The following expresses one person's opinion of pellets. Keep in mind that it was written in 2004 and has not been updated. [The writer is deceased.] I believe it raises some good points, well worth considering.
Kathy (I'm not eliminating pellets; I'm increasing the amount of cooked and fresh foods that I feed my birds.)
Houston TX


As posted to: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/mikes_manna_mash

Pellets Rant: real food vs. pellets
by Mike Burton - Feb 9 2004

Real foods - they provide much more than meets the eye. There are many benefits to feeding real foods, but there are also some caveats that folks need to be aware of as well. The biggest benefit of a real food diet is that the nutrients are natural and quite compatible with our bird's digestive systems. I am aware that commercial diets have long been touted as the best way to ensure good health in our birds, but after 23 years of being involved with parrots ranging from cockatiels to macaws I am not satisfied that this is the truth of the matter. If any of you have witnessed the differences in birds that are fed real foods, you have already seen what I am going to discuss for yourselves. For those of you that have not seen the differences for yourselves just ask around and you will find others that have. Inquire with them about the marked differences that are to be seen from using real foods. The largest single caveat is that it takes more work to feed
real food diets. Not only in preparing them, but also in cleaning up the mess that the birds can make with real food. But in my opinion the results are well worth the extra effort necessary.

There are many issues and a lot of information that I have compiled about various aspects of bird diets as I have researched nutritional information across the years and I could write volumes on this topic, but I want to keep this short and not wander off into tangents. Considering this fact, please keep in mind that this is a very high level overview. I am hoping to get this information compiled with a lot more detail at some point though.

As we get going here I would like to make a few points that should be noted. The first issue is that I don't view any single food source, including my own mash recipe, as a complete diet in and of itself. While some come much closer than others, variety is still a key factor in good nutrition. The science of nutritional information is in it's infancy and I feel it would be arrogant for anyone to claim that there is enough known to ensure that absolutely no aspect has been missed. I strongly believe that there are likely nutrients and interactions that science has yet to discover, so that leaves us to do the best we can with what we do know. This is further compounded by the fact that we still don't know enough about what the birds eat in their native habitats, and again I consider is a mistake for anyone to make claims that imply that adequate information is known in this respect either. I have seen claims made and assumptions being stated as fact all
too often in these matters, but we need to remember that in all honesty, little is actually known beyond what has been successful in producing good results. One of the problems is that when we say parrot, we are talking about over 300 species of psittaforms. The environments these species reign from range from the canopies of the rainforests to deserts. If you look at some of the claims with these things in mind you will see that there are mistakes and poor assumptions that abound. In the process of working to learn all I can about the nutritional needs, interactions, and interdependencies of the dietary needs of the birds we keep, one of the things I have learned best is that our best insurance is to feed a solid staple along with a wide variety of foods to ensure that there aren't any missing nutrients. The more I have learned, the more I realize there is to be learned. Sadly, much of the things to be learned may never actually be learned as the
habitat and natural environments are disappearing at an alarming rate. Something else that I have learned is that birds, much like people, can endure periods of nutritional deficiencies, but they also suffer long term effects from extended periods of deficit.

Most psittacine species appear to eat plenty of moist foods in their native environments. Most of the ornithological reports I have seen to date indicate that the wet foods may comprise up to 80 percent of a wild parrots diet, with most of the reports stating clearly between 60 and 80 percent. The digestive systems of our birds have evolved to process this wet diet quite efficiently. Most commercial foods cannot provide this simple yet important facet of good dietary health for the birds. I can't help but wonder what a primarily dry food diet does to the birds in the long run.

