HBH veggie flakes

[kgbenson]

It generally looks safe, but the bad news is that any kind of "meal" such as the fish meal contains Ethoxyquin.

This is not true. What defines a meal is reduced particle size and it is not true that all meals have ethoxyquin. Let us be careful and precise in stating things.

Ethoxyquin prevents the oils in the product from spoiling,

And protects some of the fat soluble vitamins . . . which are also important.

making the product last much much much longer.

Yep. The result being that the product retains its nutrition longer.

Unfortunately, it is toxic to your hermit crabs over a long period. It's like feeding them a slow poison.
Sorry!

Possibly, then again, possibly not. What is the amount of Ethoxyquin in diet that is detrimental to hermit crabs?

Don't get me wrong I am not against feeding a more natural diet with ingredients that are fresh or at least not kept too long or stored improperly so as to minimize the need for things like Ethoxyquin. I am however drawn to point out assumptions made without supporting evidence and sweeping generalizations. Given the state of understanding, it is entirely possible that using a small amount of ethoxyquin and preserving the quality of some foods greatly outweighs what some folks regard as a poison. Now if we knew it was an issue, that would be another story.

Keith

[kgbenson]

Unlike dog and cat foods manufacturers are not required to list it either in the ingredients when it is under a certain percentage too.

They are required to list it - all pet food manufacturers are. But they just don't get the regulatory oversite that the billion dollar dog and cat food industry does.

"The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) requires that pet foods, like human foods, be safe to eat, produced under sanitary conditions, contain no harmful substances, and be truthfully labeled."

"The current FDA regulations require proper identification of the product, net quantity statement, name and place of business of the manufacturer or distributor, and a proper listing of all the ingredients in the product in order from most to least, based on weight. " From http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/Pro ... UCM2006475

Now sometimes a food may contain something that is a mixture of other products, but that mixes name will also have definitions affixed to it - and that information can be had.

When in doubt - write to the manufacturer and ask the question. It is not worth the potential grief not to tell you something false. They may refuse to give you the information (and then you should refuse to use the product) but they are unlikely to outright lie - especially in an email that can be saved.

[Wai]

Pets Paradise (the main chain pet store in Australia) sells its own brand of hermit crab food. However, the label only states how much the product weighs and does not provide an ingredients list. When I asked the pet store workers what the ingredients were, they told me to ask the head office. When I asked the head office, they told me to ask the pet store workers.

I too haven't seen a study on the effects of ethoxyquin on land hermit crabs, but knowing what it can do to other animals, I would refrain from exposing my hermit crabs to it since there are safer alternatives available.

[kgbenson]

Pets Paradise (the main chain pet store in Australia) sells its own brand of hermit crab food. However, the label only states how much the product weighs and does not provide an ingredients list. When I asked the pet store workers what the ingredients were, they told me to ask the head office. When I asked the head office, they told me to ask the pet store workers.

Amazing, and frustrating. In the US - you could lodge a formal complaint with the FDA. I do not know how that would happen in other nations.

Keith

[ladybug15057]

I was going to do a break down of the replies above, but I have decided not to just to have it picked at to try to discredit it too.
I am in agreement that not all pet food meats have ethoxyquin or copper sulfate within them. However, those fish products made for pets do normally have the ethoxyquin within them to keep them fresh. Longer story shorter, when a couple manufacturers were written to and asked about the “Meal” many state that much of the fish products had meal after them due to the company before them did add ethoxyquin to the product to keep it fresh. Due to it not being added by them, yet the fish/shrimp was not pure is why the word “Meal” followed.
Regardless, ethoxyquin and copper sulphate are poisons/insecticide. Definition?
insecticides and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insecticide and a search for ethoxyquin goes on and on. Yet a VERY interesting thing:
link here that states

Definitions of Ethoxyquin on the Web:

* Ethoxyquin is a quinoline-based antioxidant used as a food preservative and a pesticide (under commercial names such as "Stop-Scald"). It is commonly used as a preservative in pet foods to prevent the rancidification of fats. ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethoxyquin
originally developed for use in the production of rubber, this common preservative is among the compounds most suspect as causes of severe health problems in dogs. ...
http://www.ahimsarescuefoundation.org/g ... dients.htm
Ethoxyquin is a chemical preservative that is not approved for human use. Possibly carcinogenic and regulated by the FDA as a pesticide.
http://www.luvhappytails.com/node/441

Safe yet not for human use?? And for the FDA? They have been quoted saying

Absolute safety of any substance can never be proven.

