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Ensure...Harmful to our gliders??? #83871
02/18/06 09:25 PM
02/18/06 09:25 PM

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I know many of us are feeding different diets which include Ensure. Look at this site I found about it: http://www.newstarget.com/002698.html

Re: Ensure...Harmful to our gliders??? [Re: ] #83872
02/18/06 09:45 PM
02/18/06 09:45 PM
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 16,800
St. Johns, Florida
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Glideritis Anonymous
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 16,800
St. Johns, Florida
As with any type of food item out there today, when doing research you are going to find people who agree with it and think it is the best and then you are going to have those who think it is bad....just do as much research as you can and go with your gut feeling on it.

Personally, my vet thinks there are too many vitamins in it for a healthy glider but thinks it is beneficial for a sick glider.

Once again, do as much research as possible and go with what you feel is best for your glider. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumb.gif" alt="" />


Peggy
Critter Love
Critter Love� Diet Center

If you want to know what a person is like, watch how he treats others.

You'll never know what the outcome is if you don't step up and try.

Re: Ensure...Harmful to our gliders??? [Re: ] #83873
02/19/06 01:04 AM
02/19/06 01:04 AM

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Well first of all, you need to take into consideration the source of this article. It's on a natural health and medicine site where they are against anything artificial. Only natural whole foods are considered the only healthy foods.

Second, this article is talking about Ensure for humans... not for gliders. Gliders have entirely different dietary requirements than humans.

And third, his main complaint seems to be the Ensure claim of being a "complete" nutrition. Well, I don't consider Ensure to be "complete". That's why with the Darcy's diet, we feed other things in addition to the Ensure - protein, fruits, veggies, additional calcium, and for me, the optional acacia gum.

Basically, you need to make the decision for yourself and what you're comfortable with. If you aren't comfortable with the Ensure, then don't feed it. There are several other good diet options out there.
But, I can say that Ensure has been great for my gliders. They all do very well and are very healthy.
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Re: Ensure...Harmful to our gliders??? [Re: ] #83874
02/19/06 03:33 AM
02/19/06 03:33 AM

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I read the article in the link, and went to author Adam's website as well. To be fair, he looks healthy in his shirtless pictures. It appears he tries to eat healthy and exercise, both of which are good things to do. (Imagine that, Mr. Adams, an M.D. saying one should eat healthy and exercise.) In my opinion, this gentleman does not provide the most balanced viewpoint on health issues. He makes many accusations and comments on his site that I do not believe can be substantiated by sources many would consider credible. I saw a young man play basketball the other day, and I remember the night years ago he came in my office as a little guy, sick with acute lymphocytic leukemia. A once lethal and hopeless diagnosis, and the chemotherapy the author admonishes has given this young man and family his very life and health back. I wonder how that family would feel about "information" his website? He professes to be free and independent of big business dollars, yet notes he keeps royalties from his sales of books and information for a "reasonable living." Hmmmm.

Back to Ensure - he complains that ensure is mostly water and sugar. So is orange juice, and milk, and breast milk. He doesn't mention that the cells within the body burn sugar for fuel as the main fuel source. Or that ingested protein that is not needed for protein building is converted to sugar and burned for fuel as well. My car won't go without gas, my razor won't work without electricity, and cells need sugar. I'm not advocating junk food, but get honest with information, you who pledge "To set an example of outstanding human health, honesty and integrity."

Guess the major ingredients in the "massive quantities of blueberries" he eats? What's in the "Other various nutritional and herbal supplements depending on need", and how does one determine that need, and how does he know the supplements address this "need"?

I agree with him that as a society we consume entirely too much refined sugar. But if you take in everything you read on that site, you'll be consuming the stuff my glider makes after he eats his Ensure.

Re: Ensure...Harmful to our gliders??? [Re: ] #83875
02/19/06 04:18 AM
02/19/06 04:18 AM
Joined: Apr 1999
Posts: 5,336
Bee-Bopping round SnakePit USA
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Serious Glideritis
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Serious Glideritis
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Joined: Apr 1999
Posts: 5,336
Bee-Bopping round SnakePit USA
Personally , I think he looks great in his shirtless pics.. but that is coming from an old woman who hasn't seen a body look that good in awhile, so I guess I could be a bit biased..

shlep.. what about this one.. really, I want your opinion..

ensure info


which would make all the sense in the world why Lord Darcy was prescribed the ensure diet.. but is it healthy for healthy gliders???

