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Old 03-05-07, 02:31 am
jabberwock jabberwock is offline
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Re: Cavy Nutrition Charts Discussion Thread

I looked up pea sprouts and shoots last year (because we eat them a lot). The USDA database has data for the sprouted seeds and this link says it's for pea shoots
FRESHLINK FARMS

Generally I would use "pea sprouts" for the sprouted seeds grown in seed trays and harvested at about 4 inches and "pea shoots" as the young shoots and tendrils cut from larger pea plants (but the terms sometimes get used more interchangeably than that).
Anyway, the problem that I thought I found was that the Ca:P ratio was of the order of 1:10 which, from all I have read on this forum, is not OK so I didn't feed them. But I'd be interested to have a more expert opinion on this.

The escarole/endive thing gets onfusing. My local greengrocers classes Batavian lettuce as escarole - the supermarket labels it as lettuce. The values on the USDA database can only be averages because they can't test every different variety of any vegetable. For example, they list values for raw red (all year average), orange, yellow and green tomatoes. But there are hundreds of different tomato varieties and they will all vary slightly. The sugar content will vary particularly with the ripeness and that correlates with the weather. So it's not an exact science - we can't guaranteee that the particular lettuce/tomato/whatever that we give to our guinea pigs has exactly the same nutrition as the one in the table. But over a long enough period of time the averages should be the same.
So I would say that the USDA endive figures would probably incude escarole as well, though again I'd be interested to hear a more informed opinion.
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