Cooked or raw?

[Pajarita]

It's actually frozen produce that retains the most nutrition but this article is about cooked or raw.

https://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating ... a-40378997

[liz]

I use mostly frozen fruit and veg for the cockatiels. Freezing is really the freshest and frozen and thawed veg are easier for their little beaks to bite it. They are partial to frozen peas and carrots. I do use a stalk of green celery for them. They love it and it travels around the room as they "attack" it. I do not boil their grain. I let it soak in boiling water then rinse it to get the seed dust off it.

Rainbow and Myrtle love fresh foods. I buy or grow the freshest I can find then cut into chunk size for them to pick up. I give then at least 3 kinds of fresh each day. They are partial to apples and grapes.

[Pajarita]

I keep on telling you, Liz, that you really should stop the celery thing... it has too much salt and no nutrition. And you need to rethink the grain/seed thing you do because you are not making it better. Let me explain. When you cook grains, you are not only infusing them with water, the actual cooking makes them more digestible by breaking down gluten, protein and fat. When you soak grains, you are making them more nutritious because you start the germination process. But you do neither because soaking grain is not just pouring water over it, it's a specific process that needs to be followed exactly. You need to use room temperature water (you can't even use hot water, much less boiling) and soak it for, at least, 2 whole days (48 hours). The first day the grain is submerged in the water but the second day the grain is kept wet only and you need to rinse it thoroughly every 12 hours to keep it from growing fungus. Overnight only wets it and by pouring boiling water on it, you are just burning the aril and nixing the germination process. You really should try to make gloop. It's not hard once you get the knack of it and you need to cook the grains only once a month.