commercial food discussion

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 11:20 am

I know we've all said that FMR food is bad, but the FMR treat seems to be okay, in their ingredients, its all fruits and a lil sea salt, as for staple food i do not use fmr, i use something that is out of the shell shanty in ship bottom nj, they ship it to the boardwalk stands here, as for ingredients it has corn meal, soybean beal, alfalfa meal, meat and bone meal, soybean oil, vegetable oil, magnesium oxide, zinc oxide, iron, sulphate, copper sulphate, calcium iodate, cobalt and calcium carbonate.. I've been using this for a long time now, and reading all these posts on commercial food I"m just wondering if this is ok to use since it seems to have a lot of beneficial foods for them...

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 11:40 am

I dunno. They are scavengers by nature. I feed FMR as a main food, supplemented by fresh veggies and meats, fish food, crackers, and different brands of crab food.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 12:00 pm

I don't feed a commercial food, as I'm wary of Ethoxyquin. Instead, I bought a mortar and pestal and made my own. I can buy a big bag of finely shredded coconut at the local Asian food store, as well as roasted garbonzo beans. I crushed those and mixed them together, then I crushed a bunch of Hikari brand fish food ($8.99 a bag, but it lasts and has no Ethoxyquin). Then I crushed up some graham crackers and mixed all that together, as well as some reptile vitamins, vitamin C, the shed skins of mealworms, and vegetarian multivitamins/whole food supplement. Its a huge hit with my crabs. They devour the stuff like there's no tomorrow.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 1:43 pm

FMR treat has Ethoxyquin in it also. My crabs loved this treat but I bet they love being alive and not deformed better!!!!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 1:50 pm

http://www.avianweb.com/ethoxyquin.htm

You need to read this. All of you.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 1:56 pm

if it has etho dont you think they should have it in ingredients

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 3:43 pm

Some manufacturers comply with listing EQ on the labels and some do not. If you're concerned about the commercial food you are using it's best to contact the manufacturer. Jurrasi Diet and Gardner's (I believe) do not contain EQ.

There are many popular foods that contain EQ that don't list it on the label. FMR and Crab Island Fruit and Flower are just two.

From what I understand foods listed with a lot of "meal" ingredients aren't that healthy for the crabs either. I would recommend that you search for posts by Chestersmom and Julia Crab, they have both been posting a lot on foods for hermies.

Chestersmom was kind enough to share this recipe for crab food http://www.crabbytalk.com/?p=93 It's healty, EQ free, and makes a large batch of food that you can use as a staple food for your hermies. Also, Epicurean Hermit (Julia Crab's site) is filled with excellent recipes and dietary resources. You can find it here http://www.epicureanhermit.com/

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 5:44 pm

It is the "meat and bone meal" that has the ethoxyquin. From what I understand, the manufacturers of meat and bone meal add the ethoxyquin at that step, so if you see "meat and bone meal" on the label, you can almost be sure it has ethoxyquin in it.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 7:30 pm

Everyone should be even more worried about copper sulfate.

It IS a fungicide and herbicide used to kill snails and slugs as well. It is much more toxic than EQ is. EQ is not listed on the Extoxnet database; copper sulfate is.

There are other forms of copper that are more bioavailable. Such as that found in seaweed and especially spirulina.

http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/coppersu.htm

I've read all the science about EQ and it is not a carcinogen. It prevents cancer:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... t=Abstract

I agree that fresh, whole foods are superior to foods adulterated with any additive. But EQ isn't as scary as some of the other junk in the crab food.

http://www.api4animals.org/79.htm

It's this other stuff that is causing the problem in my estimation. EQ is just a facilitator of other chemicals and their danger.

A lot of what people are calling EQ poisoning sounds more like heavy metal poisoning to me. A crab will be deformed during molting if it is full of heavy metals like lead, which are found in the meal ingredients in pet food. EQ acts as a booster on negative substances such as lead, making them more virulent than they would be on their own.

I have a ton of links to all the sites I've read the scientific abstracts and MSDS about EQ on, if anyone is interested, I'll be glad to list them all so you can read them too.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 8:45 pm

ok now I'm upset I am calling the shell shanty tomm and getting a supervisor to give him a piece of my mind!... but there is a powder called bone meal sold in health food and organic food stores can i use that every so often to give them the calcium they need?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 4:43 am

lildaydreamer01 wrote:ok now I'm upset I am calling the shell shanty tomm and getting a supervisor to give him a piece of my mind!... but there is a powder called bone meal sold in health food and organic food stores can i use that every so often to give them the calcium they need?

If you want calcium, from what I've read, natural cuttlebone, egg shells, and sand dollars all are wonderful sources of calcium. Just grind it up for little ones, and I beleive that larger hermies like whole pieces, so that they can use their claws to pick it off.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 10:34 am

It is a volatile time with respect to EQ...manufacturers facing lawsuits have turned to lack of disclosure and alternate preservatives even less studied or known to consumers...as for EQ being carcinogenic, that is immaterial...when something causes the corruption of DNA to the point that deformity occurs (in mammals as well as reptiles, fish and now crabs)...whether it is a cancer causing agent or not, is moot...I was sent some information from Bauer and Sleups, they really stressed that point Kerie I agree, however the independent studies conducted by labs for the Veterinary Association found that one of EQ's most terrible traits is that it cannot be processed out of the system...so there it behaves exactly like heavy metal poisoning...I can not rule out that it enhances other contaminants though...in a way that makes perfect sense...Sulpher Dioxide is another dangerous preservative as are about 6 others that may or may not be cited on labeling...I have compiled a list of these preservatives and their known effects. I am waiting for confirmation of accuracy and permission to name them (to avoid future dispute) from 2 professionals...EQ is included!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:45 pm

I just found out that Hikari has copper sulfate.

I paid $9 for that stuff!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 2:01 pm

From my understanding of Copper Sulphate (and that is very limited), the one thing that strikes me as potentially different is the concentration of it found in the foods in question...EQ is used at a much higher concentration than that of Copper Sulphate, but that may be because Copper Sulphate in higher concentrations is very damaging...I did a little search, and have not found the recommended particle saturation...Kerie, are you privy to this info? Copper Selinium, also similar to Copper Sulphate in its toxic properties, is extensively used in Cat foods...I asked Linda my Vet why it is utilized if there are such problems with it (in cats it is kidney stones)...her reply was that the particle count for that product concentration can be voided (clear the animals waste system) provided the animal is in top health...where crabs are concerned, many of the toxins they ingest are "stored" in their exo...Hikari is one of the products I have not used because they would not respond to my inquiry about their preservative use...too bad, because I was anticipating use of their algae product...

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 2:11 pm

the reason I'm more concerned about copper sulfate is that it doesn't have much of a half life, whereas EQ breaks down very quickly at room temperature into two lesser chemicals. Also, with my organic gardening experience, copper sulfate is the big guns -- you only use that when you've tried everything else and nothing's worked. It's serious stuff.

For instance, copper sulfate is very deadly to daphnia, a distant relative of our pets.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... t=Abstract

I really don't like this attitude on the part of food manufacturers that it's OK to use an inferior mineral such as copper sulfate, just because it can be taken up more readily than some less virulent form of copper such as copper proteinate or copper carbonate. Better yet, I'd like it if they used seaweed powder with natural copper and the enzymes necessary for complete absorption.

But this is exactly why so many of us are turning our backs on commercial diet more or less completely. You can't trust a corporation as far as you can throw it.