Bee Pollen Comparison:
HPW
diet & Healesville Sanctuary
diet(Link to the spreadsheet is at the bottom here)
Many people have pondered the amount of Bee Pollen used in the "HPW
diet" and many others have claimed it is "too much" as compared to the Healesville Sanctuary
diet for sugar gliders. We have just conducted an analysis of the nutritive values of bee pollen in both
diets.
The overall conclusion is that while the HPW
diet does use more bee pollen than the Healesville Sanctuary
diet, the absolute nutritive values are not dissimilar to common fruits and vegetables. In fact, serving for serving, the nutritive values for some vitamins and minerals are actually less than some fruits and vegetables. We have also listed the nutritive values of a single serving of Papaya along the side just to keep things in perspective.
Base Calculations for Pollen in HPW
diet to get "Serving Amount":
One pound (0.453 kilograms ) of Australian (Jarrah Tree) Bee Pollen Granules fills 3 cups in volume
3 cups is equal to 48 tablespoons
1 tablespoon = .009 kilograms (9.43 grams)
2 tablespoons = 18.86 grams per batch of HPW
One "batch" of HPW = 5 cups in volume
5 cups = 240 teaspoons
240 teaspoons divided by 1.5 teaspoons per serving = 160 servings
18.86 grams of pollen divided by 160 servings = 117.8 milligrams bee pollen per serving (824.6 mg per week)
Base Calculations for Pollen in Healesville
diet to get "Serving Amount":
Based on the 178-page document entitled "Healesville Sanctuary
diets" dated August, 2006 by the Healesville Sanctuary, the
diet Sheet for Sugar Glider (page 22) calls for: "5 Pollen grains - once per week." At first, "grains" was thought to be the unit of measurement "grains," not the actual granuels. 5 "grains" (as in the unit of measurement) *would* have been the same as 320 milligrams which sounded feasible. But I was told: "No, it's 5 actual granuels of the pollen - not the 'unit of mass' called grains - even though the
diet sheet says 'grains'."
5 granules is not significant from a mass standpoint. Assuming the Healesville
diet Sheet for Sugar Gliders is correct at 5 granules (granules vary greatly in size), it took approximately 1,200 granules to fill on level tablespoon. 600 granuels were counted "into" a tablespoon's worth of pollen to calculate this and when this amount was compared to what remained on the plate, the remainder looked approximatelly the same as the counted ones. Thus 1,200 was the approximation. That's:
9.43 grams per tablespoon divided by 1,200 granules per tablespoon = 7.85 milligrams per granule.
7.85 mg times 5 (granuels) per week = 39.25 mg per week
39.25 mg divided by 7 days = 5.6 mg per "serving" (this was done to normalize the amounts for comparison only)
Comparison between HPW
diet Amounts and Healesville
diet Amounts of Pollen:
HPW
diet = 117.8 milligrams bee pollen per serving (824.6 mg per week)
Healesville = 5.6 milligrams bee pollen per serving (39.25 mg per week)
This means there are 21x the pollen in a serving of HPW
diet over the Healesville
diet.
NOTES: If you look at the spreadsheet, it is plain to see that many of the nutritive values in the Healesville 'serving' are in the microgram range - some of the amounts being so trace as to suggest why bother feeding pollen at all? Although the 21x difference with the HPW
diet sounds shocking on the surface, one only has to look at the absolute values of protein, carbs, vitamins and minerals to see that there is nothing disturbing in those values.
In fact, if you take a look at the further-most columns on the right, you will see a single serving of Papaya as a comparison. There are some Vitamin A complex values in Papaya but they were not listed to make room for display purposes (Bee pollen has no substantial Vitamin A amounts).
When looking at the chart, be sure to note the difference between mg and mcg (milligrams and micrograms). There are 1,000 micrograms in one milligram. Or, a microgram is one-millionth of a gram... So if you see anything with mcg behind it, realize that it's a relativelly small number compared to a gram or milligram.
http://www.glidercentral.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=104795Cheers, Ed & Gail