A debate is cooking!

[little_dragon_]

Check out the repashy forum a debate is about to cook up. There's a guy claiming he has a source that has chosen to remain nameless at this time stating all of the superfoods are hazzardous to geckos.

[JEFFREH]

And hes correct, i told him about this

There is something in all of the superfoods called aspergillus

This messes up blood chemistry, takes makes foods release phophorus, and messes up calcium absorbtion.

I was told this by a pretty reliable source and am trying to get more info now. Apparently, Cheri Smith asked Repashy point blank about this and he had no comment about it all, and she KNOWS he read it. She also asked him for his studies/tests done on the products, nothing...

I will be sure to get more info on this, Klik (Kev) was one of the first people i told considering he owns ciliatus and is feeding CGD regularly. John from http://reptilerooms.com was where i got this info from during a live chat conversation.

Klik was not supposed to make the thread, he does not have enough information to back anything up that he is saying and people can literally walk all over him.

I am still collecting a few examples of issues that occured (mainly with superfoods other than CGD,GGD, and LG) and still waiting for a response from Cheri...

I'm not going to continue on anything in the repashy forum until I get the email back and more information, until then I have nothing else to say....

[CDN-Cresties]

Interesting, thanks for the headsup!

[clint545]

This should be interesting as more info comes along, please keep us updated! Thanks!

[DragnDrop]

This is a copy of a post I made in the originating forum. I thought it might be of some use to the people who are interested in this discussion.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm not about to get on the Good/Bad Super Foods bandwagon, but I've got to try and do my part to help correct the misunderstanding here. Just because an ingredient is used to produce a product doesn't mean the final product contains that ingredient.

A few examples of fungi/mold species that can be hazardous to the health of humans include:
Aspergillus
Stachybotrys
Paecilomyces
Fusarium
Penicillium (yup... penicillium... the same group of molds that penicillin is made from! amazing?)

Penicillium is the original source of penicillin. I'm allergic to penicillin, as are millions of people. I say we ban penicillin, it's not only dangerous to those sensitive to it, it kills unsuspecting victims who have developed an allergy to it over time. Penicillin is dangerous - go post it on all the health forums you can find, write to the leader of your country that you want it banned. ;) Ignore the part about penicillin saving billions of lives, ignore most of the facts, just pick on the one or two that apply to this worthy cause to ban penicillin.

Aspergillus is a genus of mold that is closely related to Penicillium. Both economically important genera belong to the Aspergillaceae family. Species of Aspergillus mold produce gallic acid used in photographic developers, dyes, and indelible black ink. Other species produce artificial flavorings, perfumes, chlorine and alcohols and are used in the manufacture of plastics, toothpaste and soap. Aspergillus oryzae is used to make soy sauce by fermenting soybeans with the fungus. It is also used in the fermentation of rice to make sake. A Japanese food paste called "miso" is made by fermenting soybeans, salt and rice with the same mold.

According to the originator of the Super Foods (and he should know, it's his recipe), the actual aspergillus product in question is only a by-product, not the aspergillus itself, somewhat like the miso, artficial flavorings, toothpaste etc. Ooops, I better stop using toothpaste, it needs aspergillus at some stage of production. Phew... imagine, I could have had aspergillus in my mouth, instead I only have a head full of rotting teeth. I'm so lucky I over-reacted!


How about starting a new forum riot...
Sporotrichosis is caused by infection with S. schenckii, a fungus widely distributed in the natural environment. It grows on plant debris in soil and on the bark of trees, shrubs, and garden plants. One name for the infection is Sphagnum Moss Disease since sphagnum and sphagnum peatmoss can be heavily infested with the fungus. It causes thousands of people to seek medical treatment every year and even some deaths. Yet... I'll bet you wouldn't worry about using peat moss in your gecko enclosures .... or are you going to worry now? Want to start a mass panic among herp keepers? Pass this little nugget around and sit back. Can you see the relation to this thread?