Re: Ensure...Harmful to our gliders??? [Re: ] #83876
02/19/06 09:30 AM
02/19/06 09:30 AM

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Now this may seem like an odd way to look at it, but several of the health problems that ensure where ensure is fed are common to gliders. Especially Liver and Kidney problems. Instead of thinking of ensure as a sick diet, why not consider it preventitive medicine?

Re: Ensure...Harmful to our gliders??? [Re: ] #83877
02/19/06 09:55 AM
02/19/06 09:55 AM

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What are the pros and cons for pediasure or ensure same?different?
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nixweiss.gif" alt="" />

Re: Ensure...Harmful to our gliders??? [Re: ] #83878
02/19/06 12:24 PM
02/19/06 12:24 PM
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 1,532
Andover, Ohio
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Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 1,532
Andover, Ohio
Pediasure? I didn't think anyone used that as part of a glider diet?


Jennifer Chandler
Owned by sugar gliders for over 14 years
Pet Sugar Gliders
Re: Ensure...Harmful to our gliders??? [Re: ] #83879
02/19/06 01:41 PM
02/19/06 01:41 PM

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I started to give it to my gliders when sugar was preg. for the first time, I would put it in their water tube,in the morning when I fed them their worms, two or three times a week, they don't like there bml a whole lot even tho I have tried every kind.There baby was born very healthy and grew like a weed. They would drink every drop and look for more.
They just had another baby and he is looking great.He is two week oop and I had him out this morning while they were eating their worms and he is very active, and doing well.I liked it because It was scaled down it fit the needs of babies and young children. I don't think that I would give it every day, they would get fat, but as a supp. for gliders that snub their noses at eating their bml, I love it. I have seen no ill effects, They have great coats, clear eyes great poop lol and are very active. I don't know if anyone else feeds pedisure to their gliders,it would be great to know because it sure seems like my mom must have mega the way these babies grow. I must say she only has one at a time but she was nursing one in pouch and one out at the same time. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dance.gif" alt="" />

Re: Ensure...Harmful to our gliders??? [Re: ] #83880
02/20/06 01:49 AM
02/20/06 01:49 AM

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Bourbon,
Many of us have all those same muscles down deep; we just wouldn't want the ladies to like us for such superficial parameters, so we hide them better. Maybe we're just jealous, because apparently some women prefer these scrawny, half-starved guys with no baby fat and all those lumpy muscles, as opposed to us more normally nourished types that don't consider an occasional Pizza a mortal sin.

The Ensure link you provided is informative. Products like that which are used as supplements in a medical environment for those patients who cannot for whatever reason meet their nutritional needs on their own at the dinner table have to list a different kind of information set than regular food. If Cheerios were fed through a feeding tube in the hospital, the label would look about like this website or worse. The website included pretty standard descriptions and precautions. I don't know if you had a specific question. I don't see anything there that would speak against its use. Feeding a patient in the hospital is a lot like feeding a pet in captivity - one has to be careful to meet all the nutritional needs.

Someone posted about their veterinarian's concern of excess vitamins in Ensure. The safety zone between the level of vitamins needed to meet all nutritional needs and the toxic or harmful level are pretty far apart. I've never seen confidence-inspiring information on exactly what levels of vitamins are required in humans; for example one dude may weigh double what the next guy weighs, yet the pills all have the same amounts. If one takes in a larger amount than the printed minimal daily requirements, the body is good at excreting some excess. It would take a pretty massive increased intake to be harmful, certainly more than one can get from drinking Ensure in my opinion.

All of this dialogue is human-based - the label information and discussion is from a context of human experience and medicine. We know less about glider needs and norms. But one thing always sticks with me. If they drink Ensure, each drop has a little of everything that one might want them to get. Protein, vitamins, calories, essential fatty acids and amino acids, all of it is addressed. When I put other diets in front of them, they pick and choose. I can never be sure that they actually eat a balanced diet. I can only be sure I placed a good and balanced diet in front of them. That makes Ensure provide a certain level confidence. Each diet I have read about and researched has pros and cons. I see the above as an Ensure pro.

Perhaps the advantage of diversity might lead one to feed Ensure on Monday, BML on Tuesday, and Zookeepers on Wednesday, and then repeat the sequence every three days. I've only given Ensure for about a week, but they do inhale it. And it's easy.

Re: Ensure...Harmful to our gliders??? [Re: ] #83881
02/20/06 01:56 AM
02/20/06 01:56 AM

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All I know is all my gliders have been on Darcys diet since Jan 2003 and we have had no health related deaths, all but one if our 20 some gliders are at healthy weights (Mojo has always been a lump) and some beautiful joeys. No complaints.


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