(08-03-2012, 04:29 AM)jenb128 Wrote: Some of those bird mixes are good stuff! I bought a dried fruit mix for Buzzy once, and he wouldn't eat it (no big shock there). I ended up eating it myself because it was human grade and I didn't want it to go to waste.
I've noticed that pet bird food is usually made with higher quality ingredients than cat or dog food. Buzzy's food is mostly human grade organic stuff, and I have no problems sampling it. The kitty's food on the other hand... bleh!
If you talk about the quality of the food, that's a different story. Food can be safe for human consumption but still of low quality. Somewhere I read that a human can safely digest a baseball with no ill effect, but will anyone try to eat it? I doubt it.
As for the quality of food, I am very aware of it. Since I keep a lot of tropical fish which cost me a fortune for everything, I buy only high quality fish food to keep their health in optimized conditions. Cheaper, lower quality fish food are often made of "fish meal". It is mostly fish organs and skins, basically leftover after the better parts were removed for human consumption. More expensive, higher quality fish food are often made of "whole salmon", "whole shrimp". They are good in nutritious, and they indeed make a huge difference. Would you eat a whole salmon? Probably. Would you eat just salmon skins and organs? I very much doubt it. But both can be safe for human consumption, the latter is just not very good in nutrition value.
