Nice thread, i usually thaw frozen food with tap water. Always thought that putting uncooked meat in the refrigirator will allow bacteria to grow 
Frozen krill - Cooked?
- Thread starter epicentyr
- Start date
Zinq - Good post.
One thing to consider is that feeding 'dead' food for predatory animals is taking out alot in and of itself. In the wild, these animals have the nutritional advantage of killing/consuming fresh killed animals. So, I've always pushed to keep as much value to the food as possible. Even losing a little is hurting it leaps and bounds beyond what it was as a live meat/food item. I was shocked when I saw a study on the levels of nutritional loss during the thawing process. The primary areas targeted in the study were nutrients that were water soluble and how they broke down within various water temp ranges, moving vs standing water thawing etc... Also touched on the increased amount of food an animal of a set size/age will consume vs that same size/age in the wild to compensate for lacking nutrition within the diet we offer. Most will still do vitamin supplementation on top of the best foods money can buy. In the future, I'd love to set up and do a metabolism study for publishing. There are a lot of "known" things that just kind of get accepted sometimes - but no real rock solid "facts" when it comes to noting all factors involved with tracking metabolic fluxuations, and then determining whether or not they are diet related or environment related.
I don't have a copy of the original study on me at the moment, but if I happen to run across it while packing boxes for my move in the next couple of days, I'll post some of what it showed. (It may have been on the USDA site or the APHIS site linked to food prep for captive carnivore mammals.) Though obviously those two agencies don't have control over captive fish, most zoos/aquariums directly translate those methods to preparation of fish diets as well.
One thing to consider is that feeding 'dead' food for predatory animals is taking out alot in and of itself. In the wild, these animals have the nutritional advantage of killing/consuming fresh killed animals. So, I've always pushed to keep as much value to the food as possible. Even losing a little is hurting it leaps and bounds beyond what it was as a live meat/food item. I was shocked when I saw a study on the levels of nutritional loss during the thawing process. The primary areas targeted in the study were nutrients that were water soluble and how they broke down within various water temp ranges, moving vs standing water thawing etc... Also touched on the increased amount of food an animal of a set size/age will consume vs that same size/age in the wild to compensate for lacking nutrition within the diet we offer. Most will still do vitamin supplementation on top of the best foods money can buy. In the future, I'd love to set up and do a metabolism study for publishing. There are a lot of "known" things that just kind of get accepted sometimes - but no real rock solid "facts" when it comes to noting all factors involved with tracking metabolic fluxuations, and then determining whether or not they are diet related or environment related.
I don't have a copy of the original study on me at the moment, but if I happen to run across it while packing boxes for my move in the next couple of days, I'll post some of what it showed. (It may have been on the USDA site or the APHIS site linked to food prep for captive carnivore mammals.) Though obviously those two agencies don't have control over captive fish, most zoos/aquariums directly translate those methods to preparation of fish diets as well.
ever since this thread I have been batch thawing my frozen food the night before feeding. I just throw enough food for the next 3-4 days in a plastic bag and into the refrigerator. The rays seem to notice the food when the smell (and vitamins possibly) have not been washed off. I have not had any issues with this method. the food does not get rotten and still smells fresh when I feed on the last day.
I wonder if all this worry over the loss of a small percentage of nutritional value is needed. Considering that most fishkeepers keep their stock fed regularly, vs in the wild where, while they may be getting more nutritional value per meal, the meals are much harder to come by and more infrequent. I bet it all kind of washes in the end.
Zoodiver;2117838; said:
I know the last post on this thread is nearly 2 months old...but I can't help asking - since thawing(and maybe even cooking as mentioned earlier) causes nutritional loss, why do humans do it?
1. I don't think we can eat a frozen chunk of food can we? which means we need to thawFreezekougra;4016402; said:
2. To keep most proteins from spoiling, we need to freeze it, theres no other way to prolong its shelf life.
2. It's also proven that cooked food digests alot easier than raw foods. For example, raw beef is alot harder to digest than cooked beef.
3. Cooking kills bacteria that could possibly be in the food itself.
We tend to vary from the animal world in regard to food. As humans, we do a lot of things for vanity (mixing food for flavor etc...). Cooking raw meat is a method we created to prevent our bodies from being plagued by bacteria it can't handle.
