FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I originally began looking for substitute foods/nutrients/fertilizers for my VFTs because I couldn't find many bugs and I like to experiment. If I couldn't give them the usual kind of fertilizer, I could think of other things I might be able to give them.
Then I noticed this yesterday:
While comparing the Nutritional Analysis of Toasted Wheat Germ (nutritiondata.self.com/facts/breakfast-cereals/1562/2) vs the Nutritional Analysis of Raw Shrimp, Mixed Species (nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4172/2), at first it looks like the shrimp is better because the triangular diagrams at the top show the shrimp to be 3% carbohydrates, 15% fats, and 82% protein, whereas the wheat germ contains 50% carbohydrates and 23% fats and 27% protein.

Below this we see that the wheat germ has a better nutrient balance completeness score of 66 whereas the shrimp is 56. Wheat germ protein quality score is also better at 123 but the shrimp is 113.

Elsewhere, we see that sample size for the shrimp is 6 gm. The amt of protein is 1.2 gm. Normalizing to 100 gm sample size gives 20 gm of protein. For the wheat germ, sample size was 113 gm and protein was 32.9 gm. Normalizing to a 100 gm sample size gives 29.1 gm of protein for the wheat germ. 9.1 gm more than for the shrimp, and it has that better amino acid score.

Farther down the charts we see an even bigger difference: the shrimp is low in vitamins and minerals but the wheat germ has considerably more of both (also comparing normalized sample sizes.)

If anyone can find an error here I'd like to know. Till then I'm going to keep feeding my VFTs ground wheat germ and alfalfa. It's cheaper than buying special food and I don't have to chase after it in the garden.

I haven't been able to find this kind of detailed analysis for spiders which are supposed to be good VFT food. I'd like to see a comparison of that data too.

What are your thoughts??

Hmm...Sounds interesting.

Some things to consider.....Are the digestive enzymes released my the traps capable of breaking down wheat germ?

Also, it looks like much of the data presented is biased towards human consumption. Given the primary reason these plants are carnivorous is to acquire nitrogen and in lesser amount phosphorous I don't know that protein quality and amino acid scores, or nutrient balances are at all relevant. Also, just because one thing has more of a nutrient doesn't mean that it's bio available.

You'd also have to look at what vitamins and minerals are being provided. While plants go require some micro nutrients they're clearly not the same as what we require.

If it was just about giving the plants foods that had the highest amounts of nutrients than could use raw meat or compressed protein powder pills.

I'm certainly for experimentation and I'm interested to see your results. But my instinct is that feeding a carnivorous plant an plant based diet may not yield promising results.

My plants have been doing very well for over a year now on a vegetarian diet consisting mostly of wheat germ with a little alfalfa thrown in. Alfalfa is high in nitrogen and contains a growth stimulant (triacontanol.) Farmers have known about this growth stimulant for many decades.

Actually, it's surprising how little residue there is remaining after the traps open. Maybe some of the carbohydrates are being digested also and only the tough plant wall materials remain.
I'm not aware that there are any proteins or amino acids that differ so much between animals and plants that a carnivorous plant wouldn't be able to digest them.

True, my data is based toward human consumption. There is very little info with this kind of detail about nutrients in insects. Since I don't have insects I tried using human food other than meat.
Plants do use vitamins. Folate, just for example, is a B vitamin and is important for life and is used by most living things from bacteria on up as I recall. I don't want to say "all" because someone will think of something maybe like deep sea thermophile creatures who might not use it. From the analyses I've seen, folate is present in wheat germ at 100x the concentration listed for shrimp.

I have fed the VFTs pure whey protein powder with no problems. I don't any more because the wheat germ has a much more well rounded variety of amino acids. I know I can't feed the VFTs raw meat, but if I could get something processed in powdered form without the fats, I would try that.

If you want to compare whey protein and egg white protein powder to the wheat germ and shrimp, here are the links. Looking at proteins, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, you'll see right away how all are lacking compared to wheat germ.

whey protein powder for body building
nutritiondata.self.com/facts/custom/933507/2?quantity=4.0

egg white died powder
nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/124/2