MSG to their bird food! Do you see the slippery lie? And yes, the FDA allows any brand name manufacturer of any product to get away with this lie! And there are a number of preservatives that is used in foods today, under many names that you would never think of as being a “preservative”. “Natural flavorings” is just one ingredient that carries with it the connotation that MSG is probably present in the food.
(Link to list of commonly used names of preservatives hidden in food.)
So between the chemical preservatives and the laboratory-produced vitamins, you are right back to where you started in feeding “certified organic” bird food to your bird when you are feeding highly processed foods. This is why I am a hard and fast advocate of whole-food nutrition for parrots and other companion birds. If at all possible I believe foods should be cut in larger chunks and fed in pieces that are as recognizable as the food they are whenever possible. Obviously this is not always possible, but when it is, this is the best method to use.
Digestive tracts are meant to be used. When they are used, digestive enzymes are stimulated and the entire digestive system is put at work the way it was meant to be used. When whole foods are fed, natural vitamins are available in a bio-available means and no artificial vitamins need to be fed in most cases if a bird is a normally healthy bird. The key to feeding a whole-food diet is variety. A person has to do a considerable amount of research to understand what nutrients are contained in each independent food and which foods to feed to make sure a wide variety of nutrients are being received by your bird. A person also needs to have a general understanding of “food combination” and how one food plays with and against another in the gut. As with all foods, you may think that you are feeding enough of one food to supply one vitamin or mineral, only to find out that by feeding another you are canceling out a portion of another so you are left needing to feeding even more of the one you are canceling out. Nutrition can be a tricky game so you really need to understand what you are doing if you are feeding only a small number of ingredients. But if you are feeding a large number of ingredients, then the likelihood of malnutrition declines with each additional ingredient, or food, you add to your bird’s diet. So “the more the merrier” is the statement to live by in the case of feeding a whole-food diet to your bird! And always attempting to feed organic
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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.
Whole Food Nutrition VS Processed Foods
February 2, 2011 § Leave a Comment
We often hear from various sources that we should be eating whole, fresh foods, not highly processed foods. Do we really know what that means? Do we know the difference between whole foods and processed foods?
Ask our children where meat comes from and many of them will answer, “The grocery store”. I find this comically sad. Our children think meat comes in a cellophane wrapped package. They never give any thought about the animal that gave its life for us to have that delicious, juicy hamburger or thick slab of steak. It couldn’t be farther from our childrens’ minds that meat actually comes from a real, living creature.
Then how about those vegetables? Offer your child a bright green or red vegetable and they may very well look at you like you have two heads! If you don’t offer vegetables covered up and disguised in a heavy sauce or blended beyond recognition, then your family will not even think about scooping them into their mouths.
But offer your family something that is easily prepared, right out of the box; they immediately think “Food, yummy, it’s time to eat!” And soon they are scarfing down something that has a little amount of color, texture that mimics meat, gooey-like cheese, and fillers that make them feel full. Often, when you read the ingredients, just a couple of ingredients down the list you don’t even recognize the words. And even after the first couple of ingredients, you are left wondering just how healthy those ingredients really are.
All of this is no less true for our parrots’ food.
Parrots don’t eat highly processed foods in the Wild. Nature has supplied a vast array of healthy whole food options from which to choose from. Just think about it, grasses, berries, seeds, nuts, bugs, dirt, tree leaves, bark, bushes, the variety of foods is almost endless. And it should be nothing less in their captive environment.
Their digestive systems were not structured to consume, absorb and utilize laboratory developed, machine-ground, hydraulic-pressed, oven-heated “foodstuffs” and synthetic vitamins. And considering that parrots are not yet considered to be truly domesticated animals by any traditional standards, then we really need to take into consideration what their delicate biological systems need not only to survive, but to enthusiastically thrive in their relatively new environments. Yes, even those parrots that have been born in captivity, they still have the instincts of the Wild in their basic DNA because they are not that far removed from their ancestor’s generation of living as totally wild and free creatures. This transition from their ancestors living in the Wild, to the neo-pet parrot, needs to make a slow conversion in order to maintain health and vitality. This needs to be done, first and foremost through a healthy, whole food, organic diet. We cannot expect a wild creature to be plunked into our lifestyle, where we, as humans, have had years and years to adapt to an existence of consuming highly processed, cardboard-like foodstuffs, and expect these wild creatures to thrive on the same type of a poor excuse of what we lamely call “food”.