Why not check out all the info before you start a possibly damaging thread and mass hysteria? Why in the world would any food manufacturer deliberately use a dangerous or downright lethal ingredient in the recipe? And why on earth would he use that dangerous product in his own gecko colonies????? Just because you see the name listed doesn't mean the ingredient is in the product. As Allen said, it's a 'fermentation by-product' and as has been shown above, some dangerous molds and fungi are quite beneficial under the right circumstances.

By no means am I saying the CGD et. al are perfect foods to be enjoyed by all, this isn't a discussion thread about their merits. All I'm saying is ... read the data and check the facts before you accuse someone of poisoning the animals who will be eating the food.

[JEFFREH]

After researching myself I'm seeing no problems, but I did get a response back.

Apparently there was some confusion about the products. Aspergillus was simply mentioned, but it not a sure fire reason why are problems are okay with "a" product (which i will soon mention). During the chat, the one who told me knew little about rhacos, only beardies.

I received 2 VERY long emails from Cheri, they were filled with info and many (never knew tehre were so many) examples that were occuring with...dragon dust ICB.

I will give some parts of the emails to you, although I'm not sure if it would be very interesting to non beardie owners, I thought it was pretty helpful. Cheri emailed T-Rex about tests and studies on the superfoods, not Repashy. I'll give you some parts of emails...

"It was on Kingsnake, and Yahoo Pogona List, and some others too. Mr Allen was upset about it at the time..... but it did not change the fact that several people were having the same dehydration issues and constipation problems using it. When they stopped using it, the symptoms stopped... till they started using it again and they returned.

Some people were upset that they felt people were bad mouthing Sandfire ranch, Dragon Dust and T-rex. IT was kind of funny when one person that posted and was upset abiut the post as they used Dragon Dust and liked it....., a few months later apologized in the list as they started having the same inpaction issues due to dehyrdation and constipation and were thankful they had read about it and stopped using the product.... which resolved the symptoms.

No one wanted to just pick on MR Allen as he seems to think... we wondered that so many dragon owners were having the same symptoms while using the product and wanted to understand what was in it and why.

He posted on KS and it was informative, then he made some statements that made me question if he knew what he was talking about..... he said aspergillus was added to pull more phosphorus out of the food.... which made absolutely no sense to me and I abandon the coversation with them when t_rex would not respond to my multiple request for copies to the testings with this product that they advertized or even a summary of what test were done..... I do not think any were. Why the heck would someone want to pull more Phosphorus out of food..... we try to limit its intake!!!

Many dragons used the dragon Dust and do not have a problem, some were using them and had very serious problems.... it could be something unique to some dragons, like the ability to pull more nutrients from food and that adds to dehydration.. I do not know for sure, never studied it or the testings..... except to know that many people were showing up on BD list and herp health list having the same problem. I was given several bottles of it, I still have them here if anyone wants them.. I would not use them after so many saying the same thing. "

Sorry, I told you the emails were long! I'm not going to be able to fit any of the examples of discssions, or examples of people with problems, so I can send them to anyone interesting via Email. Mine is JeffreH09aol.com

[babysweet]

Well, I've been pretty quiet about this whole thing... contrary to my reputation...

However, we had to put down our cat George on Thursday and well... this is the first time I've been off the couch since then.

I'm probably the one person on this list who is LEAST fond of ANY so-called "superfoods" and while I personally doubt their efficacy or even the reasoning behind them (other than the almighty $$) it's difficult for me to believe, given the way that Klik posted on the forum, that it's not all B.S.

I don't doubt that people have had impaction problems with their Beardies. But beardies are KNOWN for impaction. A slightly too-big cricket can be the cause. Temperature fluxuations in basking areas, improper sand, there are SO many things that can cause these problems.

While I'm not suggesting that the food is NOT the cause (I mean really, NO ONE can say for sure, other than a third party non-biased biologist conducting a study on the matter... and good luck with that) I think that by VAGUELY attacking an ingredient in the food that possibly doesn't make sense (take a good look at the ingredients list.. most of it doesn't make sense!) they're making themselves look ridiculous, rather than spreading their "message" in a productive fashion.

Hilde, as usual I thought your post on the matter was articulate and well-written. All I have to say is...

"I'll second that"

Kim