No sugar for tortoises?

[ryan57]

I wonder if anyone has conducted experiments with cultures of small and large intestine to determine and resolve the suggested intake of each (sugar and fiber) in grams? Is there any data or only conjecture?

Mine seems to enjoy berries and figs to a watermelon but on the two occasions of having watermelon, there was much more interest in the tug of war with thin rind of the smaller round melons.

 

[jaizei]

I would imagine it’s more the ratio of sugar to fiber. Watermelons are mostly water, and if we are talking about the actual fruit itself and not just the rind, it has extremely little fiber. Grass is 15 percent sugar, but from what I can find, it’s 35 to 50 percent fiber. This is why I say it’s not comparable. The grass takes much longer to digest than something like a watermelon that is basically just sugar water, so you don’t run as much of a risk of digesting too much sugar too quickly.

Along this line, the numbers for watermelon nutrition almost certainly includes the water in the 'serving size' whereas the grass numbers are possibly based on dry matter. apples to apples, (dry matter) the sugar content for the watermelon is probably much higher than the grass.

This lists 57g of dried watermelon as having 34g of sugar. 59.65% sugar

 

[jaizei]

But I generally agree that the way this forum talks about sugar as some boogeyman is misguided. Its the same idea as goitrogens, or oxalates, or protein where some sites goldilocks themselves into ultra limited diets. I don't think twice about including fruit in reasonable amounts.

 

[TammyJ]

🤔