It’s plain and simple, a fresh, whole food, organic diet is best for our companion parrot. Finely ground and highly processed ingredients, pressed together, often under high heat (but not always), especially when the majority of ingredients used are questionable, with laboratory-produced synthetic vitamins added to make up the difference for the lack of real nutrition, just don’t offer the nutritional value our companion parrots deserve.
Let’s take a look at how highly processed foodstuffs are manufactured. Most of the time when you purchase your bird’s food from your brand name company, you are not purchasing from the actual manufacturer. Your brand name company contracts with a mass manufacturer to produce the food for them. And that’s okay as long as the mass manufacturer is a reliable one. But so often the reason an outside mass manufacturer is chosen is because the mass manufacturer produces food for many, many other companies, not just your brand name company. The reason behind this is because it’s economical for your brand name company, because the same ingredients are used in all of the brands that are being produced at that particular mass manufacturing plant. In other words, the mass manufacturer is using the same finely ground (any product finely ground will allow for the nutrition to begin the leaching out of the nutrients, and for an ingredient that is already questionable in the amount of nutrients it has to offer, this is a grave concern) corn, rice, wheat, soy, hulled seeds (leaving the raw seed exposed allowing for the leaching out of delicate nutrition), and all of the other ingredients, as well as all of the same laboratory-produced synthetic vitamins for all of their customers.
The only thing different about your brand name company’s recipe and all of the other brand names produced at this mass manufacturer’s production plant is your brand’s recipe’s “order of ingredients”, or the “amount of each ingredient” going in to the formula and whether your brand name is using “organic” ingredients or “conventional” ingredients”, and your brand’s name. However, you must note, if both organic and conventional brands are produced at the same plant, there is no guarantee that some amount of conventional ingredients aren’t making their way into the organic formulas unless they have totally separate facilities for each.
Now let’s break this process down, step by step.
After grinding the ingredients down to a very fine powder, and adding other unknown “inert” ingredients that the FDA doesn’t require the manufacturer to list on the packaging because “inert” ingredients do not provide any nutritional advantage, they are usually “fillers, dyes, preservatives, and pest killers like food grade diatomaceous earth (DE)” and especially binders to make the product “stick” together, the product is then placed under high heat and pressed under high pressure to make it bind to itself, making those cut little kibble pieces your pet bird eats. Grinding to a fine powder, then pressing and heating literally causes all nutrition to be lost and this is why you see synthetic nutrition added back in to the product.
If the manufacturer states they don’t use heat, well, okay, that’s only one step they have eliminated in the process, but by grinding to a fine powder and then pressing the powders together under extremely high pressure in order to form a pellet or kibble still removes all of the nutrition. The result? They still have to add nutrition back in to the product if any real nutrition is to be present in the product. Otherwise your bird will need to consume a fairly large quantity of the kibble in order to receive any credible amount of nutrition. The end result for you? More money spent. The end result for your bird, obesity with malnutrition. The end result for the manufacturer? More money in their pocket.
Some manufacturer’s use the “extrusion” process where they run the moist product out through holes in tube-like fixtures. This method is just as bad, as if not worse than the high-pressure method because this method literally forces the mixture through the holes of the equipment.
Keep in mind too, that the equipment being used is usually metal equipment and is NOT stainless steel. This adds the element of metal toxicity to your bird’s food. Stainless steel equipment is VERY costly and most pet food manufacturers do not go to the cost of using it in their factories because they are not mandated by law to do so.