To help put things further into perspective, we need to address the non-food additives that are common in commercially processed foods - even the best of the major manufacturer's products are laden with chemicals and non-food supplementations. An interesting note is that recently there have been more "organic" commercial diets made available. What most of the manufacturers do not disclose and most pet owners aren't aware of is that the FDA has recently approved the inclusion of up to five percent non-organic ingredients in these products and allowing the label of organic to be placed on them. This is more than enough "elbow room" to continue adding the supplements and preservatives at the same levels as before this ruling was made. The only difference is that the manufacturers must utilize organic foods and indicate which ingredients are organic in origin on the labeling. If chemicals are being added at the same levels as before, then where is the
advantage of them being labeled as "organic" except in the aspect of marketing? When we consider the basic process of most commercial diets, we can see that most of the benefits of starting with organic ingredients are lost after the inclusion of the chemicals and fortifications. Allowing this declaration of being organic has only devalued the meaning of organic within the pet industry in my best opinion. Most commercial manufacturers start with a very limited variety of foods that would not constitute a balanced diet to start with even if fed in unprocessed form, then they process that food thereby reducing the nutrients even further. Most of these products consist largely of corn or wheat, which is inexpensive and of limited nutritional value. Then, to this they add preservatives, as well as minerals and chemical supplementations to provide the balance of the nutrients. The supplementations cause issues that some folks may not be aware of. The mineral
and chemical supplements are not metabolized by the birds at the same rate as the same nutrients that are found in real foods (this is also true for people), so they must be added at increased levels to ensure that enough nutrients are available to keep the birds from becoming vitamin deficient. This sounds okay on the surface, but with some of the nutrients it is a very fine line between not enough and too much. Water soluble vitamins are not as much of an issue as non-soluble nutrients, but they may still be of concern under certain conditions. If the supplementation is decreased, the bird runs the risk of becoming vitamin/nutrient deficient, but when added at excessively high levels it can be detrimental by creating a condition known as hypervitaminosis. Unfortunately, as the commercial manufacturers were seeking balance in the earlier years they unwittingly killed thousands of birds. One fairly well documented case is the vitamin D issue, in which
livers were crystallized because the vitamin D was being overdosed. Things are not quite as experimental now as they were a few years back, so this issue has seemed to level off. But what hasn't been addressed to my satisfaction so far in this matter is the fact that the organs that are responsible for extracting these nutrients and the organs responsible for the removal of the excess supplements are being overtaxed and premature failures are being witnessed with ever increasing regularity. We need to remember that birds, while quite hearty in many ways, have also been very refined by the millions of years of evolution and there is little in their makeup that allows for processing the excess and the level of over taxation on the organs that are currently being experienced. Sadly, there are very seldom clinical signs of this damage occurring until it is in advanced stages. All of a bird's organs and every other aspect of these creatures are very well
tuned to survival in the environment they developed in during the process of evolution. This means that they are not well adapted to processing excess chemicals and minerals from their diet. I have seen plenty of evidence that would indicate that it does take a large toll on them over time.

There are three major issues that I am painfully aware of that seem to be on the rise since the introduction of manufactured diets into the mainstream of bird diets. When I first began in aviculture, feather plucking did occur, but certainly not at the per capita rate that it appears to occur at today. According to several of the veterinarians I have consulted with, liver disease is becoming increasingly common as are the occurrence of tumors - both malignant and benign. This should be cause for concern. There are more birds being kept as pets now than there were 20 plus years ago and their physical and emotional needs are better documented and there is better veterinarian care now than there was then, so one might think these issues should be on the decline. My personal note on this is the fact that commercial diets were not widely available when I first started in aviculture and real food diets were quite common. Now, let's give credit where it is due
- commercial diets are indeed better than all seed diets and this cannot be discounted, but I feel there is still a better answer in feeding real foods in a good balance and wide variety.

To list a few of the items that I have concerns with that are additives commonly found in commercial diets include:

1) Artificial colors are not beneficial to anyone consuming them and in many, if not most, cases they are detrimental to the health of the subject consuming them, regardless of the species.

2) Preservatives, most of which have been well documented in causing problems in people as well as in pets with much shorter life spans than people or birds have, and with less tendency to be as sensitive to their environment and diet. The most common preservatives are Ethoxyquin, BHT, BHA, sugar, and salt. I won't delve into these too deeply in this article as I could almost write a book on this topic alone, but to touch on them lightly:

a. Ethoxyquin was created as a rubber stabilizer, has pesticide qualities, and is a suspected carcinogen. Advocates say there is no danger, and while the FDA tested it in 1989 and found no harmful side effects, in 1997 they requested that commercial manufacturers of dog food cut the levels in half of what had been approved. This has been excluded from most human foods as well due to the potential problems stemming from the use. *1

b. BHT and BHA are known carcinogens. *2

c. Sugar is prone to causing diabetes and can alter your bird's moods starting with an escalated mood and after the "sugar high" has worn off, leading to a depressed mood. Let's differentiate here as some folks tend to look at fructose in the same light as they view sucrose. They are different and have different qualities and effects. Fructose is a ketonic rather than aldehydic carbonyl, like sucrose.

d. Salt. Salt in itself is of little harm at low levels, but at larger dosages it can lead to dehydration and other issues. Salt intake should be limited in our birds for much the same reasons it should be limited in people. There is currently some concern with the iodization of salt, just as a sidebar.

3) Scents. Considering our birds have a fairly poor sense of smell, this only leads me to believe these are added for the benefit of the owners more so than the benefit of the birds. In either case it is not a food.

4) This leaves us with the fortification process. Again, this could almost fill a book, or at least a very long chapter in a book. I have outlined some of the issues with the fortification through the use of chemicals and minerals so I won't cover this too much in depth beyond saying that the nutrients are much more bioavailable when they come from vegetation than from when they come from rocks and test tubes.

Ten years ago the mainstream of information was to feed only pellets (commercial diets). This has proven to not be good advice as they are not a complete diet on their own. I know of several lawsuits that were brought against some commercial diet manufacturers for labeling their product as a complete diet. You will no longer see that labeling on those products as a result of those lawsuits. This "relabeling" took place only about five to six years ago. Now, we are seeing more and more information stating that the pellet based diets should be supplemented with fresh fruits and vegetables. This is a move in the right direction, but it also has issues that we need to pay attention to. As I pointed out earlier, the supplementation of nutrients is a delicate balance, so delicate in fact that issues are being seen from feeding vitamin rich foods in conjunction with commercial diets. I have recently noted that sweet potatoes are being implicated as being a
cause of feather plucking. I have the original post sitting here and in it implications of unknown hormones and other similarly far fetched claims are made. While I have not done proper research on these claims due primarily to time constraints, I have looked at it a bit and have a pretty fair idea that what is actually occurring is hypervitaminosis issues are being created from the feeding sweet potatoes, which are extremely rich in several nutrients. One of the potential issues of hypervitaminosis can be plucking issues.

