What is BirD-elicious?!?

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Bird-elicious! is a highly specialized. gourmet bird food made for companion parrots and other birds, hook bills and softbills.It is the first truly species-specific bird food on the commercial market. BirD-elicious!, or "BD" as we call it, is made from only 100% human-grade, organic and natural ingredients. We use no corn, no wheat, no soy, no peanuts, no added hormones, no preservatives (unless they are naturally occurring such as the vitamin C found in fruits, rosemary, sea salt or vitamin E found in virgin coconut oil), no synthetic vitamins (laboratory-produced), no pesticide residues, no sulfur dioxide. BD is just about the most pure bird food you can find, short of making you own!Why?Science is learning more every day about the possible harm the above ingredients can cause to a living creature. Corn, in and of itself is not necessarily harmful. But it offers little nutrition in ration to the elements it contains that can add to health discomforts for a companion bird. The same holds true with wheat, soy and peanuts. These items either contain large amounts of starch, which turns into sugar, or gluten, which binds the digestive tract and interrupts proper absorption of nutrients, or hormones that can alter the delicate and fragile hormonal system of a bird. In addition, soy and peanuts are commonly known allergens. Preservatives just don't have place in a bird's diet. Their system being more fragile than a human's, it can easily be intoxicated with man-made chemicals that even the human race is learning can be highly carcinogenic to our own bodies. The same holds true with pesticides, and even more so. Food that is not organic is most likely heavy-laden with pesticides to insure a larger crop. Which leads us into the idea of GMO's. Genetically Modified Organisms. Do we really know beyond a shadow of a doubt that these foods are safe for consumption by any living creature? And one very important point to make here is this, food manufacturers do not have to label a food as GMO. They can use a GMO ingredient in your foods and they don't even have to tell you! We use no GMO's. So back to vitamins. Why are we not touting the use of synthetic vitamins? Again, there is no solid proof that synthetic vitamins increase health and longevity of life, let alone no one knows for sure if they are even absorbed and if so, to what degree? Research is beginning to show the possibility that synthetic vitamins are both under-absorbed and over-absorbed. The problem is that no one knows which are "under" and which are "over".In following, no one really knows the damage that is being caused by long-term usage of these "vitamins". It seems that a living body is just not sure how to utilize a synthetic "nutrient". We have listed sulfur dioxide separately from preservatives because so much of it is used on "organic" fruits to keep their bright color so that you are lured to buying those fruits over the more chemically free fruits in your organic market. Sulfur dioxide has not yet been deemed an official preservative because it is derived from a natural source. But yet, many people, including myself, are extremely sensitive to it and cannot eat anything that has been treated with it. So why buy fruits that have bee treated in this manner? If bright color is the only advantage to ingesting an ingredient that could potentially upset your living system, why use it all? Once the food is in your mouth, I seriously doubt that you sit there chewing it thinking about what color it was before it disappeared into your body's digestive cavern! Birds couldn't care less if fruit is bright or dull in color. They are more concerned with the texture than anything else. And fruit that has not been treated with sulfur dioxide is rarely any different in texture than food that has been treated with sulfur dioxide.

Now that I have explained what we don't use in BD, let me explain what we do use and why. We begin our formulas with a high amount of cranberries. Cranberries are known to aid in the digestion process as well as stimulate the urinary system to excrete properly. It cleanses both the kidneys and the liver insuring that toxins are smoothly carried out of the body. Besides that good news, cranberries also contain a high amount of beta-carotenes; the precursor to vitamin A. Vitamin A on its own can be very toxic in relatively small quantities. On the other hand, beta-carotenes are changed into vitamin A as the body needs it and thus there is very rarely, if ever, an overload of beta-carotenes let alone vitamin A. After cranberries, we normally use a high amount of alfalfa and/or dandelion greens. Both of these have proven to contain good amounts of vitamin A, B vitamins, choline, calcium, digestive enzymes and a myriad of other nutrients too numerous to list. In addition, they are high in fiber, which we believe to be an important staple in a bird's diet. Look at what they consume in the wild. Most of it, if not all of it, contain a large amount of fiber. We believe this helps a bird's body to cleanse the digestive and excretion tracts. After these basic ingredients, and notice, we do not use fillers such as the corn, wheat or soy, we begin adding ingredients we have found to be universal to good health in most living creatures. We keep in line with the types of foods birds would eat if they were in their natural habitat. Most birds do not eat meat. Some do, but most birds that are considered "companion birds" do not. However, they do take in some small measurable amounts of "animal protein". "How?? you may ask. The nuts, seeds, greens and the dirt they manage to eat on their foods, contain insects and worms. It is commonly known that people indigenous to the third worlds, as well as some of the more civilized locations, eat insects and worms for protein. As well as protein, these bugs contain a type of iron that is found only in red meats. Worms are considered a "type" of red meat. Birds don't have the digestive system to properly digest and then absorb meat, as we know meat, to their full advantage because meat takes an acidic system, low in PH, to digest meat properly. If a bird's digestive tract contained the amount of acid needed to digest meat to the full potential, the bird would no doubt be in some kind of ill health. And, sadly, many companion birds do have an acidic system. This leads to yeast overgrowth, but that subject should be set aside for an entirely different page on our web site. We continue formulating each of our species-specific foods according to the research we have read about as well as the research we have done on our own. Each species seems to need different quantities of many of the same ingredients. It is our job to learn what those quantities are. Some need more fruit, some need less fruit. Some don't really "need" any fruit at all. Some need less fat, some need more. And the kind of fat varies as well from species to species. Some thrive on nut protein while other do better on the protein found inside un-hulled seeds. Some birds have a tendency to certain health problems while others seem to be callus to almost any disease. All of these idiosyncrasies have to be taken into consideration for each and every species. We can't just throw all birds into the "poultry science" category and say, "Well, there you go, food for ALL birds!" Companion birds fly, poultry fly like rocks. Their digestive system is just as different as their flying apparatus. And furthermore, most people don't eat companion avian species like they do poultry, although in some countries they are becoming quite the delicacy.