So here you have the same quality of ingredients used for all of the brands across the board. The only difference is the slight difference in recipe your brand name is using and whether it is “organic” or “conventional”. Unfortunately if the manufacturer is grinding all of the ingredients down to a fine powder, pressing them together or extruding them and then adding heat to the mixture, and finally coating them with synthetic nutrients, or worse not adding any nutrients back in to make up for the lost nutrients due to the manner in which the food was produce, your bird is consuming a very nutrient-poor “food”. Your bird will need to consume a larger amount of food to receive the amount of nutrients it needs to barely survive, never mind about “thriving”. The end result will be an obese bird that is malnourished leading to poor health that may end up with illnesses like avian diabetes, fatty liver disease, kidney failure, cardiovascular problems, and/or feather destruction or skin mutilation.
In addition, almost all of the major brands are using “fillers” as their major base ingredient. This is the ingredient you will find listed as the first ingredient in your parrot’s food. The “filler” is known as the ingredient used to “bulk up” the product in an economical and cheap way to increase the volume of the product. It is not normally the ingredient that gives any real nutrition to the product. It is there to “make the profit” for the company. The caveat to my statement would be this, if you find a food that lists its base ingredient as one of the “super green foods”, such as alfalfa, barley grass or wheat grass, go with that brand, and then you know you have a company who most likely believes in providing super nutrition through and through in their product.
Law requires that a company lists ingredients in the order of predominance by weight in the product. If there are two ingredients that are contained in the product in the exact same weight, they are listed in alphabetical order. For example, if corn is the main ingredient, it will be listed first. If wheat is the second heaviest ingredient, it will be listed second, and so on and so forth. For further example, in a pound of food, maybe there are 9 ounces of highly ground corn and 5 ounces of highly ground wheat, which would leave 2 ounces for other ingredients, for a total of 16 ounces, which may include highly ground seeds, nuts, herbs and last, laboratory-produced synthetic vitamins. Corn would be listed as the first ingredient and wheat would be listed as the second ingredient, so on and so forth. But you can quickly see that most of the “nutrition” is found in the synthetic vitamins in this particular formulation.
But what about whole food nutrition, what does it have to offer over highly processed foods? And just where does “highly processed” end and “whole-food” begin? How do we differentiate?
We know whole food by the way it looks. When we look at a piece of fruit, we can name it because it looks like a “pear” or “carrots” or some other kind of fruit or vegetable. Its original state-of-being has been basically untouched. But whole food doesn’t have to be totally “whole” to be considered whole. It can be slightly cut up and still be considered whole. We just can’t grind it beyond recognition, powder it and mash it, then mix it with preservatives, dry it out, re-shape it and place it in a box and still call it whole food. No, it doesn’t work that way. As long as you keep it basically recognizable, then you are still consuming whole food.
You can even dehydrate your fresh food and it is still considered whole food, just dehydrated. Dehydrated food was one of the first methods used to preserve food, and the safest way too. Dehydration is still used today and it actually maintains almost all of the original nutrition, even the natural enzymes and amino acids are maintained. In some cases dehydration actually increases the concentration of nutrition simply because it removes the moisture content.
Fresh, whole food contains its own enzymes that combine with a living creature’s enzymes. Highly processed foods don’t contain living enzymes, they are basically “dead” matter. Also, whole foods contain naturally occurring amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks to proteins. However, if the amino acids in your highly processed foods aren’t “naturally occurring”, in other words, if they are chemically introduced, or altered in any way, then they are considered “un-natural”. Many times amino acids are chemically altered into preservatives such as MSG or other kinds of preservatives.* For instance, let’s take two very important amino acids that must be included in a diet in order for a complete protein to be present, Arginine and Lysine. If the natural forms of these amino acids are present in a formulated food they would simply be listed as “Arginine” and “Lysine”. But if they are interjected in the food as their chemical alternatives they would be listed as “L-Arginine” and “L-Lysine”. In fact, if they occurred naturally in a food they wouldn’t be required to be listed at all. Why? Because the actual whole food would be listed instead! Not a chemical that was replacing the food.
All living creatures have digestive enzymes for a reason; they help to begin the digestive process. These enzymes, very basically, wake up the entire biological system when food enters the mouth. This is true for parrots as well. But think about it, if the “food” that enters our parrots’ mouth is already “pre-eaten”, or “processed”, then not much waking up has to be done. In other words, the body doesn’t have to work as intensely as it should. As a result, the entire physiological system becomes sluggish and in its own way, gradually begins to shut down. This is the slow onset of disease.
