The Best Pellets?!

[Wolf]

I think that there has been a lot of wonderful information provided in this fresh vs. frozen debate. I am also thinking that when we must quibble over such things as the temperature that the food is frozen and what kind of freezer is used that we are running the rick of being too intent on details and are perhaps unable to view the forest while we are so focused on just one tree, so to speak.

Consider that foods that are frozen commercially are usually frozen in a nitrogen environment and at temperatures that no household freezes can hope to attain. So while there are many fine points that are nice to know and entertaining are not applicable to the average homeowner or to the person who preserves their own food produced from their own garden or orchard.

I live in a small rural town, actually the town is twenty minutes away if I am lucky. Still it is the largest town in the county and the whole county shops there. I make a list for groceries and any other thing that I need to do in town or on the way to town to consolidate trips and to conserve resources. If I run out of something, that is too bad as I will have to make do until my next trip into town.
Some people will go to town if they run out of one item and complain about the price of the quart of milk that they just spent $5.00 going to town to get, all without realizing that it cost them an extra five dollars , talk about high prices... Yes, there are those that live in town and maybe can afford to fun to the store for a quart of milk or what ever.

The technicalities of much of the information is such that it is pretty much moot from the time the food reaches the grocers or the home as we do not use the same methods of preservation at home that are used commercially and the commercial food processors do not use the same methods as do the scientist who are working to improve the way the food is preserved.

All of the scientific data supplied is great but most of it is never applied to any of they foods that you and I have to eat. All of the data supplied does show me that perhaps in the future there will be even better ways available to preserve our foods, but how much actually impacts the average persons food supplies? I do hope that you both realise that for the food that is available to the average person that you are both right.

[Pajarita]

Thanks for the link it was informative but it did not give enough info. It did not say what temperature food was frozen, and in what type of freezer to have it last the 12 months. It did not go into much depth on each food. I know it is not easy to find good research. I researched over 5 years about all these things when I became a raw foodist.

I dont have time to look for all the research I saw, over so many years, but the original research found that only some frozen was more nutritious than fresh that had become older than a few days. It found that blanched which is used for freezing vegetables kills the enzymes and vitamin C , making that less nutritious than fresh in that particular way. Fruit is frozen without blanching so it retains vitamin C. So there is lots to take into consideration. Also frost free degrades faster than a dedicated freezer, so that needs to be taken into account. The twelve month senario is on a non frost free preserving at a certain temperature. Fresh, that is eaten soon after being picked is the most nutritious of all.

My peeve is only with the continual statements being made that say that frozen is better. Thats what I call Hype. Whenever a study is done, the more times it is written about the more the original content/context is lost.

What I have said is reasonable, just things to take into account. I only made the comment to say that we should take all the factors between fresh and frozen into account. Just my opinion based on my study. It is up to everyone to decide the right way for them.

I am mostly concerned about the amount of cooking being used for parrots, cooking their grains and blanched frozen vegetables, destroying enzymes and water soluable vitamins. Enzymes are important and there are too many being lost if too much cooked is used. That is the point I wanted to make. I feed very little cooked to my parrots and I ony use frozen when I cant find fresh. I dont know if this give a different picture to you or not, but best I can do right now.

The temperature stated on the report was between -18 and -20 C but there is one reference on cherries at -70C that says that they kept a higher nutrition than the ones stored at higher freezing temperatures. It doesn't state what kind of freezer but it does state that the frozen produce was purchased in regular grocery stores so the freezing process is the commercial one and I would assume the keeping frozen was done in regular household ones because this is meant for the everyday consumer.

I agree on the enzymes been necessary and that's why it's always clearly stated that the gloop made with frozen veggies must be accompanied by fresh produce.

[seagoatdeb]

The research I would like to see, but it will likely be a very long time coming, is the effect on denying parrots the 100 percent enzymes in their food that they get in the wild. We do know that a raw seed only diet is bad for parrots, and that seeds that are not soaked or cooked contain an inhibitor. In the wild the birds would have eaten some seed that had fallen to the ground and begun to sprout as well as some seeds that would have contained he inhibitor. In the wild it may well be that their very high enzyme consumption helps with seed and nut inhibitors. There is so much we dont know. What does a diet that is 75 percent cooked with enzymes destroyed, and only 25 percent with enzymes do to a parrot that comes from a 100 percent enzyme environment. We do the best we can and I hope that research comes along, but I am not that hopefull since how important enzymes are to humans is still in its infancy. We have come a long way in parrot nutrion and we are moving along the right way.

[Pajarita]

Yes, we have so little good research on parrots, don't we? That's why sharing experiences is so useful to parrot keepers! And, if one goes with that, I would say that it seems as if providing fresh produce along with cooked food is the way to go.... At least, it seems to be working as parrots are healthier now than they were years ago. But, of course, we might have only improved things a little bit and might have a loooong way to go yet -kind of like when they switch from an all-seed diet to an all-pellet diet. As to their eating sprouted seeds in the wild, it depends on the species because only granivores go to ground, canope feeders hardly ever do.

[Wolf]

There are many illustrations of side effects to the purified chemical substances that are found in plants and that are considered to be the active ingredient(s). But when the whole plant or sometimes just that portion of the plan is used without removing all of the other substances there are no side effects. Sometimes the inhibitor may only serve to balance out the chemical soup that the food becomes in the body, sometimes the inhibitor is strong enough that its affects are disproportionate to the amount of the substance and inhibits the body from using enough of the things the body needs. This action alone shows us haw little we actually know as far as how much of a given substance is required to have a major effect within the body.

[beakycheekie]

Holy cow, you guys are so technical and know so much! I'm overwhelmed with the amount of information but I'm so glad I found this forum so that I can educate myself more! I really enjoy browsing through everyone's posts!
Just wanted to put a shout out that you guys are great!

[Wolf]

Don't let any of it overwhelm you, some of these thing we have learned enough about to have a reasonable understanding of and how they work in the birds body, but some of these things we are also still just learning about ourselves and just beginning to understand. There have been no studies conducted until the last 20 to 25 years in the dietary requirements of our parrots despite the fact that parrots have been kept by humans for thousands of years. We are all on the leading edge of this new dietary science of which truthfully very little is actually known. Just go slow and ask lots of questions and it will begin to make some sense in its own time.