Sorry Keith, but if the FDA in the U.S. was so great or any other so called government suppose to be guidelines things like (for example) the recent egg recall of billions of eggs wouldn’t happen. Possibly also due to feed fed to the chickens?? I wonder who the hundreds of people who got sick from the salmonella would lodge a formal complaint to? Yep, it may look good in writing but to enforce it after it is written… where are they?
As opposed to attempting to discredit what the Crab Crew advises which has been researched as well as experienced, why not research as well and share the findings as well as your experience with your hermies if you have any? More times than not it takes weeks, months and sometimes a couple years of research to get to the real facts.
Your remark maybe that the above is about dogs and humans. True and remember hermies are considered a pest in many countries as well as a throw away pet. If this is permitted above with humans, dogs and cats… what are the limits with hermies?? IMO, it IS like slowly poisoning the hermies.
A wife tires of her husband. She only gives him a shot glass of antifreeze a day in his food. Hmmm… not enough to out right kill him, but….

[Wai]

What defines a meal is reduced particle size and it is not true that all meals have ethoxyquin.

Where did you get that information? If you have references, please indicate them.

I think Keith is only trying to say that no-one knows for a fact (through studies in a lab on land hermit crabs) the toxicity threshold of ethoxyquin for land hermit crabs; hence we shouldn't blacklist products that contain them until a study is done. 

However, until a study is done, we should assume that a risk of toxicity exists and that the threshold is not high. If we avoid products that contain ethoxyquin, then the risk can be avoided altogether. Besides, alternatives to ethoxyquin-containing foods are readily available to most people, if not all.

There are many new crabbers on this forum who don't know what to choose. If we avoid stating anything that we don't know for fact, they may opt for options that are later proven unideal, resulting in deaths. 

Since there is very little published information on land hermit crab care (if any exists), we should strive to avoid all potential risks. This is not possible in most cases, but when it comes to food, it may be possible. By avoiding the ingredient altogether, we don't need to worry about what it may do to our hermit crabs. The potential benefits of ethoxyquin can be achieved by offering fresh foods instead, so that our hermit crabs can still get the nutrition they need. This may be the best thing we can do until published evidence surfaces, if it ever does. 

[kgbenson]

What defines a meal is reduced particle size and it is not true that all meals have ethoxyquin.

Where did you get that information? If you have references, please indicate them.

AAFCO definitions.

I think Keith is only trying to say that no-one knows for a fact (through studies in a lab on land hermit crabs) the toxicity threshold of ethoxyquin for land hermit crabs; hence we shouldn't blacklist products that contain them until a study is done. 

Kinda sorta. First I was responding to the notion that it specifically caused bad molts. Now, the reports of this I have read are not particularly rigorous and yet people make rather definitive statements about it as if it were true. This despite the fact that bad molts continue to occur in captive crabs, even those who are not fed foods containing ethoxyquin.

Ethoxyquin has a potential role, it prevents the degradation of lipids and lipid soluble vitamins and preserves the nutritional quality of a product stored over time. Lipids are critical in crustacean nutrition as are antioxidants. Unless you are rotating your stock of foods fairly quickly you may well be doing more harm feeding nutrient poor foods than you are feeding tiny amounts of ethoxyquin. Here is the thing - it is easier to target a chemical than a process like lipid oxidation - particularly when nobody is having any diagnostics run on the animals in question and said material is also under attack elsewhere on the internet.

However, until a study is done, we should assume that a risk of toxicity exists and that the threshold is not high.

Why make that assumption here an not in other areas of feeding. Since there is very little known about hermit crabs, one could use that logic to quickly whittle your choices of feeds down to almost nothing. Iodine, potentially toxic in all but minute amounts in many crustaceans, does that eliminate sea weeds from the diet? Should we assume that there is a risk there and that the threshold is not high and stop feeding those things? I am certain I could find some folks who have fed seaweeds and have had crabs who experienced poor or fatal molt events. Ethoxyquin is a popular whipping boy on the net. It is important to understand that this does mean it is analogous to polonium

If we avoid products that contain ethoxyquin, then the risk can be avoided altogether.

