Avian Conversations

(January/February 2001)

by: Tom Riggs and Ross Bishop

NUTRITIONAL PHILOSOPHY

The scientific community has developed the belief that since a chemically produced food nutrient or vitamin looks the same as a natural one under a microscope, the two are identical. This ideology then gave rise to an enormous industry based upon the creation of artificial nutrition (food supplements, synthesized vitamins, TV dinners, food preservatives, etc.).

The economics of this situation are so compelling that they have completely overridden a large body of scientific evidence that says they either don't know what they are doing, or worse, that the food and drug industry is pulling one of the greatest scams in human history. And if you do not think that's possible, I would ask you to look no further than the tobacco industry where many tobacco firms are a part of larger food producing conglomerates.

Today's supermarket aisles are lined with products (some genetically altered, others irradiated) that are processed, supplemented, fortified and enhanced in every possible way. Regardless of these companies' advertising, this is not done to add nutrition to your food but to compensate for the vitality inherently lost in the process of modern agriculture, factory food production, storage and manufacturing. Robert Choate and others pointed out years ago that there was more nutrition in the Wheaties box than in the Wheaties themselves. Fortunately for our overseas neighbors, Europeans have largely resisted the "chemicalization" of their food supply, but as yet, we Americans have proven to be too docile. Politics also play a significant part since most of this stuff is manufactured in the U.S. The American motto seems to be "Better Living Through Chemistry." Nowhere has the processed food philosophy taken a stronger hold than in animal feed. Cost is a huge consideration in animal food, and processed and supplemented food is always cheaper than natural food. The animal food and drug industry is quite large (as is their political influence). Mad Cow Disease notwithstanding, it isn't that these are necessarily bad people, the manufactured food theory is that a carefully controlled and balanced diet provides much better nutrition for the animal.

Predictably, this philosophy has found its way into pet bird feed. There are any number of pelletized, supplemented and formulated diets available for almost any bird today. And, with avian nutrition being a legitimate concern, the formula producers make the argument that their products go to the heart of a serious problem. They are also the only ones you hear from since the manufacturers and their distributors have a vested financial interest in selling you what they make.

Formulated diets are easy to use, cheaper and theoretically better nutrition - but there's the rub. The fallacy in this argument is that chemically produced and synthesized nutrition is the same as the real thing. It is not.

I want to recommend another of Dr. McWatters' articles, "Synthetic Bird Feeds: Do They Promote Health or Disease?"  It can be found at http://www.parrothouse.com/pellets3.html.

Many studies support the fact that artificial food simply does not work.  You cannot make up for a deficient diet with supplements. The idea that natural nutrition can be substituted with chemicals is corrupt. Research on human nutrition has clearly established that vitamin supplementation is a good thing, but it can not counteract the effects of a poor diet. In other words, putting supplements on your bird's food is helpful, but it is not a substitute for good nutrition. Healthy nutrition only comes from a proper diet which creates the complex interrelationships of various food elements working together to sustain proper bodily function. Supplements and processed food should only be used to "fill the cracks" in an otherwise natural diet. I want to call your attention to another article by Dr. McWatters: "And, Manufactured Diets - Do They Provide What They Promise?" http://www.parrothouse.com/pellets.html.

The futuristic idea that we might someday live on food pills or TV dinners is simply unsound. (Why do you think we don't have them already?) We need the intricate interrelationships of natural foods (which is simply too complex for our present level of scientific understanding) in order for the nutritional process to be effective. Supplements can help fill gaps.  That's all, and that is how they should be used.

Interestingly enough, one of the first stories about food chemistry totally supports this premise, but as I said, the economic pressures are so great, business people have been able to ignore them. In the late 17th century the British Navy found that feeding limes to sailors would defeat scurvy. An early, and overly enthusiastic, food scientist of the time identified Vitamin C from the limes and isolated it. A way was found to produce the vitamin artificially, and it was sold to the British Navy. Unfortunately, like many of today's vitamin supplements, it didn't work. Vitamin C alone lacked the subtle supporting chemicals (such as bioflavinoids) that are naturally found in limes that make the nutritional process work. The real thing was simply better, and the chemical industry has been fighting this truth (successfully, I might add) ever since.

Vitamins in nature never appear in a pure state. They are always found in combination with things like proteins, enzymes, and other nutrients. All of these components are needed to form the interrelationships that give living things good health.

