Long article, but very informative. I encourage you to read this.
This is exactly why sprouting seeds, grains, and legumes should be done in the dark and only sprouted until you can barely see the tail. The smaller the plant, the more nutrition it contains! There are some ways to reduce the amount of CO2 in the air around us in our homes, but there is little we can do to remove CO2 from outside air.
George and I personally use Winix air filters with activated carbon filters for our home and production facility. Activated carbon filters, which are both washable and replaceable are one of the best and least expensive methods of reducing CO2 in your home. We have a 1600 sq ft home and an attached and fully enclosed 600 sq ft production facility. We use 4 Winix air filters in our home and one inside our production facility. -We may be stepping that number up by one or two after reading this article! (OurfavoriteWinix filter- on sale currently at $80.00 off and free shipping!)
All of us can take some measures to fight increased UV rays by sprouting our seeds, grains, and legumes in the dark inside our homes. I personally like to sprout in our spare refrigerator set to about 65 to 75 degrees F. I simply hang a thermometer in our refrigerator and adjust the temp inside the refrigerator according to the rise and fall of outside temperatures per season. Sprouting in the dark gives a higher protein level and fewer carbs, especially fructose.
Fruit and other plant matter from the rainforest are lower in fructose. The rainforest is darker than our traditional, domestic growing fields. Plus there is less carbon dioxide in the rainforest because there is more plant matter to naturally remove CO2. Which brings me to another point, growing houseplants can help naturally reduce CO2. Unfortunately, I don't have a green thumb or the time so air filters will need to do the job for us! Tropical fruit and plants grown in the US and other regions where there is a lot of light will have a higher sugar level (fructose), and lower protein level than those that grow indigenously in the rainforest.
Also, we might want to consider raising the protein level in our overall diets, both human and bird to balance the naturally occurring sugars. As most of us know both human and avian obesity and diabetes is contributed to consuming high levels of fructose, one of the sweetest sugars found in foods, especially domestic fruit, grains and highly processed foods. We don't want to take fruit away from our parrots; they need tropical fruit for optimum health. But we may need to increase protein levels by adding steamed mollusks and insects to ensure the protein to carb ratio is balanced and maintained.
The best we can do in our own homes is pick mostly tropical fruit (naturally lower in fructose than domestic fruit, even if grown in the US) for our birds and grow our sprouts in the dark and in a room where the CO2 has been "scrubbed" from the air.
Global changes in our atmosphere are almost impossible to battle when it comes to finding the best food for our parrots, and ourselves. It then becomes our duty, responsibility, and ongoing task to artificially change our inside environments to improve the air quality both for ourselves and our beloved pets.
Happy foraging!
Leave a comment (all fields required)