Humanising What We Feed Our Parrots.

plumsmum

Regular Member
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Open April's edition of Parrot's Magazine to find a full page advert for Brown's parrot treats, lovely parrot holding a bag of what looks like fruit pastilles, all very appealling on the face of it. Have a look at Northern Parrots site re these 'new' innovations.

https://www.northernparrots.com/bro...ping&msclkid=9d7bb84f39141a1a1c5fe4eeee0b3c44

Here are the ingredients : Dried Pineapple, Sugar, Colours Added (Red 40, Yellow 5, Orange 6, Green 5), Sulfur Dioxide (Preservative)

Why do we need to do this? Parrots do not need to eat the rubbish we have decided we like.

Please do not feed these they are not needed

"The three most widely used culprits—Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and Red 40—contain compounds, including benzidine and 4-aminobiphenyl, that research has linked with cancer. Research has also associated food dyes with problems in children including allergies, hyperactivity, learning impairment, irritability and aggressiveness." (Wikipedia)
 
Well with full steam I 'phoned Northern Parrots and can you believe that the first thing they check is that they can get a product through customs. A meeting is being held this week I was told but won't hold my breath, profit before everything else these days.
 
Argggghhhh and sulphur dioxide preservative.... you should never feed parrots stuff that has SO2 as a preservative.

Sulphur ( Sulfur) dioxide gas is created by burning coals or oils that contains sulphur. It is TOXIC and trace amount can be found in dried fruits having endured that process. Look for the words “sulphur”, “sulphites” or “sulphur dioxide” on the label to identify which have been treated and AVOID them.

Dehydration reduces the vitamin content of fruit.... so why not just feed fresh fruit and vegetables, it’s not difficult!
 
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Yes it’s bonkers.... some good helpful articles in Parrots mag.... Lesley Moran, Ed Cravens, etc but then crazy adverts for rubbish foods like this.... talk about mixed up messages, especially for new parrot owners
 
Well folks I heard back from NP and here is their response.


I have now heard back from our Merchandising Team regrading
the matter. They have asked if it is possible for you to
provide a web page where you have seen the research that
relates to the colour additives causing cancer. This is of
course something that they are very concerned about. I
believe I may have been unclear when I said that the
Merchandising Team always check the legality of any
ingredients with customs for any new products. This was not
completely accurate, as they do always check if ingredients
are safe as well as legal. As Browns are an American
company, they have also passed me the information regarding
the FDA's monitoring of food items.
This states;
When evaluating the safety of a new colour additive or a new
use for a listed colour additive, the FDA considers several
factors. These include the short and long-term effects of
consumption, composition and properties, manufacturing
process, stability, likely amount of consumption/exposure,
and the availability of analytical methods for determining
its purity and the amount in food.
Synthetic colour additives, also known as certified colours,
are required to undergo batch certification, a process in
which the FDA analyses a representative sample of each batch
of the colour additive to ensure it meets the required
identity and specifications before it can be used. Prior to
certifying a batch, the FDA analyses the chemical
composition.
These are some of the certified colour additives approved by
the FDA for use in food:
FD&C Red No. 40 Cereal, beverages, gelatins, puddings, dairy products,
and confections
As you can see, the FDA view Red 40 as a safe additive. The
amount of colourings used is apparently also a very small
amount.
However, I do still fully understand your concerns about the
fact that much of the Browns range seems fairly unhealthy
regarding the ingredients used. For that reason, we are
going to re-evaluate all of the treat items on the site. It
is not our intention to stop selling this range, because we
wish to give our customers as wide a choice as possible, but
we are going to state that any treat item should be given
only as a treat and therefore as sparingly as possible.
 
, blah, blah......shouldn’t be using sulphur dioxide preservative in bird foods....we tell people to be very careful with dried fruit from the supermarket, because so much of it uses sulphur dioxide.
Just cos it may have FDA approval for humans, doesn’t mean it’s ok for avians.
And our birds don’t need any added sugars either.

It’s just typically American
 
Your talking to the company I had to ring up in an emergency and tell them their "wonderful" wood article of what was a safe wood to use had actually a listed poisonous wood on it and they had to take it down straight away! DOH! And now they are quoting stuff …. love to know what they are reading as its not the same as what I read...

FDA is the American website not the UK legislation or EU legislation website so what is allowed in their country is not always allowed in ours.

Lets start at the top and work our way through the numbers .....

Red 40 is E129 … see BBC new article lower down … to be phased out by 2009 in the UK human consumptions listings...

Yellow 5 is E102 …. also see BBC link below …. to be phased out by 2009 in the UK human consumptions listings

Orange 6 just freaked me out if this is E111 its banned everywhere … please let it not be 1-(m-Sulfophenylazo)-2-naphthol-6-sulfonic acid, disodium salt although as not written fully it could be acid orange 6 which is mark name of one of the Azo dyes … in which case a textile dye and banned …. would like to know what Orange 6 is really before my mind puddles down any further …. hopefully fingers crossed its actually E110 but then again that also isn't that clever! E110 is a mix of sunset yellow FCF and orange yellow S basically coal tar synthetic colouring. Strangely also on the lower link to the banned consumption for humans BBC news article supplied.