One of the chemicals commonly added to commercial diets is a chemical known as iron sulphate. It is added to provide the necessary iron content for our birds, commonly at elevated levels from what information I have been able to find so far. The issue is worsened by feeding citrus, citric acid in particular, which causes the iron is absorbed at a higher rate than intended. Studies are currently coming forth that implicate excess iron in many health issues, not only for our birds, but for us as well. Iron storage disease is also known as IOD (Iron Overdose Disease) or clinically as hepatic hemochromatosis. It has long been known that several softbills that reign from iron deficient environments (thus they have adapted) suffer from this disease if too much iron is provided in their diet. Unfortunately many folks still think this issue is limited to a few bird species. While it is more pronounced in Toucans and some other softbills, it is becoming more
recognized that psittacines can also succumb to this condition as well, although it takes higher levels. It seems to manifest itself in various symptoms depending on the bird and it's species, so it is not something that we can demonstrate via a select set of symptoms. Even though this is true, I feel it is imperative that folks become aware of this issue and understand that it is of enough concern that it is receiving a growing level of investigation.

Enter real foods. Why should there be a desire to redesign what nature has had millions of years to perfect? I can see no reason at all, with the exception of for our convenience and some commercial pet food manufacturer's money making venture. By excluding commercially processed foods from a bird's diet and feeding real foods that are vitamin rich and in balance we remove most, if not all, the associated risks that I have mentioned (and many that I haven't covered in this paper as well) and gain benefits in the form of better health, improved immune system function, and longer more prosperous lives. If we took three birds on three different diets, seed only, pellets, and real foods, and lined them up, even the most novice of person could tell us who eats what, or at least notice a marked difference in them. Seed based diets are the worst of the choices and cause many health issues (including the associated vet bills). Commercial diets are better but are
still not ideal in my mind. And then there are real foods, which are the best solution as far as I am concerned. Please note that a well balanced real food diet can and should contain seeds and nuts. They are great contributors of a well balanced ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids and energy. Why real foods? Because they have all natural vitamins, are easily digested, contain more moisture, and have far less or even no preservatives or chemicals. There are several good real food diets that have been published and promoted. I promote my mash of course (Mike's Mash is easy to locate on the web), the late Alicia McWaters was an avid promoter of real food diets, and Dr. Harvey is yet another person that has developed a diet based on real foods.

To wrap things up, I would enjoy seeing everyone look into this matter more closely and look into the full scope of benefits that abound by feeding real foods to their birds. Of course I would like to see each and every bird owner and bird reap the benefits of eating real foods as well. In return for your efforts you will see better plumage, brighter eyes, more stable personalities, longer life spans with less medical issues, improved immune function, calmer dispositions, more energy, and the list goes on.

Thank you for the opportunity to present some of the issues that have been instrumental in my choice to feed real foods instead of commercial diets to my birds. If you have any questions on this topic, please feel free to contact me and I will do my best to help.
Take care,
Mike

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References:
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*1 In a 1989 report the FDA claimed that there was no concern with ethoxyquin and that only at levels as high as 5,000 ppm was there any carcinogenic concerns or any other clinical symptoms - http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/ANSWERS/ANS00119.html. Yet in 1997 they requested that the levels be reduced in dog food, from 150 ppm to 75 ppm, due to clinical symptoms in female dogs (citing issues with liver concerns, especially in lactating bitches) - http://www.fda.gov/cvm/index/updates/dogethox.html. This demonstrates that there are likely long term effects from the use of ethoxyquin that do not present themselves in the short term. Considering our birds are longer lived and likely much more sensitive than dogs, I have grave concerns with the use of ethoxyquin as a bird food additive.

Here are some link to an MSDS on ethoxyquin - http://ptcl.chem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/ET/ethoxyquin.html.

Here's another link that should prove interesting, the major concerns here are the listed 10 ppm heavy metals and 3 ppm arsenic - http://www.chemicalland21.com/arokorhi/lifescience/foco/ETHOXYQUIN.htm.

And yet another document that is of interest in this matter as one of the listed dangers is mutations - http://ntp-server.niehs.nih.gov/htdocs/Chem_H&S/NTP_Chem9/Radian91-53-2.html

And finally, one more link of interest - http://bj.portlandpress.co.uk/bj/279/bj2790385.htm.

While some of the information is somewhat inconclusive and potentially even contradictory, at least in my mind I am not willing to accept the risks associated with this chemical being introduced to my birds.
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*2 This link is in regards to BHT and BHA and the use of it in food products. http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/44/7/2858

Here's an excellent link to get you started on learning more about the BHT and BHA issues - http://chemengineer.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa082101a.htm.

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