Question about safe food list

[landlubber]

I was wondering if plants on the safe food list which do not include certain parts such as roots, leaves, and so on means automatically that nothing but the specific parts are edible. For example, artichokes are safe, but what about the plant's leaves, am I to assume since there is no note there specifying that means those parts are unsafe or unknown? Because other plants have notes that specify certain parts of the plant, or that all of the plant can be used. It's a little confusing because there is no consistency with what gets notated. I am also wondering if a specific plant indicates all species of that plant are safe, or only common species......

[wodesorel]

If it makes you feel better, no crab has ever died from something it ate. That's why it's an unpopular list, because there are foods there is no point wasting time and money on.

It IS a mess. As a gardener it's driven me nuts for years, and I spent time cleaning it up into what it is now! (Like, peppermint was unsafe but other mints were safe, which made NO sense since both are Mentha.) We list plants and parts of plants that are known to be safe that people have fed without issue. Some of those parts are spelled out because there were multiple posts asking "does this mean only the beet root is safe?" when it was simply listed as "beet". I tried to go through and be as detailed as possible with what was known so there wouldn't be as many questions.

There are plants out there that can have harmful parts to them - rubarb for example - so it's hard to know for things that we don't eat if it's harmful or not. If it's listed without details and the rest of the plant is edible for us it should be safe for them. Out of an abundance of caution only known safe food items are listed. I personally use common sense and what I know about plants and pests to feed mine and don't refer to the lists on a regular basis.

And that list is not all knowing. That prunus wood is on the unsafe list is one I've always had an argument with. Cherry was listed with the rest, but I've used cherry in my tank going on 6 years now and it has been moved to the safe list. The other species are safe to use in ant farms. Just because something is toxic to humans or dogs or cattle or whatever doesn't mean it's going to affect a hermit crab the same way. They don't have iron based blood and their calcium channels work in completely different ways, so the things that affect mammals and even birds don't work the same way on them. (ie, not needing D3, being able to eat oxalates.) It makes more sense to me to go off what insects will and won't touch since they are more closely related. (Like, I don't ever feed fir, plants that grow from bulbs or tomato greens because they have only specialized pests.)

[CallaLily]

Not to mention creating a complete list of safe foods is near impossible. I'd view it more as a guideline really, to help the average crabber get started. I am not a plant person, so I definitely started out leaning on that list.

[landlubber]

Okay, thanks so much guys! No where near as simple an answer as I would like, but its given me a new way to think about their food. I do not have a strong knowledge base about plants and nutrition to be able to use the list as a "guideline" instead of hard and fast rules like some members on the forum do (which I am grateful for their knowledge). But, now that I understand how the more knowledgeable folks think about and scrutinize these lists I can build my knowledge base up.

Just another opportunity crabbing has provided me with to learn something new, and information about nutrition would benefit me as well!

It is one of my firm beliefs about crabbing is that nutrition is vital to their health and longevity. I've just noticed over time the differences in my crabs from feeding the most varied diet I can and trying my best to acquire foods that have the most "bang for their buck" so to speak nutritionally with their specific needs in mind. I think it's made a monumental difference-that is why I almost obsessively buy foods-the more variety the better as far as I'm concerned, otherwise they'll be gaps and problems.

I'm going to Amish country soon and I was just curious about what unique items I might be able to take home from the herb store.

I tend to think, like you Wode, that crabs would be unlikely to eat things or continue to eat things that were harmful to them. It's a function many, many animals possess, including humans (ever got sick after eating something and couldn't eat that food for months and months after? That is our built in aversion to eating foods that make us feel yucky so we don't poison ourselves). However at the same time we get very freaked out about what goes in their tanks. The paint on the shells, for example. If crabs are hardwired to avoid foods that cause them trouble, why do we get so concerned about man-made materials in the tanks (and I get chemical leaking over time from high humidity-but I'm talking about crabs actually eating these items)? Is it because there are suspicions that somehow synthetic materials "confuse their senses?"

*Sigh* Confusing, yes?

[wodesorel]

I've never seen a crab actually eating non-food items. They destroy it, but for instance when my Moya systematically destroyed three plastic plants out of boredom by pinching them apart, she never had any green in her poop that showed she was eating it. She would pinch it, bring it to her mouth, and then drop it. There were little pinch piles of shavings where she liked to sit.

The eating painted shells thing comes from something that someone posted probably around 10-15 years ago on another forum. They claimed they had a new crab die and did a necropsy and found paint chips in the stomach. I have never seen photos of this, and it is also something I've always questioned, since it sounded so dramatic and was perfect for the anti-paint movement. (Mind, I don't like the idea of painted shells at all, for a host of reasons, but mainly that they are crustaceans and therefore much more sensitive to chemicals in their environment.) Having done a necropsy myself on the biggest Jumbo I've ever seen, I can't figure out how they would have determined if anything in their system was paint. Their mouths and digestive tracts are so small that everything inside is basically a paste, and the structures are so tiny that they're extremely hard to locate. 'Chips' makes it sound like something you would find in the stomach of a larger animal, and this was supposed to be a medium sized crab. Plus, I have never heard of anyone finding colored poop that indicated that the crabs were actually eating and digesting any paint that was present.

[CallaLily]

including humans (ever got sick after eating something and couldn't eat that food for months and months after? That is our built in aversion to eating foods that make us feel yucky so we don't poison ourselves).

Oh yes. I still can't eat bacon too often and it's been years! (and it wasn't even real bacon that I ate before getting sick!)

The paint on the shells, for example. If crabs are hardwired to avoid foods that cause them trouble, why do we get so concerned

My main issue with painted shells is more about the video and info I've seen about crabs forced into them and the whole toy-like appeal it gives the crabs for kids, not the possibility of the paint being harmful.