Rethinking Staple Foods

[Motherlode Chameleon]

There's nothing wrong with the format. Yes, it's tailored for human consumption, but it's simple to interpret. Here's crickets, for example, in the same format.

Yeah. That was the best reading table with nutritional information about Katydids. However this table did not have Ash Ratio's and Percentages to compare with normal scientific documents.

The look for a good Katydid nutrition table continues! I am looking at other search engines/places than just Google search.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

 

[SauceGandhi]

Yeah. That was the best reading table with nutritional information about Katydids. However this table did not have Ash Ratio's and Percentages to compare with normal scientific documents.

The look for a good Katydid nutrition table continues! I am looking at other search engines/places than just Google search.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

What do you think including the ash content would change? We can already tell from the macronutrients on that chart that it's quite clearly not nutritional information for a katydid, or even any other kind of insect at all. It's either a typo or someone made a drunk/joke entry in their fitness app.

The reason why I suggested google scholar for this is to filter out these types of results because:
1. People can write whatever they want and have it show up on a general google search. You're going to get a lot of bad results, that way. The regular search is fine for some things, but probably not here.
2. Any serious nutritional analysis for something like this will be done in a lab, and subject to a peer-review and publication standards to filter out nonsense.

Otherwise, if you have access to quality scientific journals directly, that's great too
Currently, I use my university access, but I'm finishing grad school this month, so will lose it soon sadly

Edit: I think I figured it out LOL

Someone made a typo entering a kale salad into their fitbit app and it autocorrected to "katydid"
Here's another kale salad for comparison:

This is so off topic lmao

 

[Motherlode Chameleon]

What do you think including the ash content would change? We can already tell from the macronutrients on that chart that it's quite clearly not nutritional information for a katydid, or even any other kind of insect at all. It's either a typo or someone made a drunk/joke entry in their fitness app.

The reason why I suggested google scholar for this is to filter out these types of results because:
1. People can write whatever they want and have it show up on a general google search. You're going to get a lot of bad results, that way. The regular search is fine for some things, but probably not here.
2. Any serious nutritional analysis for something like this will be done in a lab, and subject to a peer-review and publication standards to filter out nonsense.

Otherwise, if you have access to quality scientific journals directly, that's great too
Currently, I use my university access, but I'm finishing grad school this month, so will lose it soon sadly

Just the ash ratio/percentages are an academic scholarly approach to nutrition tables. That is since you do not know about ash values. While I found one readable table about nutrition of Katydids. That table is not ideal and I am not settling on as a final table for this conversation. The search continues.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

 

[SauceGandhi]

Just the ash ratio/percentages are an academic scholarly approach to nutrition tables. That is since you do not know about ash values. While I found one readable table about nutrition of Katydids. That table is not ideal and I am not settling on as a final table for this conversation. The search continues.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

I was not seriously asking you about ash values; that was a rhetorical question. The ash content is irrelevant, when the nutrition data clearly resembles a plant, instead of an animal. Have a look at my edit on the previous post. That nutrition table is not for katydids. It was for a kale salad.

 

[Motherlode Chameleon]

I was not seriously asking you about ash values; that was a rhetorical question. The ash content is irrelevant, when the nutrition data clearly resembles a plant, instead of an animal. Have a look at my edit on the previous post. That nutrition table is not for katydids. It was for a kale salad.

The table I posted stated the nutritional values as listed for Katydids.

Again not an optimum table though. The search continues.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

 

[nightanole]

Keep in mind what can legally be sold. As far as i know you need a license to even breed/sell house/banded crickets in the usa. And you cant even sell; stick bugs, black crickets, grasshoppers. Im not even sure if you can sell mantis as "food".

Its kinda funny, chameleons eat pests, and we want to breed them.

 

[Motherlode Chameleon]

Keep in mind what can legally be sold. As far as i know you need a license to even breed/sell house/banded crickets in the usa. And you cant even sell; stick bugs, black crickets, grasshoppers. Im not even sure if you can sell mantis as "food".

Its kinda funny, chameleons eat pests, and we want to breed them.

To my knowledge you cannot sell Stick Insects outside of Universities and larger establishments (Zoological Institutions). Grasshopper require permits for most species except a few more than a couple (I think 4 as of now). I am acquanited with a coupld places that commercially sell "Mantis". Leaf Insects are a great feeder that are illegal without permits.

There is a good source of insects is wild caught for brood stock such multiple species of Grasshopper, Mantis, Crickets, Katydids, Cicada's, Moths, and Stick Insects. When you breed native/local species most of the time you are not going to have permit and agricultural problems. That is from my experiences.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

 

[SauceGandhi]

The table I posted stated the nutritional values as listed for Katydids.

Again not an optimum table though. The search continues.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

Jeremy, the table you posted was 100% for a kale salad. It's from the fitbit app, where users enter nutritional data from the back of packages and stuff to track their diet. Someone was eating a kale salad, and made a typo when entering it into their phone, resulting in the autocorrect changing it to katydid.