Synthetic vitamins act more like drugs in the body. For example, laboratory animals given high doses of artificial vitamins, like ascorbic acid or Vitamin B-1 will become quite ill, whereas natural vitamins administered at the same doses will cause no harm. One study found that high intake of artificial Vitamin C increased arthroscerolisis in the corotid arteries which leads to stroke. High intake of natural sources of Vitamin C did not have this effect. (See: "Why Food is Better Than Pellets", Dr. Alicia McWatters, http://www.parrothouse.com/pellets2.html).

Getting back to prepared bird food, in addition to chemical additives, the processing required to prepare bird food pellets destroys many essential food elements. Pelletization and extrusion alone require high heat and pressure that destroys important nutrients and vitamins. Some companies make up for the loss by spraying the pellets with chemicals to "compensate," but that is hardly an acceptable response. Plus, the steroids, antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides used in factory farming get transferred directly down the food chain to your birds. Some prepared bird diets consist of additives sprayed on seed, but since birds do not produce saliva, these nutrients do not get into the bird. These expensive chemicals end up on your aviary waste bin.

There is a lot of room for argument on this point, and I wrote the research director at Kaytee, Dr. Randal Brue, and asked him to join our discussion but unfortunately, he chose not to respond.

When I visit an aviary where the birds are fed a pelleted diet, they simply do not compare with birds fed naturally. I can pick out the birds at a bird mart that live on artificial diets. I think that supplements are wise, and in fact, I feed pellets to my Grass Parakeets and softbills in addition to their normal food, as insurance. But additives must not be used as a replacement for the real thing.

FRESH FOOD

Now, having said all that about chemical diets, we also need to take a look at fresh foods. In addition to chemical residues on produce, the FDA did a study on the nutrition contained in fresh fruits and vegetables, published as "Composition of Foods, Hand-Book #8". Liz Wilson mentioned this study in an article on parrot diet, so I dug it out on the internet (http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR13/reports/sr13page.htm) and learned some things. If you go there be warned, there's more information there than you'll ever possibly want. But, if you are patient, the results are rather startling and disturbing.

Like most people, I figured that if people fed fresh fruits and vegetables to their birds that that they would get what they needed. This is not at all the case. Modern agricultural methods do not replenish the nutrients removed from the soil, in fact, they deplete them. So after a period of time there is nothing left in the soil for plants to absorb! Therefore the fruits and vegetables you buy today at the supermarket have far less nutrition than they did just a few years ago. This is especially true of fruit, so this will be of interest to softbill owners. I'm going to skip the stats and tell you that no matter what the Orange Juice Council, the Apple Advisory Board or others tell you, you are basically eating and feeding sugar water and pulp to your birds. Fruit today contains little else.

The same thing holds true for vegetables, and since they apply more broadly to our audience, I will share with you some of those statistics. The values are the percentages of the human Recommended Dietary Allowances, but they will give you a good sense of what is and more importantly, what is not there.

*Contains oxalates and is not recommended for birds.

To just highlight what the chart is illustrating: to get the manganese you used to get from 10 green beans, today you have to eat 300! It takes 11 servings of today's spinach to provide the same amount of copper you used to get from one serving. Carrots used to have 10,000 IU of beta carotene, now they have less than 70. To get the same amount of iron that you received from one tomato in 1945 you'd have to eat 1,938 of today's tomatoes. Bon appetit (and they don't even taste good)! Wheat used to be 40% protein, it now contains from 0 to 10% protein. . . You get the point.

So, if pelleted diets aren't good, and store produce is seriously lacking in nutrition what's the answer? It's more expensive, and more work, but I chose for my birds and myself to grow my own, buy at our local farmer's market or buy organic.

Dr. McWatters sent over some research information that really supports this point. If you read the research that follows, the findings are simply staggering!

SCIENTISTS PROVE SUPERIOR NUTRITIVE VALUE OF ORGANIC FOOD!

Researchers at Rutgers University set out to disprove the claim that "Organic Is Better". They purchased selections of produce at supermarkets and health food stores and analyzed the produce for mineral content. Organic foods were those grown without the use of chemical pesticides or artificial fertilizers. Non organic foods, referred to here as "commercial," were grown with a variety of chemicals that enhance growth or destroy pests, many of which are known or suspected carcinogens (cancer causing). The idea that organic crops are nutritionally superior has been accepted largely on faith. There has been very little hard evidence to support this supposition.

Rutgers researchers expected the organic produce to be slightly higher in comparison, but the results were astounding! The amount of iron in the organic spinach was 97% higher than the commercial spinach, and the manganese was 99% greater in the organic. Many essential trace elements were completely absent in the commercial produce whereas they were comparatively abundant in their organically grown counterparts.

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Last modified: January 07, 2004
Copyright © 1999 National Finch and Softbill Society