I was under the impression tomatoes are fine, but tomato leaves are not.
You are partly right on that,
IF, the tomato is ripe and
NOT green.
RED,
FULLY RIPE tomatoes are OKAY, but use at your own discretion. Let me explain....
Tomato plant leaves, stems, and stems of the fruit, as well as the green fruit, are toxic. The
whole tomato plant contains solanine, and this is more prevalent in the leaves and stems. Solanine is a toxic glycoalkaloid poison found in species of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), such as the potato (Solanum tuberosum), the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), and the eggplant. It can occur naturally in
any part of the plant, including the leaves AND fruit. Other toxic substances in the plant are glycoalkaloid tomatine and some glycoproteins.
Tomatoes,
when green, contain
ALL of those toxic components. As they mature, they slowly lose those substances so that when ripe, the amounts left in the red tomato are too small to be considered "toxic". The green, un-ripe tomato though, is
HIGHLY toxic.
Even for humans, eating a fully green tomato can cause intestinal problems. The ingestion of the leafy plant itself is also toxic to us - it can cause gastrointestinal, liver, and heart damage, which can lead to death, provided that the intake of the plant is high enough. In Mexico, they actually used to grow tomato plants in gardens as decorative pieces instead of for the fruit, because they were considered a highly toxic plant and not much was known about them back in those days...
"So is a fully ripe tomato okay?" you may ask....
Sure,
BUT .... let me just say this.....
Tomato fruit contains beta carotene, which is proformed and not preformed vitamin A, so it won't build up in your chameleon's system. It is also high in calcium and Vitamin K, as well as lots of other good vitamins. It is low in Oxalic Acid. All good things to know....
HOWEVER......... it is
HIGHER in Phosphorus than in Calcium, and therefore is
not your best choice for gutloading.
So, if it is a
RED tomato and
FULLY RIPE...... then yes it would be OKAY to use.... but if you want my two cents, I would use it very sparingly, or not at all, because the phosphorous level is higher than the calcium level. The whole reason we dust our insects is because their phosphorous levels are higher than their calcium levels. So, feeding an insect a tomato which is higher in phosphorous than it is in calcium, is kind of furthering the gap of poor calcium-to-phosphorous ratio.
So as I stated before, do so at your own discretion. I just told you what I know.
I also might add that, I had some hornworms about a month or so ago, courtesy of a forum member.... They were growing fast and I actually ran out of food for them before I could feed them all off. First time for me. What I did was, I put 7 into a bucket of dirt so they can pupate.... and I put a piece of collard greens into the cup with the other few, and they munched on that for about 4 days while I slowly fed the rest of them off. Carrots, leafy greens.... they can be a temporary solution, and are much better than a tomato as far as the nutritional value for the cham. I'm not even sure a hornworm would eat the tomato, as I've never seen or heard about one doing that, even in the wild.
As for the nutritional value of silkworms versus hornworms.... sorry I can't help you there. I've seen a few different charts that compare the nutritional values of different feeders, but every chart seems to vary slightly so I can't tell you for sure what is exact. Maybe some other people can throw out some knowledge about that particular matter?
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