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Virtually all parrots love to eat peanuts. There do not seem to be any cockatoos that do not like them.

It is fairly well known that there are species of mould that when they grow on peanuts they produce some nasty compounds known as aflatoxins. There are several different and closely related chemical structures of these compounds. They are very toxic and carcinogenic.

However, peanuts are also excellent food with many essential nutrients and desirable things for birds (and us!) to eat.

Contaminated peanuts do fluoresce in a special way with ultra violet radiation. It is possible to test for these compounds by simply shining a "black light" on them and determining if the fluorescence indicating aflatoxins occurs. (Peanuts are fluorescent anyway, but the aflatoxin fluorescence is a different colour.)

Shelled peanuts are generally safe, especially if sold in a vacuum packed container.

Peanut butter is monitored fairly closely, though occasionally there have been incidents with contaminated peanut butter.

Peanut butter has another problem, but for us and for birds. Standard peanut butter contains massive amounts of partly hydrogenated fats, which often contain a lot of trans fatty acids instead of the desirable cis ones. Peanut butter sold as "natural" does not contain this, nor, generally is sugar added. It is the only thing one should be purchasing in the grocery store.

It probably is WORSE to use peanut butter marked as "organic" because the plants that produced the peanuts were generally less well supplied with nutrients which makes them more apt to become mouldy. Thus "natural" but not "organic" is probably safest. (Unlike most other foods.)

Peanuts conain quite high concentrations of resveratrol. This seems to be a wonderful compound that retards aging. They also contain a lot of antioxidants.

They have a lot of protein, but like many plant proteins, it is VERY deficient in sulphur containing amino acids, cystine and methionine. Eating peanuts as primary protein is thus dangerous, as it can lead to deadly methionine deficiencies, resulting in serious liver disease. (In birds and in us.) It is a bad idea to feed parrots only one protein source anyway.

You know I always learn so much from your posts, Robert. I don't give my birds peanuts because I opted on the side of "better safe than sorry". So you are saying I can give them small amounts of shelled peanuts without having to worry?

Thanks
Bev

Great information, Robert. I have been wondering about a new product...called Better Than Peanut Butter. I'm not a big peanutbutter fan, but do like it now and then.

Many people have the mistaken idea that aflatoxins are restricted to peanuts. That is certainly NOT true! All sorts of different kind of seeds can be contaminated. Food pellets can easily become contaminated if they be stored under damp conditions. Virtually all grains can become contaminated. One should therefore watch out for mould growing on food. (Not just food fed to birds either.)

Some people actually purchase the so called "black lights" to test. They fluoresce strongly when irradiated with 365 nm light produced by these things. The colour of fluorescence is either green or blue, depending on which aflatoxin be present. Although there are "black lights" produced that are coated tungsten filament light bulbs they are not very useful. There are ones that fit in standard fluorescent fixtures, and ones like the ones that work in standard incandescent bulb holders. One would think they would be super expensive, but they are not, I think the going price is about $12 to $15 US. They use these to test for gross aflatoxin contamination at grain sales terminals.