Re: not too long...lol

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Posted by azteclizard on January 23, 2003 at 11:28:32:

In Reply to: not too long...lol posted by mikecoscia on January 23, 2003 at 08:05:57:

Let me start off by saying that i never said that meat is a complex protein(no such thing), i said it was a complete protein. That means that they contain all the essential amino acids. No if you check out this link http://www.pureplanet.com/prodspir.htm, you will find that it says that spirulina is 60%-70% protein. I think you are confusing Biological Value(BV) with usable protein. The BV of sirulina is supposedly 90-95. It is not a percentage, it is a value. I can't for sure right now, but i am pretty certain the BV of chicken is at least 80. Anyway lets do your math with the 60%-70% value and the 20% for chicken. Let's use the high end of 70% and with that 1/8 a cup(1g of protien) you are adding to the baby food, you get .7 usable protein(accoding to your math). that would make the chicken higher. and your herptivite and you set without the green pasty mess. Really, who is going to ad even an 1/8 of a cup of dried PURE spirulina to a jar of baby food. I will continue this later when i have a chance to look in some more text books to get real values. If you have a reply, please try and provide the references for you info. I have been doing you that favor in this debate.
Thanks,
Bill

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:Oh don�t worry about the typos; I am just as bad if not worse�lol. But we are kind of both right now =). Spirulina is much more nutritious then a piece of chicken, and gram for gram it contains more protein. You are right that it is less dense, which I forgot to factor in so you need to eat more of it. However chicken being more complex like you said in your first post is supposedly only 20% digestable while the spirulina being simpler is 90-95%. That would make half a jar of baby food (to one whole jar of fruit) containing only 0.8 grams of usable protein. Now � cup of spirulina is a lot to add to one jar of baby food I won�t argue with there. Lets make it more reasonable at 1/8 a cup. The geckos will eat the stuff more readily then chicken anyway in my experiences. Now in 1/8 a cup being 90-95% digestable you get 0.9-0.95 usable protein. So it works out to be the same pretty much, but with the spriulina you get the additional vitamins and what not.

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:As far as me saying chicken is measly compared to spirulina, gram for gram I believe it is. Now I am not saying to live off the stuff, you could, you would just have to eat a lot. Marine iguanas I believe just live off the algae they manage to scrape of the rocks in the ocean and they do just fine. I never said give up meat in the original post; you should cut it back to 2-3 days a week if you need it and use the spirulina on the other days. Not just for its protein content but vitamin, mineral and trace elements in which IMO it is superior. Remember the original thread was about using meat/fruit mixes only. Which IMO should only be done if you add the right supplementation (bee pollen, spirulina, etc) and only if you have too. If your animals take crickets give it to them. That way you don�t have to give them fruit every single day (excess sugar) just so they get their daily protein intake. You get faster growing and larger geckos. At least that is what I have experienced in the past three generations where I experimented with both feeding methods. Hatchlings on fruit took longer to grow and mature into adults, which only makes sense. So for the final point (I hope..lol); crickets should be feed if your guys take them, if not meat works 2-3 times a week with spirulina (being superior with its nutrition load) added every other or every day. You raise healthier hatchlings, which is just my opinion. Anyway got to get back to work, hopefully I hit everything I wanted to. Oh well, enjoy your day =)
:-Mike
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