(Don't even get me started on that subject!)

Besides the general types of whole-food ingredients (nutrients), we also use some not-so-common ingredients. Earlier I mentioned the use of worms in our foods for the haem iron. We also use CA-Montmorillonite Clay for its mineral content and its ability to clean toxins and iron-toxicity out of the liver. We use DE (diatomaceous earth) in some of our formulas. DE, the food grade type, is used by grain distributors to keep bugs at a minimum. Yes, you eat DE in your cereals and you don't even realize it! DE performs a valuable task in bird food. I addition to "de-bugging" your bird's food, it also keep parasites out of your bird! The microscopic shells of crustaceans, DE cuts the outer skin of parasites and they "leak" to death and die. Don?t worry; DE is far too small to hurt your bird's intestines. In fact, DE can't harm anything larger than a flea or sometimes, a small ant. And as long as the DE is mixed thoroughly with other certain ingredients, it cannot become airborne and infiltrate the lungs. We are careful that we know the most proper way to utilize this ingredient to your birds benefit. There are other ingredients in our foods, too numerous to mention. I can guarantee you there is a solid reason behind each and every ingredient. Most of our formulas contain a minimum of 30 different ingredients. Some of our formulations contain as many as 54 different ingredients! You would have to spends hours and hours to make your own bird food! And you will not find that kind of variety in any other commercial food. In the wild birds eat all kinds of plants, leaves, seeds, nuts and other items just to insure that they fulfill their nutrient requirements. Variety is the healthiest way to insure a living creature receives all they need to keep their body running efficiently and smoothly without illness or disease. Each food has its own unique combination of nutrients. The nutrients may be similar in each food, but the combination of those nutrients is what makes it so special and necessary. And, our foods are not extruded in any way. They are not heat-extruded or cold extruded. It is proven fact that whole-foods loose most of their nutrition through extrusion of any kind. Why do you think synthetic vitamins are added back in, even to the cold-extruded foods? And just think about it. If you ate the very same food, day after day, month after month, year after year, don't you think you would begin to develop some health problems? Why of course! Something so intricate as a living creature cannot possibly thrive on a mundane list of fillers, starches, gluten and synthetic vitamins, even if they are "organic". Organic ingredients are just the icing on the cake that qualifies a food source, but what is actually in your cake determines the quality of the crowning glory and tells the story behind the cook in the kitchen. Does the cook care? Or is the cook just trying to get the cake on the table as fast a possible with as little effort as necessary and at a price that affords a brand new car for "self-centered" compassion? I'm talking about manufacturers here now. Do they really have your bird?s best interest at heart? Or are they concerned about getting home early from work, stuffing their wallet and driving that new car? Are the promoters of these commercial pet foods the actual people who make your birds food? I seriously doubt it. Well, we are the people who actually make your bird's food! Yes, we, the owners of BirD-elicious! recipes, make the very food your bird eats when it eats BirD-elicious! Our foods are made by hand, not huge metal-ridden equipment and then stored in huge vats for months and months on end.

We make your bird's food, we package your bird?s food, and we ship your bird?s food.

In most cases, within 72 hours after we produce your bird's food, you have it on your doorstep, FRESH from our kitchen!

You just can't beat that!