1 Cup of Cooked Starches+1 Cup of nuts=50% of Daily Calories

Over one month ago, I posted criticisms of the feeding practices of the Fauna Foundation chimp sanctuary (http://via811.blogspot.com/2009/08/loving-them-to-death-tragedy-at-chimp.html).

I have since received some comments and posts from volunteers of the sanctuary accusing me of focusing on some "insignificant" aspects of the chimps' diet.

Is this true?

Look at the facts objectively.

All books on primate feeding recommend 2 x BMR's (BMR=Basal Metabolic Rate) worth of calories for captive primates because they are more sedentary than their wild counterparts. The usual in the wild is 3xBMR. For example, the largest Gombe chimp weighed 40kg, with the average chimp weight at approximately 35kg. Therefore, at this weight the calories per day for a wild chimp is 3021kcal on average. Considering the relative sedentary lifestyle of captive chimps, their daily calorie average should be 2 x BMR or 2014kcal.

Gloria, the founder of the sanctuary, states that the chimps eat approximately 1 cup of cooked (usually starchy) food per day, plus nuts in unspecified amounts daily.

Let's do the math.

One cup of rice is 204 calories. This makes up 10% of a 2000 calorie daily diet which on the surface seems like little. However, it is 10 times more acrylamides which are formed from heating carbohydrates and are a known carcinogen. This one cup of cooked food is also full of other Maillard Reaction Product's. Not only is this cup of rice full of cooked food poisons it is also full of anti-nutrients such as destroyed vitamin C and destroyed fiber. Just with this one cup of cooked rice, the chimps are exposed to 10 times more dangerous products and 10 times more anti-nutrients than their wild physiology has ever been exposed to before.
Plus, this means there is 10 times less absorption of the needed nutrients found in the whole fruits and vegetables-their optimal natural diet.

Let's continue with the nuts. If they feed one cup of almonds per day, this equals 820 calories at 73% fat. If they feed two cups per day, this equals 1641 calories. Plainly, even just one cup is too much fat. What is the real amount? There is a direct causal relationship between excess fat and diabetes as well as heart disease. The Fauna chimps suffer from both these debilitating diseases, including the former Québec City zoo chimps who were not previously exposed to experimental torture.

Just with these two items, the 2000 calorie a day diet is 60% fat. 50%, BY CALORIE, of the diet consists of excessive fat and Maillard Reaction Products as well as other anti-nutrients. These items are small in volume, but huge in impact over the total diet.

Assuming the rest of the diet is fruits and vegetables, perhaps 5 bananas, one whole celery bulb, 2 peppers, 5 apples, 1 broccoli head for example to bring us to 2020 calories. To an untrained human, with little to no knowledge or experience of the volume of food required to eat an optimal natural diet, a trolley full of this much produce looks huge. However, it is barely 1000 calories.

Therefore, the chimps at Fauna are eating only 50% of their calories from the fruits and vegetables which are their appropriate food and 50% from overwhelming high fat, nutrient poor, toxic rich, inappropriate calories. Does this sound insignificant to you?

Why are they depriving the chimps of their favorite, most beneficial food of fruit and vegetables, in the quantities they want and need, in favor of high fat nuts and junk cooked food???

It gets worse.

Chimps get extremely excited and happy about eating ripe delicious fruit. As a fruit loving primate myself, the thought of giving up a delicious fig for a cup of cooked oatmeal or bland nuts makes me cringe. Have you ever tasted a cup of unseasoned oatmeal or rice? Put yourself in the chimp's place, wouldn't you feel deprived and cheated? And this after a lifetime of abuse and torture.