Don't worry about the Africa thing - I also would LOVE to visit it! And yes, I am very much aware that everybody swears by pellets but everybody who does is somebody who never actually took the time to do any in-depth research about their natural diets because [and I'll just give you one single point here even though I have more] any animal that evolved to eat a diet that is 85 - 95% moisture and, as most prey animals, is a crepuscular feeder [meaning it's hard-wired to eat and drink early in the am and late in the evening] cannot do well with a diet that has a max of 10% water! We learned this lesson with cats which kept on dying from renal failure at a relatively young age because we insisted on feeding them dry kibble. People think that doing research is going into a birdsite and asking a question from other owners but don't take into consideration that these owners might be repeating something they heard/read from still another owner. They also ask their avian vets without realizing that they never study parrot nutrition. Avian medicine books do have a chapter on nutrition but it's super vague and short because it's supposed to cover all species and, as you have birds that eat mammals, birds that eat seeds, birds that eat nectar and polen, birds that eat insects, birds that eat fish and birds that eat anything [like pigeons, gulls and chickens], avian nutrition becomes a HUGE subject that requires books of its own. And, I tell you something else: the best two avian vets I've had with whom I had a very close relationship and had had parrots of their own for years, admitted to me that they recommend pellets because they did not trust people to feed their birds correctly so, between all seeds and all pellets, they chose pellets... kind of like the lesser evil.
Gloop is the name I gave to a dish I came up with when my first rescue was diagnosed with high uric acid and I started doing research on the condition and the causes of it, and discovered that I was feeding her all the wrong things. So I came up with a recipe that has changed a million times since and will, most likely, continue to be tweaked and fine-tuned as I learn more. Years ago, when people first came up with the notion of not free-feeding pellets or seeds, there were three different kinds: gloop, chop and mash. Gloop is a dish made out of cooked whole grains and pulses mixed with frozen veggies [because frozen is more nutritious than fresh]. Chop was fresh veggies chopped up and frozen. And mash was the same as chop but with a finer texture. People used chop and mash as a solution for a more varied diet when they had one or a just a couple of birds because, this way, they could buy a number of items in a 'normal' quantity, prepare it, freeze it and use it for a long time. Because, let's face it, if you have only one bird, you are not going to buy seven different fruits, seven different veggies, seven different leafy greens every week because you would end up throwing away 90% of it. It's a practical and economical solution. I prefer gloop because it has a bit of protein in it [grains and pulses] which makes it more attractive to birds, it's more nutritious [the frozen produce versus the fresh] and it has a much rougher texture which the birds seem to prefer. If you look in the diet section, you will find several versions of gloop from super easy to more complicated [I do the more complicated but I've been doing it for so long that I can do it in my sleep]. Another thing I like about gloop is that it seems to appeal to all birds and I've never had a problem switching a bird to it [not even seed junkies!]. The trick is presentation, timing and persistence but there are also a few tricks people can follow to convince the hard-to-crack nuts that refuse to eat anything but nuts or seeds or pellets [although I've never had a single a bird that insisted on eating pellets once it was offered gloop]. Serving it a 'transition' gloop [only grains without veggies], warm, on a white paper plate on a flat surface at dawn and flavored with cinammon will tempt the most recalcitrant of seed eaters.
Now, I have found that my finches and button quail will eat anything I put out for them as long as I chop it very finely and spread it around the bottom of the cage - they eat leafy greens without a problem so I can put just the leaves there, it's the fruits and veggies that they are a bit picky about. This morning, they got finely grated carrots and chopped up red grapes with green leaf lettuce and they gobbled it all up!