If I can bring this back on-topic, this is why it is important to have quality sources, and I would argue why it is important to update this chart. For a long time, it was being uncritically passed around that roaches were some kind of healthy staple, when they aren't even significantly nutritionally different from a superworm, which was relegated to a lower tier, despite their similarities, both nutritionally and as nocturnal, burrowing insects.

Here are some more charts, from peer-reviewed sources:

Flap-necked chameleon - almost 70% grasshoppers by volume!

This one was from the invasive Oustalet's population in Florida - I don't think invasive populations should be our guide, but interesting results, nonetheless. You can tell this one was from earlier in the year, where grasshopper populations are lower and the caterpillars haven't matured yet.

 

[SauceGandhi]

Keep in mind what can legally be sold. As far as i know you need a license to even breed/sell house/banded crickets in the usa. And you cant even sell; stick bugs, black crickets, grasshoppers. Im not even sure if you can sell mantis as "food".

Its kinda funny, chameleons eat pests, and we want to breed them.

There are 3 species of grasshopper that are legal to ship across all continental US without need for a permit, per USDA:
1. Melanoplus differentialis (large species)
2. Melanoplus femurrubrum (medium)
3. Melanoplus sanguinipes (small)

 

[Action Jackson]

I’ve had the good fortune to travel to Madagascar several times to specifically see chameleons in their natural habitats. I’ve come to the conclusion that chameleons will eat just about any insect that comes into range. There are tons of grasshoppers, leafhoppers, crickets, katydids, moths, bees, mantids, stick insects etc, etc… Also they surely eat vertebrates like other lizards, birds and perhaps rodents when the chance arises.

A while back a prominent chameleon person was saying that chameleons didn’t eat grasshoppers. I thought that was ludicrous as they are very plentiful there and chameleons love them.

I think grasshoppers are a good feeder. They are a bit expensive especially if you have a lot of chameleons. I use them mostly to entice picky eaters and as treats.

 

[SauceGandhi]

A while back a prominent chameleon person was saying that chameleons didn’t eat grasshoppers. I thought that was ludicrous as they are very plentiful there and chameleons love them.

HAHA I remember this. He was saying that chameleons don't eat "locusts" and that he has never seen a chameleon eat one in the wild, even when placed directly in front of the chameleon. Turned out he didn't know what a locust was and not only that, you can see them being eaten all the time in documentaries. I had not done all the research at the time to disprove it, but I've posted several peer-reviewed studies here that show that they overwhelmingly eat grasshoppers/locusts... not that you could tell the difference in fecal samples anyway, since it's mostly a behavioral phase change. This is why we take one person's anecdotal evidence with a grain of salt

Timestamp ~ 10min and again around 13:30


and of course there are plenty more examples.

 

[Motherlode Chameleon]

Jeremy, the table you posted was 100% for a kale salad. It's from the fitbit app, where users enter nutritional data from the back of packages and stuff to track their diet. Someone was eating a kale salad, and made a typo when entering it into their phone, resulting in the autocorrect changing it to katydid.

If I can bring this back on-topic, this is why it is important to have quality sources, and I would argue why it is important to update this chart. For a long time, it was being uncritically passed around that roaches were some kind of healthy staple, when they aren't even significantly nutritionally different from a superworm, which was relegated to a lower tier, despite their similarities, both nutritionally and as nocturnal, burrowing insects.

Here are some more charts, from peer-reviewed sources:

Flap-necked chameleon - almost 70% grasshoppers by volume!
View attachment 338304

This one was from the invasive Oustalet's population in Florida - I don't think invasive populations should be our guide, but interesting results, nonetheless. You can tell this one was from earlier in the year, where grasshopper populations are lower and the caterpillars haven't matured yet.
View attachment 338305

The nutritional material I was looking at had a lot of insect nutritional values for human consumption, mostly crickets. That is a big source of protein of people in under developed countries. I am not seeing where you say that table is for Kale. You say that is from an App? The table says Katydids. That table looked to me as being a table for consumption of Katydids for people.

I recall someone saying grasshoppers were not good feeders for chameleons too, although chameleons relish them. I think they are a great feeder for chameleons and other reptiles.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

 

[Motherlode Chameleon]

There are 3 species of grasshopper that are legal to ship across all continental US without need for a permit, per USDA:
1. Melanoplus differentialis (large species)
2. Melanoplus femurrubrum (medium)
3. Melanoplus sanguinipes (small)

Right there is three USDA species of grasshoppers available as of today. I was recalling that there was four species of grasshoppers. Maybe more species in the future with progress of shipping policies, breeding and demand.

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ou...its/plant-pests/330-web-lists/plant-pest-list

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich

 

[SauceGandhi]

The nutritional material I was looking at had a lot of insect nutritional values for human consumption, mostly crickets. That is a big source of protein of people in under developed countries. I am not seeing where you say that table is for Kale. You say that is from an App? The table says Katydids. That table looked to me as being a table for consumption of Katydids for people.

I totally get where your confusion comes from. Let me see if I can explain better from the beginning.