But you increase the risk of feeding rancid foods and foods with reduced levels of intact lipids and antioxidants.

Besides, alternatives to ethoxyquin-containing foods are readily available to most people, if not all.

Maybe, maybe not.

There are many new crabbers on this forum who don't know what to choose. If we avoid stating anything that we don't know for fact, they may opt for options that are later proven unideal, resulting in deaths. 

Apply this logic to every statement you make then. If there is a substance that may be detrimental at a level you cannot quantify, then you should warn all newbies away from things that contain it. Methinks your list of appropriate foods just got smaller.

Since there is very little published information on land hermit crab care (if any exists), we should strive to avoid all potential risks.

When it comes to animal health I am very very risk aversive. It is my job to be so inclined. What I would hate to see happening is that folks are so afraid of a possibility they feel passionate about to the point that they miss out on the possible negative outcome they do not perceive. Happens all the time - particularly when people are prone to seeing cause and effect relationships that may or may not exist (a common human tendency)

offering fresh foods instead, so that our hermit crabs can still get the nutrition they need. This may be the best thing we can do until published evidence surfaces, if it ever does. 

I agree that this is best not matter what comes of the whole ethoxyquin business. I just feel it is better to make decisions based on logic and information, not on assumptions. Right now, if you feed preservative free materials (and you should) rotate the stock frequently and freeze or vacuum seal stock whenever possible.

Keith

[kgbenson]

Longer story shorter, when a couple manufacturers were written to and asked about the “Meal” many state that much of the fish products had meal after them due to the company before them did add ethoxyquin to the product to keep it fresh. Due to it not being added by them, yet the fish/shrimp was not pure is why the word “Meal” followed.

That may well be, but it is not part of the definition of "meal" by nutritionists, feed scientists and so forth. It is also possible that someone misinterpreted was said. Later in this post you mention years of research, perhaps this is one topic that was not given the time it deserved.

The addition of ethoxyquin is done because the fish (high fat, prone to oxidation) was ground up into a meal providing greater surface area for oxidation to occur. The stuff is a "meal" because it was reduced in size, not because the ethoxyquin was added. The ethoxyquin was added because fish meal is prone to oxidation. Where this is important as this does not translate to other "meals". A meal is foods in smaller particles, not foods with ethoxyquin. Important difference.

Regardless, ethoxyquin and copper sulfate are poisons/insecticide. Definition?

Anything can be a poison. The difference between a nutrient and a poison is often one of dose. Take a few million units of Vitamin D, a nutrient, and tell me if you feel poisoned. Please don't that was just an analogy.

I would suggest that folks critically read the links I snipped - some of the quotes do not tell the whole story, and even then, look up the background on the articles themselves. For instance, the idea that Ethoxyquin is a carcinogen is not based on any work on ethoxyquin itself but another compound.

Safe yet not for human use??

Right - they can be remarkably conservative when it come to determining something is safe for humans or not (lets face it, humans have lawyers, animals usually do not). Yes - I know there are instances where they have deemed something to be safe and later it was found to be unsafe when used in certain ways, but for every one of those stories that whips around the internet there are many other substances that are deemed unsafe because data does not exist for use of the material in all instances and it is easier to call it that. Oddly that doesn't get reported on the internet - probably because it is not as sexy as the first scenario.

And for the FDA? They have been quoted saying

Absolute safety of any substance can never be proven.

Yep - that is true. I think that is a pretty basic fact.

Sorry Keith, but if the FDA in the U.S. was so great or any other so called government suppose to be guidelines things like (for example) the recent egg recall of billions of eggs wouldn’t happen.

Um, no, if it wasn't for the FDA and other regulatory agencies no one would have known and more people would have gotten sick.

Possibly also due to feed fed to the chickens??

Possibly, possibly other sources. I have not read about the way the birds or the eggs acquired the organism. And remember - not every egg is contaminated, they are removing anything with the slightest potential to transmit the disease. Generally speaking there are going to be more uncontaminated eggs destroyed than actual contaminated eggs. They don't usually like to take chances.

I wonder who the hundreds of people who got sick from the salmonella would lodge a formal complaint to? Yep, it may look good in writing but to enforce it after it is written… where are they?