With whole-food nutrition, when food enters the mouth, the digestive enzymes come alive! Immediately the physiological body recognizes this fresh, whole food as something that needs to be “attacked” and broken down for the body to digest and consume and process into something the body can utilize for energy. In other words, the work isn’t already done, so the body realizes it has to do the work. Immediately the body goes to work and exercises its innate ability to do what it was designed to do, make energy out of raw materials. Every cell in the body is activated to do what it was designed to do, receive the nutrition from the food source introduced into the “gas tank”. The motor starts humming and every organ begins grinding and churning; the “food” doesn’t just pass through the system like it would if it were already pre-digested as in the case of highly processed food, the body actually has to do what it was designed to do, function. If whole foods are being fed there is no need for pre-biotics or pro-biotics unless a bird has been on an antibiotic which may have wiped out natural digestive enzymes and good digestive bacteria.
When we look at the difference between highly processed foods and whole foods in such a basic way, it really becomes easy to distinguish the best way to feed our parrots, as well as ourselves. A living creature is physiologically designed to operate, and function with vitality, on raw materials such as whole foods. Living creatures need the ongoing stimulation that comes with the progression that takes place in the natural digestive process in order to activate their living cells and organs so that the natural exercising of the body’s functions takes place, and normal, healthy well-being ensues.
*For your information, I have placed a link to an outside source regarding amino acids used as preservatives, primarily as MSG: http://www.msgtruth.org/ AND http://www.msgtruth.org/avoid.htm
BirD-elicious!™ Foods! Whole-Food Nutrition! Freshly Hand Made!
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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.
Parrot Nutrition 101
January 25, 2011 § 2 Comments
It would only make sense to begin with the basics of parrot nutrition as it applies to all parrots.
Any of us who have parrots in our lives already know that parrots who live in the Wild, the great outdoors from where they came consume all sorts of natural foodstuffs that we, as humans, would probably find sickening to our palate.
In the course of a normal day we might find any one of a number of species of parrots foraging through trees for nuts, bushes for seeds and flowers, the ground for bugs, worms and even dirt and all other places we are not aware of for many other types of foods that we wouldn’t even think of.
The research is still out on just how all of these foodstuffs, and the nutrients they contain, work within the specialized digestive system of each species to keep them buzzing in a healthy way. But they do. Somehow, in the Wild, these birds of the air remain strong and vibrant. By keeping their species so strong they multiply and reproduce to keep their species alive for us to look in awe and wonder with pure enjoyment.
But we have brought them inside our domain. We have taken them out of their environment. We are attempting to domesticate them. My discussion is not whether our attempt is “right” or “wrong”, my discussion is simply “how” to care for them now that we “have” taken them out of their natural environments.
It only makes sense that we begin with the basic of all basics, nutrition. It is health, after all, that is the sustenance, the life force, for all of us, which keep our hearts beating, and all of our organs functioning properly.
There is no way we can even begin to think we can imitate what any parrot would consume on any given day in their natural environment. It would be folly to think we could. But it is my belief that we can do so much better than to throw only highly processed foods in front of them each and every day, without adding fresh, whole foods, and think they can survive, let alone thrive.
Take a look at our own diets, for example. We constantly hear on the news, read in magazines, in doctor’s journals, hear from our own doctors, and many other highly respected sources that we, as a society need to get away from eating highly processed foods. Yet, we continue to eat them, why? Because consuming highly processed foods are easy. Not because they are good for us. We know processed foods aren’t good for us. We know it. Yet we continue to stuff them into our faces because we can. No one stops us. It’s our right! We have the right to kill ourselves if we want to! Yes, KILL ourselves with all of the mashed up, ground up, GMO-laden, preservative-kept, pesticide-hidden, nutritive-lacking, cardboard-tasting, nothingness. And we have taught our taste buds to actually accept and grow to “like” this stuff; that’s the satirical humor about all of this craziness. We have actually learned to like this empty nutrition!