1. Look at the top of the page. It says "fitbit". We are looking in fitbit's database.
2. Fitbit is a watch-like fitness device that tracks activity so you can manage your calories. My fiance used to have one. It comes with a phone app.
3. In order to track your calories, you have to enter the nutritional information from the food that you're eating into the app, which uploads it to fitbit's public database so you (or others who look up the item) can easily click on it again when you eat that food item.
4. For some packaged foods, you can just scan a barcode, but other times you have to manually type in all the information because the item is not yet in the database.
5. Someone was trying to enter the information for "kale salad" and fat-fingered it, resulting in autocorrect changing it to "katydid", which was entered into the database.

So it says "katydid", but the person who made the entry meant to type "kale salad". A small typing error (probably included missing the space in the middle) lead to the autocorrect, from "kale salad" to "katydid". So, this person was not eating katydids, and also fitbit is not used in under-developed regions. Regardless, it doesn't matter. If you look at the numbers on that chart, it's very clearly some type of salad. I looked up another kale salad chart to confirm and it matches up almost perfectly, as you can see in the post where I added it.

 

[Mad Dog Murphy]

Anyone feed maybugs? I get loads in My moth trap this time of year, got me thinking, a nice little treat maybe?
what would you suggest was a good staple to farm yourself considering I’m a novice in this department, was going to farm some mealworms seemed easy enough, but I know these are just treats, but they can serve the birds and chickens too, bonus.

 

[Mad Dog Murphy]

Nice point/ s I believe petr necas also summarised what insects the chams are actually eating in the wild , some unfortunately would not be realistic to keep in a domestic home , honey bee, wasp , hornets , etc , and I agree with your point about feeding nocturnal insects to a diurnal reptile

I get loads of hornets here, Asian one is currently decimating the bees, so tell me if a hornet wasp etc got in with your chameleon in an outdoor enclosure you wont be worried? It would eat it no problem?

 

[SauceGandhi]

Anyone feed maybugs? I get loads in My moth trap this time of year, got me thinking, a nice little treat maybe?
what would you suggest was a good staple to farm yourself considering I’m a novice in this department, was going to farm some mealworms seemed easy enough, but I know these are just treats, but they can serve the birds and chickens too, bonus.

Yes, I think they would be great, seasonally. Just keep them for a day or so first to make sure they aren't dropping dead from pesticides.

I get loads of hornets here, Asian one is currently decimating the bees, so tell me if a hornet wasp etc got in with your chameleon in an outdoor enclosure you wont be worried? It would eat it no problem?

For wasps, you want them to be small, since you're relying on them getting stunned right before getting eaten. Theoretically, this should be fine, but if it's me, I'm taking out the stinger

 

[Flick boy]

I get loads of hornets here, Asian one is currently decimating the bees, so tell me if a hornet wasp etc got in with your chameleon in an outdoor enclosure you wont be worried? It would eat it no problem?

Yes I would be worried, about my cham being stung , I have no idea , but let's say my cham has came from a 20 year line of captive breed relatives, which are not eating insects that are not eating the same plant life which they would be in yeman or madagascar, I would believe that they would not have , the same resilience , and I would also worry about pesticides and insecticide etc , but obviously I would not worry about its ability to eat it

 

[SauceGandhi]

Gonna add a few more charts (I love charts) so that I can support my point that superworms and roaches should be on the same tier.

Dubia roach:

Super worm:

See how similar they are? They are both pretty fatty insects at 35-45%. Not surprising, considering they can't fly and drag their fat butts across the ground. The protein content is not that much different either.

Let's compare to something capable of flight, the Schistocerca grasshoppers:

It's not even a close contest (6-12% fat), and I don't think being this lean is limited to grasshoppers. My guess is that all insects capable of flight have a similar distribution. I just use grasshoppers as an example, because all of these studies are done for human consumption and no one wants to eat stink bugs or whatever, hence no data

The reality is that about 95% of the wild diet falls within the same 6 orders of lean insects, no matter what study you look at. They will eat other things if the opportunity presents itself, but those would fall under the treat category in my opinion. I like to eat ice cream too every once in a while. Actually, I ate a bucket of ice cream everyday for week once... I guess my point is that just because it's edible, doesn't make it good in the long run, especially as a staple. Chameleons appear to have a uniquely lean diet in the wild, and I think following that, to the best of our abilities, would be best practices to achieve optimal health and longevity in captivity. But of course variety helps too!

 

[Chino82]

Madcham has some good info on wild populations in Madagascar and what they eat.

https://www.madcham.de/en/chamaeleonfutter/

There are several diagrams such as this one that were very helpful to me when choosing my staple foods.

Seeing flies were a big part of their diet, I buy blue bottle fly larvae on the regular and let them pupate and turn to fly. I also feed lots of bsfl and let this turn to fly as well.

I’m trying out grasshoppers now.

I also maintain a pesticide free, herbicide free and fungicide free garden and get lots of beetles and squash bugs, which are on the list. I’ll skip feeding bees as they are my pollinators.