Green 5 is an error on their part there is no green 5 so it has to be Green S which is E142 interestingly its prohibited in Canada, United States, Japan, and Norway for human consumption whole new ball game … Very few side effects are known. In some cases allergies or anaemia have been reported. Synthetic origin

Lets just look at articles for the Red 40 ….
Red 40 (E129) is linked to hyperactivity and being fazed out in the UK according to the FSA, cancer causing in mice according to the information on the lactose website (to be accurate it caused prostate cancer(
http://www.lactose.co.uk/milkallergy/foodadditives100.html the study was
Quote "E129 - Allura red AC - FD&C Red No.40; Orange-red colour used in sweets, drinks and condiments, medications and cosmetics, synthetic; introduced in the early eighties to replace amaranth which was considered not safe due to conflicting test results; allura red has also been connected with cancer in mice; banned in Denmark, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Austria and Norway"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4882322/ this article cites that the hyperactivity cause in humans is also caused in animals by this azo dye and does cite the study names of the studies that show the cancer formation and at what ratios.
Quote "Allura Red is an electrochemically active with irreversible reaction (Zhang et al., 2010). Previously, several researches have been reported regarding Allura Red toxicity and carcinogenic effects (Dinç et al., 2002; Kiseleva et al., 2003; Amate et al., 2010). Allura Red has potential behavioral effects on humans and animals; especially increase hyperactivity in children. Moreover, some studies have showed the presence of aromatic amine or amide functionalities in the chemical structures of the degradation products of Allura Red. Allura Red has absorbed to gastrointestinal and entered the bloodstream to associates with proteins during its transport and metabolism process (Combes and Haveland, 1982; Lok et al., 2006; McCann et al., 2007; Rebane et al., 2010; Gosetti et al., 2013). The excess usages of Allura Red in food and beverage products must be controlled."

http://www.exploreenumbers.co.uk/top-10-e-numbers-try-avoid.html

https://www.foodcolor.com/enumbers
Quote "Approved in the EU. Banned in Switzerland. Undergoing a voluntary phase out in the UK. Approved in the US."

In 2009 it was re-evaluated and put on hold as needing to be restructured for the UK 7mg per kilo of body weight in human children aged 7-10 is deemed safe back then but humans have slower metabolic rates hence my parrots on tramadol get more than the dosage a dog does! so they would have to re- evaluate a parrot at being about half a kilo of body weight but structure in a faster metabolic rate. https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/1327 (read the abstract)
Quote "McCann et al. from 2007 that concluded that exposure to a mixture including Allura Red AC, resulted in increased hyperactivity in 8- to 9-years old children."
Edit Sorry forgot to add that got re-evaluated in 2012 and lowered again
BBC news website about being phased out as the EU were dragging their heels UK decided to do something about it http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7725316.stm 9article dated 12th November 2008

NHS say avoid these colouring if hyperactive child as these are the most linked this article will freak you all out lists all the cancer studies in humans, plus how it is linked to urticaria and asthma especially when mixed with other dyes https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/food-colours-and-hyperactivity/
Southampton University were credited with the hyperactivity study according to the newspaper The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...for-ban-on-six-artificial-colours-807806.html and was funded by the FSA https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/food-additives must carry a food warning about hyperactivity IF FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION so what the heck is it doing to our parrots?? But then again as proven above in the NCBI link it also causes hyperactivity in animals.
 
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Oh and if any of you get bored … this guy is awesome for making sure the update are shown regarding legislation here I use his web pages as better than the GOV one … clearly listed and link straight through … he does list things oldest to newest thought so always scroll down
http://www.foodlaw.rdg.ac.uk/additive.htm#1
 
I have responded but would love to be able to use your reply @DizzyBlue if you are agreeable hun. I did argue re the FDA and asked them what the EU regs were. Why are they asking me for info anyways?
 
There are some very interesting studies that have been done on albino rats released on the google scholar in regard to immunology using Amaranth, Sunset Yellow and Curcumin as food colouring agents ,,, not sure you lot want to read it though ….

Even Prince Charles kicked off about the use of food colouring …. not sure thats relevant either lol but I enjoyed the read :p

Oh and if you want to blow your brains to the moon and back try looking up the study on Congenital Malformation: Teratogenic Foods and Additives on the avian species (that's to do with artificial sweeteners)
 
@plumsmum the answer is they shouldn't be asking you they should know and have checked out as soon as a query comes up what they are importing and if it is safe or appropriate
It is not onus on the consumer to show its safe it is supposed to be for the supplier to know what they are selling is safe.

Am sure Jude can make a less scrambled brain meltdown of it all than me if she can figure out which bit should be were paragraph wise my brain kind of jumps around a bit when I am thinking and looking and typing so it comes out all over the place and like a flipping book! So unscramble and regroup it by all means you are welcome to use whatever you like all of this is from the public domain

the basic thing is that all the EU and UK Legislation is human related and a lot of things can be put into the animal food chain regardless that's how we ended up with BSE in cattle.
 
Moral of the out come is check and double check … lets face it companies are there to make money so clever advertising spins on things to lull you into thinking they care as much about your bird as you do and your giving your birdie the very best and spoiling it well it goes a long way to parting you with your money when you think about it broken down in to the very basics. How much do you think it costs to manufacture these things and how much profit is being made …. quite a bit I would imagine.
How many people will just think oh they wouldn't sell it if it wasn't good for my bird..... a heck of a lot of people is the answer.
 
Woke up this morning pondering how busy our Essie is ….. she's the one with the food knowledge but is doing her dissertation at the moment so is more than likely very busy doing that she may be able to stick heaps of knowledge about science studies etc into this
 
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