Nutritional Analysis of Selected Nuts and Seeds

Abstract

Though most of us have fed nuts to our parrots as a regular or occasional part of their diet, few of us have sat down to analyze just what nutritional benefits they were getting from nuts. Over the last few months, I set out to accomplish this task. This proved to be a great challenge because the nutritional books that are readily available do not compare any two nuts the same way. For instance, they

might compare one ounce of pine nuts to one cup of walnuts and use the average serving of eight filberts, making any useful analysis for our purposes impossible. After several frustrating months of trying to locate a more reasonable way to compare data, I contacted Helene Swenerton, Ph.D., a nutritionist at U.C. Davis in California. She let me in on the secret that I had been missing. The data that you see in the nutritional books available in your bookstores comes primarily from a group of handbooks produced by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture in a series called Composition of Foods. I have chosen to compare all the nuts and seeds using the values for 100 grams, edible portion (without nut shells) so that you can easily see where the individual nuts excel. Nuts do not contain any cholesterol. Cholesterol is only found in animal products. Although they do contain a high fat content, only one (coconut), contains significant amounts of saturated fat which could cause problems if fed in large amounts to birds that are not active. The rest contain mostly monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats which are not a problem.

Two parrots, the Hyacinth Macaw and the Thick Billed Parrot, are known to eat diets composed nearly exclusively of nuts. In the case of the Thick Billed Parrot, they eat the Pinyon nut, which they harvest from the pine cone of the Pinyon Pine tree. Another nut, the Pignolia nut, is imported from Europe under the name of "pine nut" as well. However, this nut comes from the Pignolia Pine tree and has a vastly different nutritional analysis to the U.S. native Pinyon nut.

Although the nutritional needs of a caged bird will differ from a breeder bird that is in a large outdoor flight, the benefits of a varied diet which contains a wide variety of vitamins, minerals and amino acids is necessary for long term captive health. Nut shells are a source of amusement and help maintain the mandible in good condition once the nut meat is removed. I have seen our macaws spend long periods of time rubbing empty nut shells against their lower mandibles in a filing motion.

Almonds (Prunus amygdalus). Native to southwestern Asia. Commercially grown in California, Spain and Italy and to a lesser extent in Iran, Portugal and Morocco. They can grow to a height of 40 feet (12 meters), yield 10 to 20 pounds of nuts per tree at maturity and live 50 years. The trees bear nuts at four years old. Harvested in late summer. Highest in calcium of all the nuts analyzed. They would be beneficial to increase during breeding season to bolster the hen's reserve of calcium and help prevent soft shelled eggs.

Brazil Nuts (Bertholletia excelsa).

Round, dark brown fruit four to six inches ( 10 to 15 cm) in diameter. Hard walled 1/4 inch (6 mm) thick shell resembling coconuts can weigh over three pounds (1.5 kilos). Containing 8 to 24 nuts one to two inches (3 to 5 cm) arranged like sections of an orange. It takes nine years from sowing the seed to the first harvest and 14 months after blossoming for the nuts to be ready to harvest. They are harvested from November to June from wild, non-cultivated stands. The tree grows up to 150 feet (46 meters) tall, with a trunk at the base of four to six feet (1.2 to 1.8 meters) in old trees. They grow in forests in northern Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Columbia, Venezuela and the Guianas. Those trees closest to the Amazon River are most easily harvested using the river for transportation to the larger cities for export. Less than 50% of the Brazil nuts produced a year will ever be gathered due to their inaccessible jungle locations. The tree is valuable for timber and is, therefore, a highly vulnerable crop to deforestation. Good source of calcium, phosphorus and thiamin.