Our weekly menu: a big challenge!

Our human female promised on Facebook that we will write an article regarding our weekly menu and the importance of vegies in our lives. Amazing how she speaks for us! I think we need to explain her once again that her rights are limited to some PR and SEO activities, but she is not our spokesperson. She still needs to prove we can trust her… However, she promised on our behalf, so we should defend our honor and really write about how your human should feed you, my furry Guinea Pig friend. And it is on me to write about this because I am the gourmand one.

I must start by saying that in the beginning our human had no idea regarding how she should really take care of us. She red some websites in Romanian, but the information was poor and all she got was that we need vegetables, but no clear list upon what is good and what is not good for us. Then we arrived in her house. After few days while we had a lot of carrots and some celery, we convinced her to search data in other languages also. Yeah, it’s easy to try to find something in your mother tongue, but Romanians are not really experts in Guinea Pigs. 😀 So, she found a very nice website + forum in French. I would like to thank to the owner of that website for saving us from a boring diet with only two vegies.

Now let’s get to the point! A Guinea Pig is a gourmand vegetarian creature. If a human can survive eating only one or two vegetables per week, we can’t. Actually we will manage it, but we’ll get as seek as some humans are. And unhappy… We are also fool of caprices: today we may really enjoy one vegetable and tomorrow we won’t even look at it. This is what I do with some boring vegies like parsnips: if I’m in a good mood, I’ll eat it; if not, I won’t even touch it. So, you’ve got this first point, yes?! Diversify!

Next, you need to keep in mind that we should have at least 1/10 of our weight in vegies each day. I and Spock are getting more than this. Happy us! But, there are vegies you could eat all day long, and vegies that should be consumed not that often. And there are vegies rich in vitamin C, but also in Oxalic Acid which is not good for us. And some are very rich in water and eaten excessively could cause diarrhea. So moderation and balance are another two key words for our diet. I know it’s complicated and that is why we assist our main human in drafting the menu: every time she makes a mistake, we shout loud.

A comprehensive list with the vegies good for us can be found here. And I think is pointless repeating the same information. I just hope your human is not too ~~lazy~~ busy to open the link.

Now, my dear furry reader (and eventually human reader…), I know you may like licking chocolate, yogurt and other fancy food from your humans’ fingers, but they are not really good for you. They may taste well, but on long term your health will suffer. Trust me, I’m a Guinea Pig! Vegies are better for us. Just look at the differences: our fur is shiny, humans’ hair needs conditioning for that; we can popcorn, they can’t; we poop a lot, they do it once per day (if they are lucky enough)…

I am a very good piggy – I eat all my vegetables. You should do the same and you may get one day to be a great philosopher as I am. Still, I refuse to eat the radish. I could eat tones of radish leaf, but not the red/white part. I refuse, it’s that simple. And my human got it. Like she got it for the tomatoes and some fruits. But I could eat one huge cucumber every day or celery greens until I can’t move. Here we still have a problem: she refuses to give me as much as I would like. You need to keep in mind that training your human is essential in order to secure more spare time for thinking, pooping and sleeping in the future.

Before ending this, I’ll attach a photo of our menu for this week. The fundaments are simple: every day 4 different vegies, every day one vegie with vitamin C, and no more than one vegie rich in calcium per day. In addition, hay as much as we can munch and drag in the cage, pellets with no cereals, and rarely (since I passed 1.3 kilos) some cereals bars.