HPW and Blended diet?

I tried to read if this has already come up so sorry if it has..can't find it but is there a reason that you could not just add the ca supplement from the blended diet to the HPW diet recipe to boast the ca ratio? It wouldn't really be changing HPW much just adding the ca to it? I have one that eats the HPW great but doesn't really eat the fruits or veggies...not enough to make up the ratios, and I have tried both cut up and smoothie's and she just doesn't eat much. My other one only likes the cut up fruits and veggies, not smoothies...but at least they both love the HPW! I had them on BML before but neither would eat it. I guess I could try switching to the bended diet but I hate to keep switching diets and I know they like HPW but not sure if they will like the blended diet.

I think other folks are considering adding the calcium to HPW as well. It would take away the stress of trying to get a high enough amount of calcium with out over doing the phosphorus from the fruits and vegetables you use with HPW.

The same 3/4 tsp of Now brand calcium carbonate powder (or other brand containing 1200 mg calcium per teaspoon) would bring the HPW ratio up to 2.1:1.

My goal with the Blended diet was to bring up the levels of other nutrients in the diet I wanted to give my gliders, not just the calcium to phosphorus ratio.

Candy,
Thank you for answering my question. So you invented the blended diet? Do you have certain fruits and vegtables that need to be given with this diet? I would like the higher ca ratio in your diet but I'm not sure what it was in the BML that my gliders did not like, whether it was the cereal or the reptical so I was hesitant to change back to a diet that added to many other ingredients...guess I have picky eaters. Do your gliders eat their fruits and vegtables on this diet?

LuckyGlider on another forum has mentioned policy altering HPW to increase the Ca:P ratio. His recommendation, I believe, was using either papaya nector/juice, or calcium fortified orange juice in place of the water.

I can't say for sure if that's a good thing to do, or what the ratio would come out to (maybe someone else will know??), but that's just something that I've heard suggested.

Papaya Nectar (canned) is mostly water and added sugars. I just checked at nutritiondata.com and the Nectar has only 25 mg Calcium in 1 cup (250mg) so 2 cups substituted for water in HPW would only give 50 mg Calcium.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1986/2

It would be difficult to puree fresh papaya and you would have to add water to it to make it liquid enough to substitute in the HPW Mix. Again, info from the nutritiondata.com site

Mashed Papaya 1 cup (230g)has only 55.1 mg.

Papaya has a high RATIO but ounce for ounce it is no higher than many other fruits and vegetables for the amount of calcium - it just has very low phosphorus.

100 g Papaya has 24 mg Calcium and 5 mg Phosphorus for a ratio of 4.8:1
100 g Green Beans have 37 mg Calcium and 38 mg Phosphorus for a ratio of 1:1

Suggiemommaof1

Yes, I researched and developed the Blended Diet for my gliders and have shared it on my web page for others to use. Since we do not have any actual nutritional guidelines for gliders that define how much calcium or other nutrients is required for them daily I calculated the values for many recognized diets and found BML to be high for most nutrients that I looked at and HPW to be low. They are both good diets used by many gliders for years. The blended diet provides calcium, phosphorus, protein, sugar, fat and fiber in amounts between the values for HPW and BML.

My gliders have a definite dislike for the gritty texture of the Rep-cal Calcium (it does not dissolve and is like sand)

I use a wide variety of fruits and vegetables - one of each nightly but different ones each night - with the blended diet.

Michelle,

I switched to the Blended Diet (CBD) because my gliders were not eating everything. I had originally been feeding BML and they were not eating that at all. On the CBD they are eating more of their fruits and vegetables than ever before.

The gliders that needed to put on a little weight have with the exception of Gizmo and we are experimenting with her right now.