Rose/flower advice please

[hyelah1990]

Just want to double check. Roses for making tea are safe right? They are 100% natural dried, organic, no additives... Also, what other flowers do your crabbies like?

[doth]

yes roses are ok! I have used hibiscus too. check the safe food list, there might be other flowers on it: http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/ph ... 25&t=92557

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[odelayheehoo]

I give my crabs rose of sharon, they like a wide variety of the flowers from the safe food list.

[hyelah1990]

Thank you both. I have already gone over (and over lol) the safe foods list. Just trying to make sure before I order anything. I'm assuming if it is food grade or safe for humans it is also safe for crabs... As long as it's organic and there are no preservatives... right?? I guess I'm trying to find out what I need to look for to make sure a specific food is safe. Other than it being on the safe list. Am I making any sense..?

Like I know roses are safe... But I can't just go to Michael's and get roses that were grown with fertilizer and sprayed with preservatives then glued to a canvas... and expect them to still be safe. I need to know what all to look for as in natural, organic, etc...

[Motörcrab]

We picked up pink rose buds, calendula petals, hibiscus petals and a few other things at an organic health food store. Our crabs really seem to like that stuff a lot too.

They had the herbs in the bulk section where you fill up zip lock bags with what you want then they weigh them. We got around 30 small rose buds for maybe $2! We were thinking we were going to be spending $20 on the crabs, thinking about quantity you pay for online. All our herbs came out to around $7-$8. They had a lot of things but we didn't want to have to look up everything to check to see what is crab safe.

Here's the link to our health food store trip.
http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/ph ... e#p1076155

The best was the one health food store we stopped in referred to us as "The Hermit Crab People!" I stopped in that place a few weeks earlier explain I needed something in raw form not tablets because it was for my hermit crabs. Then we got into a 10 minute conversation about crabs! Lol

[hyelah1990]

Thanks!! I have a natural goods store close by, I will have to check it out sometime. Hopefully they will have some good crabbie stuff.

[hyelah1990]

I'm still stumped though. I know that just because something is "natural" does not mean it's safe. But if something is natural, organic, and on the safe list... Is that enough?? As long as there are no preservatives or additives...

[Motörcrab]

Companies find so many technical clauses by exchanging words to make people think they are buying something different. Organic means no man made pesticides, or fertilizers were used such as Round up. The FDA and USDA "strictly" regulate organic products to make sure producers are kept in check. They do not regulate natural and there are no guidelines, so companies can call anything natural.

It is a play on word similar to what is going on in the dairy and beef industry. They are trying to get plant based products to stop using the word meat and milk for their products. They claim it is confusing or deceiving people into not buying the wrong item and want those words associated with only animal products. Sorry, we have been picking out the meat and draining the milk from coconuts for years before this came about.

Here is a good quick read I found to help explain the Organic Vs. Natural debate.
http://www.organicitsworthit.org/natura ... vs-organic

[hyelah1990]

This is what I was afraid of... I am aware of some using "tricky words" to describe a product. That's one of the reasons all of this is so confusing, or atleast to me it is. So should I just look for organic items and check the safe list..? I apologize for so many questions, I just want to make sure I don't give my babies anything that might harm them.

[Motörcrab]

We try to buy organics when they are available. For us and the crabs. Somethings we just can't find organic around here or has a short season such as watermelon and cantaloupe. We still feed them our crabs as a treat every so often. When you really start searching out organic products in grocery stores it is actually pretty hard to to get an extensive list of nothing but organic. Usually we can easily find strawberries, raspberries, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, potatoes, broccoli, and peppers in our area. In our area we love buying the organics at Aldi's. They have a pretty good selection of the stuff I mentioned above and their prices are usually cheaper than other grocery stores. My crabs also love when I make them the Aldi's organic spaghetti with coconut oil!

I don't want to say it is ok to feed your crabs anything because it "technically" isn't. I also don't want to say you should only feed them organics either. It's ok for most people to eat McDonalds once a week but not for every meal every day. Hopefully that makes sense.

[hyelah1990]

Gotcha!! Thanks a bunch!!