Underfunded. They got fleeced by the previous administration and like many regulatory agencies are asked to perform 10 tasks with the monies for 5. Also, do you really believe that you can stop every potential infectious disease in the food chain? You simply cannot raise the amount of food stuff we do in the us without something like this occasionally happening. In fact, if it weren't for the FDA the situation would be orders of magnitude worse, but we wouldn't know about it because no one was watching . . .

As opposed to attempting to discredit what the Crab Crew advises which has been researched as well as experienced, why not research as well and share the findings as well as your experience with your hermies if you have any?

This is a discussion forum no? Or are you suggesting that accuracy is less important than whether or not information comes from one of the "crab crew"? I don't think that is how a discussion should work, personally.

As to doing research and reporting findings if you mean by research looking stuff up I can tell you that I can't find anything that could like ethoxyquin to molting issues in hermit crabs - and that was a pretty exhaustive lit search. If you mean real actual design and experiment and do some research research, Ethoxyquin is not what I am focused on as it pertains to hermit crabs at this time. who knows, maybe it ill be in the future. If I had access to larvae through young adults something could possibly be done - I expect you would be happy to provide funding for such and endeavor?

More times than not it takes weeks, months and sometimes a couple years of research to get to the real facts.

Yep, I get that. Tell me, what research, real research has gone into determining the role of ethoxyquin in molt difficulties? Years of research and all one can find is a few anecdotes.

Your remark maybe that the above is about dogs and humans. True and remember hermies are considered a pest in many countries as well as a throw away pet. If this is permitted above with humans, dogs and cats… what are the limits with hermies??

I am not certain what you are getting at here. Clearly there is less enforcement of crab foods than traditional or human foods. There is much more of the others being created and sold. Also the information exists. Look at the packages that many hermit crab food purveyors online sell, they fail to meet label guidelines routinely, and I have yet to meet one (aside from the bigger companies) who bothers with a nutritional analysis, despite the fact that this is easy to do. The way to change that is not be making assumptions but to actually gather data. Otherwise you may find out that you are a) dead wrong and B) hamper the efforts to improve things later because of it.

Lets say Ethoxyquin at 50 ppm is not shown to have any measurable adverse effect on land hermit crabs. But that the damage to the nutrients it would have preserved is detrimental. That would be sad eh?

It would probably be most proper to say this: Ethoxyquin is a substance with some questions about it's safety in animal feeds. It would be best to feed fresh foods that are rotated frequently so as to preserve their quality than to feed materials with Ethoxyquin in them. However, there is a potential role for antioxidents if high lipid foods must be kept for long periods of time.

I think to pin specific issues on the stuff is misleading and is not telling the truth. Trust readers with the real information, people can be smart when they want to be.

IMO, it IS like slowly poisoning the hermies.

That is your opinion, as yet unsupported by any evidence. And you are welcome to it, but unless you state it as an opinion (not a fact) every time, you can expect someone may call you on it. It never hurts to qualify statements of opinion as just that. And that is my opinion.

A wife tires of her husband. She only gives him a shot glass of antifreeze a day in his food. Hmmm… not enough to out right kill him, but….

Wives frequently tire of their husbands. That is why basements, garages and sheds were invented.

Keith

[Wai]

It would be best to feed fresh foods that are rotated frequently so as to preserve their quality than to feed materials with Ethoxyquin

That was what I was trying to say in my last reply, but I guess I didn't word it specifically enough.

You've brought up some good points, Keith. I haven't been thinking much about the half-lives of nutrients until now, possibly because I change out my hermit crabs' fresh food frequently.

[CrabbyJo]

Got very tired of reading all the wordiness which is highly unnecessary.
It's enough for me to know that Ethoxyquin is highly controversial as a preservative in pet foods, the ONLY human food it is allowed in is paprika as that is generally used in very small amounts, and it is being linked to nervous system disorders in pet dogs and cats.

The fact that it is used as an ingredient in insecticides, it is also used as a hardening agent in the manufacturing of rubber.

The fact, also, that it is BANNED for use in human food (other than a few spices), leads one to conclude that it is NOT a good thing to be putting into one's body or the body of one's beloved pet.

I will continue to warn people away from it, I don't need to make conclusive statements about it, but I am free to state (accurately) that it is possibly a slow toxin for the crabs.

I always recommend fresh food be fed to pet hermit crabs, and never recommend saving foods for long periods to feed later, unless the food is frozen.