Now we are teaching our pets to learn to like the same kind of processed foods that we have learned to like. Why? Because it is easy for us.
As pet caregivers, we have to stop and think about this cycle for a moment. We have to learn to respect the living body, not only ours, but we have to learn to respect our pets’ bodies as well. If we truly love our pets as much as we say we do, then it will show in how we treat them and how we care for them. It will show in their overall health and vitality. Anyone who comes into our house will be able to look at our pets and know just how much we love our pets simply by looking at them. If we truly love our pets their environment will be clean and well kept. This includes their cage and all of their perches, water bowls and toys. Their food will be fresh and clean as well. The word “nutrition” doesn’t only mean “what kind of food one is fed” in my book. “Nutrition” is the overall care one gives to the daily life of our pet. It also involves making sure that our pet receives daily attention and play time activity. Think about it, even you need these things in your life in order to thrive, not just survive. So how much more will our pets need these things, as well as our attention, in order to thrive and have a life full of joy and vitality? After all, they depend on us for everything.
But back to the kind of food a parrot needs to properly activate its digestive system and thrive. In the wild your parrot would be eating fresh foods, not highly processed, cardboard-looking, preservative and pesticide-laden, mashed together powders. These alien-looking things just aren’t found in the Wild. Instinctively, parrots would naturally go straight for leaves, fruits, nuts, seeds, bark, bugs, worms, dirt, flowers, berries, and the like. All of these natural, whole foods contain all of the nutrients such as the vitamins, amino acids, as well as the “good fats”, and all of the macro and micro nutrients they need to thrive with abundant vitality. Parrots also instinctively know what they need to heal themselves if they become ill. In the Wild there are many natural items that heal. Barks, flowers, dirt, and many other items contain substances that naturally heal without the use of laboratory-developed pharmaceuticals.
So how do we begin to mimic this kind of diet in our homes? Many of us don’t have the time to prepare fresh food each and every day for our parrots. We are living in fantasy-land if we think we can. If we can’t even do this for ourselves, how do we think we can do this for our parrots? We can’t. So we have to begin with a base commercial diet. No, I’m not going to promote anyone’s brand here. That is not my objective. I will, however, give you my opinion on what to look for when you are attempting to choose a brand for your parrot’s base diet. Good luck in finding what I will be suggesting because I will be telling you what “not” to buy, more than I will be telling you what “to” buy.
By law, manufacturers must list the ingredients in the order of the quantity of which they are placed by volume or by weight in the product. That is the first thing you must remember when you are purchasing your parrot’s food. That being said, do not buy any food that lists these ingredients first: corn, rice, wheat or gluten, or soy. These are empty nutrients, but can wreak huge amounts of damage and harm. And remember, because manufacturers must list ingredients in the order of the volume they are contained in the product, if any of these ingredients are listed first, and because these ingredients are basically “empty” in nutrition, then you will have to feed a lot of food in order for your bird to receive any nutritional value out of each serving. This can, and probably will result in a bird who suffers obesity but is malnourished overall.
Say what? How can a parrot suffer malnutrition, but still be obese? Simple, think about it. If a living creature senses it has to eat and eat and eat in order to support its required nutritional values, it will end up taking in more calories than it can realistically utilize in a given day of activity. And, yet, even though this creature consumes large amounts of this empty-nutritional food source, it can be overweight still lacking in overall nutrition, because…the food doesn’t contain the proper kind of nutrition. This is the same thing us humans suffer from eating highly processed foods that are heavy-laden with corn, wheat and soy fillers. Fillers. Yes, these ingredients are nothing but cheap fillers manufacturers use to “bulk” up their products to make money off of you, their indebted customer. And if you think about it, you have to actually buy more of the product in question in order to actually get that “satisfied” feeling, especially if it is labeled and sold as a “low fat” product. The food manufacturing industry is “gaming” us, and we haven’t even caught on to their trick, yet. We would be much further ahead to purchase high quality products, eat less of those products, because we would feel satisfied quicker, because we would be receiving the REAL nutrition our bodies need, good, high quality nutrition, and then we would not be buying low-quality, highly-processed products that are making us the obese Nation we have come to be. Anyway…
Let me go into further detail about each ingredient I listed above.
