Deapesh,
I believe you, Deapesh. Sounds like you and your wife have been
"thinking hard" about vegetarian suet. I respect your life style
choices. Thanks for posting and for sharing too.
Be helpful if anyone speculating about the connection between avian
mortality and vegetarian suet could actually point to some data that
makes this point, instead of questioning someone else's personal life
stye choices. And, the proof that birds eat vegetarian suet simply
because it takes less effort to get at, is what? Ditto, for the
suggestion that vegetarian suet is somehow not good for birds.
Deapesh, I don't know about your suet recipe. It does not look right
to my untrained eye, but I get the whole vegetarian thing. A couple of
suggestions. Think about substituting/including a high quality
vegetable fat for the wheat flour you are using in your recipe.
Besides soybean shortening (discussed below), a combination of palm
oil and whole rice flour could be better choice than whole wheat
flour. Also, looks to me like your recipe might be a little short of
ingredients that are commonly used in vegetarian suet. See below.
Probably be more work to go this route, and don't rely on my word
about any of this. You have to do your own thinking and research.
Regardless, I'd be rethinking the wheat flour thing. You should
probably be doing some research in this area anyway, especially if you
are new to vegetarian suet and are cooking this stuff up at home.
Vegetarian suet, however, is nothing new. It's widely available and is
used in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. Vegetarian suet, as I
understand it, often uses a base made from a combination of refined
vegetable fats that have things like rolled oats, bird seed, cornmeal,
peanut butter, raisins, berries, and unsalted nuts incorporated into
the fat. Some argue that high quality vegetable fats, like soybean
shortening, are actually superior to animal based suet in terms of
digestibility, allowing more fat soluble vitamins to be absorbed by a
bird's body. No idea if this is actually true, but with a little
research Despesh, you ought to be able to find someone, besides the
usual crew of resident VA-Bird experts, who actually knows something
about this topic.
Friend of mine owns a birding and nature store. Been in business for
more than 20 years. Sells a tractor trailer load of bird seed a week.
I phoned this guy to ask about about vegetarian suet. He says he has
no problem with the stuff. Used to stock vegetarian suet. No longer
does because the stuff didn't sell well. Phoned a vegetarian friend of
mine. She says all kinds of vegetarian suet can be found on-line, if
you don't want to make your own. Might be a good way to get started
with this stuff. My friend uses vegetarian suet from a company called
Unipeck.
Deapesh, in the absence of actual data or other information that
convinces you otherwise, do a little more research, purchase or make
the highest quality vegetarian suet, and get on with your life; secure
in the knowledge that you are hardly likely to be bringing death and
destruction to the birds you are feeding, human life style choices
notwithstanding. Do some reading. Ask some questions, someplace other
than VA-Bird. Think about contacting company's that sell vegetarian
suet to see what you can learn from these folks. There has to be a ton
of bird feeder and suet information out there. Become more an an
expert in this area. And, if it turns out that there is actually
something wrong with the whole vegetarian suet thing, come back to VA-
Bird and tell the rest of us what you have learned.
In the meantime, instead of worrying about vegetarian suet, those
concerned with avian mortality and human life style choices really
ought to be thinking about:
The 69 million acres that were converted to urban and suburban
landscapes here in the U.S between 1950 (I think) and 1986. (Grey &
Deneke 1986) This is an area that is 53 times the size of Delaware.
BTW, 1986 was a long time ago, for the slow afoot.
The state of Pennsylvania, where less than 1% of this state's land can
still be classified as wild (Coleman 2003).
The two million acres lost to development annually in the U.S. between
1982 and 1997. (USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service) Two
million acres is about the size of Yellowstone National Park. 15 years
times two million acres equals 30 million acres, for the slow afoot.
And, the development rate is believed to have increased since 1997.
The troubling fact that since 1960, suburbia, in some parts of this
country, increased 5909% (Haydon 2004).
The fact that we have now paved at least 4 million linear miles of
public roads in this country. (Haydon 2004) Add in parking lots, drive
ways, and other paved surfaces, and you have another 43,480 square
miles of blacktop in the lower 48 states (Elvidge et al 2004). This is
an area that is 5 1/2 times the size of New Jersey. Here in the
Chesapeake Bay watershed, impervious surface increased 40% between
1990 and 2000 (They Paved Paradise, 2004).
According to the USFWS (Migratory Bird Mortality, 2002):
97.5 million to 976 million birds perish annually due to building
strikes.
Transmission power lines, excluding electrocutions, kill 4-5 million
birds annually.
Estimates are that cars kill as many as 60 million birds annually.
Pesticides reportedly kill 72 million birds annually.
Two million birds are believed to perish annually in oil and waste
water pits.
Domestic and feral cats likely kill a couple hundred million birds
annually.
Tens of thousands of sea birds are believed to perish annually in U.S.
Fisheries.
Toss in other kinds of habitat loss, like degraded habitat
(especially, grassland and wetland habitat). Then throw in the coming
rising sea level and climate change thing. Vegetarian suet. LOL! Yeah,
Deapesh, you and your "human life style choices" are real troubling.
I'm probably not going to be able to sleep for days thinking about you
and your vegetarian suet. LOL!
Paul Kane
Falls Church, VA
www.birdsense.net
On Dec 5, 2009, at 10:51 AM, Deapesh Misra wrote:
Hi,
My wife and I, have been thinking hard for a vegetarian replacement for suet.
My wife came with an idea which is working great. Here is the recipe:
* knead wheat flour and water so as to obtain a mass of dough
* mix in the bird seeds into the dough (we are currently using 'Kaytee Ultimate Nut and Fruit Blend'.
And that is it, we put the dough out in a suet cage!
We have had the following birds eat from it so far:
* Carolina Wrens
* White Breasted Nuthatches
* Carolina Chickadees
* Downy Woodpeckers
It seems to us that one advantage of this system is that, when the dough is still soft, smaller birds feed from it. And when it dries out and gets hard, woodpeckers and wrens only continue to feed from it.
-Deapesh
Fairfax, VA
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