rebcart wrote:Goodness, you'll forgive me for the language, but that article is complete bullshit. How can you make a blanket statement of "every single plant in this diverse family is toxic" without examining whether the offending chemicals vary in concentration across different parts of the plant or not? And whether these compounds are processed differently by different species? Dosage over time is a key factor any real toxicologist would consider, but apparently this article throws it out the window.
Should we say that rhubarb stems are now toxic, only because the leaves are? Should we never feed cherries to our parrots or ourselves, because the stems are poisonous? Apple seeds contain a tiny amount of a not-very-toxic form of cyanide, better never bake an apple pie again!
I would be taking that website's claims with a large bucket of salt.
Eh well I agree it's extreme, BUT like Marie says above: different sources say different things, and parrot owners hold different opinions. The article was shared for the purpose to explain some reasoning behind why some parrot owners don't feed their birds tomatoes. It was printed in Parrot Magazine, which is certainly more reliable as a
resource than, say, noparrotsandtomatoes.blogspot.com, lol. Naturally I choose to not agree with it; I personally feed Tiki cooked tomatoes, as in pizza sauce and such. All I know is that "raw" tomatoes is on the no-feed list I received, and I obtained that list from a reliable source. Regardless, I've been meaning to talk to our Avian Vet about this... so I'll post more info when I get it.
Nonetheless, pros and cons are just that, and you can find more cons on this issue than that article alone. Whether you choose to agree or disagree is your own opinion.
EDIT: For the curious on the raw tomatoes opinion, check out
this article tooMore scholarly info can be found by simply searching "alkaloids and solanaceae" in databases and/or Google Scholar