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I know a lot of veggies and produce are best served and eaten raw, but which ones should be steamed or boiled first?
Which veggies are best to cook first?
- Thread starter goReptiles
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I always boiled the butternut squash (a couple of minutes until it is aldente) before serving it to my Hermann.
I don't really "cook" anything that I feed to the tortoises, however, I do have to nuke the harder squashes for a few minutes to soften them enough for the tortoise to be able to bite off pieces. I nuke the banana squash or acorn squash..any of the really hard ones.
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Ok. I just thought that I ran across a thread that said due to toxicity some foods should be cooked first. It just didn't say which. Thanks
goReptiles said:
Just clean them really well...if you wanna go the extra mile...use VEGGIE SCRUB or fill up your sink with cold water and add 3 tbsp salt and 3 tbsp lemon juice...this is a great veggie/fruit cleaner.
J
jackyronell
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Turtles are really difficult to take care of and even some people even don't know what to feed them. Lettuce, radishes, carrots, squash, peas, and pumpkin are favourite veggies of tortoise and i think this should be cooked first.
My desert tortoise loves yams . I peel about 4 yams and put them thru the food processor grater blade . I then place them in a pyrex dish and microwave 4min., stir , then give them 4 more minutes . If Darohl is in the house he puts his head up high sniffing the air in anticipation ! I then add his nopalitos in the mix . We are lucky here in Texas that they are shredded in a bag in the produce section . I then throw in his treat of frozen peas , sometimes grated carrots or grated apples , ground organic egg shells . The nopalitos are calcium rich though . Into freezer bags I put batches of his dinner & store it in the freezer . I take out a new bag ever other day and let it defrost ... he get excited when he sees me with his freezer bag of veggies . This is a zoo diet I was given by a vet for desert tortoises . I add fresh things into his mix before feeding him . He is a picky eater and this seems to work best .
I guess the jury's still out on this one. I did a GOOGLE search, "Which vegetables should not be eaten raw" and came up with a couple different answers, but nothing concrete. Do your own search and read through all the comments. Hope it helps.
I never cook any of them for my torts. Obviously in the wild torts can't cook so they have to eat everything raw 
.
.I don't give my tort many veggies, more so leaves. Just butternut squash and pumpkin, which I tend to buy canned. I put a spoonful in the lid of a baby food jar so he doesn't make a mess of it. Many tort species like Russians, Sulcatas, and Deserts shouldn't be eating too many veggies, most especially starchy ones like yams, peas, carrots, etc. I also would never feed fruit. They eat more weeds than anything else in the wild. If I was making fresh squash I would either cook it or shred it with a grater. Preferably shred it as I prefer to go as natural as I can, but if I already cooked it for my family then I'd just feed it that way. I don't know of anything that has to be cooked due to toxicity.
I think the OP was alluding to the fact that some veggies are toxic unless cooked. However, I couldn't find anything conclusive about it in a web search.
emysemys said:
This is a new one to me. I haven't heard of any uncooked toxicity issues.
On the rare occasion that I feed yams, carrots or squash, it gets the cheese grater treatment.
Hi JayC:
Welcome to the forum!!
Welcome to the forum!!
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