First, let’s look at corn. Corn is a sugary vegetable, or some actually categorize it as a grain. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to digest. Although manufacturers will tout that it’s high in vitamin A, there are other food sources that are much more reliable in the actual bioavailability of vitamin A that don’t break down into sugar once in the digestive tract. The “sugar” that corn breaks down into can wreak all kinds of havoc once in the system, one problem being yeast infections. And this, as many parrot owners know, is one of the main “bad guys” our parrots fight on a regular basis. Sugar also can lead to obesity as well as fatty liver disease. So if corn can’t be digested, and the only thing our parrots really get out of it is sugar, what is it doing as the main ingredient in our parrots’ diets? It just doesn’t belong there.
Rice is much the same as corn except that it is in the category of grains. Other than that, it breaks down virtually the same way as corn, it turns into sugar in the digestive tract.
Second, let’s take a look at wheat. Once touted for its high protein content, we now know that it also contains gluten. Gluten is bad for a couple of reasons. First of all it is a highly indigestible protein. It’s what makes most humans grow that mid-section “gut”. It is responsible for Celiac’s Disease. It gets into the gut, and like sludge, it just sits and sits there while waiting on the stomach acids to slowly digest it. But we know that parrots don’t have a high acid content in their digestive tract to digest proteins like gluten. In addition to being an indigestible protein, gluten causes many people to have allergic reactions to wheat, again, this is because of the indigestibility of wheat proteins, it attacks the mast cells in a living creature’s body and activates the histamine receptors.
Third,let’s look at soy, or soy protein, as the base ingredient in our parrots’ food. I just have to take a big, long sigh at the thought of this ingredient and how it has been promoted over the last decade. It’s just not the cure all that we have been sold on. Yes, we are told that soy is high in protein and that it is easily digestible, but this is not true. First of all, in order to obtain any real nutrition from soy it must be cooked at high temperatures to break down the trypsin inhibitors in order for the protein to be made available as real nutrition. In addition, because the trypsin inhibitors in soy interfere with protein digestion it is suspected this may cause pancreatic disorders leading to diabetes. The plant estrogens found in soy can disrupt overall endocrine function. Furthermore, what the manufacturers don’t tell us is that it is also a phyto-hormone that can disrupt your parrot’s delicate hormonal balance. Also, it is suspected that hypothyroidism and thyroid cancer may be caused by soy phyto-estrogens. Finally, soy can inhibit the assimilation of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron, and zinc. In my own and personal opinion, soy is just too scary to mess with, not enough research is in, to be using as a base and voluminous ingredient in anyone’s food, let alone such a delicate and fragile creature such as a parrot.
So what should you be looking for as the BASE ingredient to your bird’s commercial food? I would promote a “green” food, something like alfalfa, barley grass, wheatgrass, or the like, even if the green food is powdered. It doesn’t have to be whole, although whole, chopped, would be even better. Wheatgrass is nothing like wheat itself. Wheatgrass is not the grain of the wheat product. It is the tender green shoots that contain all of the enzymes and amino acids that are so vitally important to health and vitality.
Along with a healthy base ingredient you should be looking for lots and lots of other fresh, whole-food ingredients in your parrot’s commercial diet. This would include, but not limited to, a wide variety of fresh organic fruits, nuts, seeds, herbs, berries, flowers, and spices, with a limited amount of vegetables and beans added in, preferably all in their whole form, or at least in a partially whole or chopped form. Why? Because whole-food nutrition leaves all of the macro and micro nutrients in tact within each and every food. As soon as a food is cut, sliced, ground or powdered, and especially when it is cooked, it begins to lose its nutrients. Except in the case of some foods, where they actually need to be at least partially cooked to release some of their nutrients.
This is just an introduction to Parrot Nutrition 101. I will be discussing nutrition on an ongoing basis, and in depth, as we take this journey through each and every species throughout our Best Bird Food Blog. I hope you will travel along with me by subscribing up to receive email updates.
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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.
