 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Taking the basic Kroshinsky recipe, I produced this variant. This was done at the beginning of my nutritional investigations. I knew a few things, like the fact that spinach was not the most nutritious leaf green available. But I still had a long way to go. I am now working on a new reformulation; if it proves satisfactory, I will post it here (version 3: version 1 was a failure which I will spare you).
I fed this recipe for a year and it didn't kill any fish. I did need to change a lot of water, as this is pretty high in protein. My updated recipe will have the protein lowered (on a dry basis) to about 35 to 40% for mature fish. In any event, if your fish have access to ample vegetable matter to supplement their diet, this is probably not an unreasonable recipe.
I have included cost information, for your interest. A gallon of gel food will provide about 70 to 80 fish-months of food for well fed 3 to 4 inch fish. In other words, a gallon would feed one fish for 6 years, or 24 fish for 3 months. You should try to make batches small enough that you don't store the food for more than 2 to 3 months frozen.
Taylor Recipe (Version 2) |
||||||
| Fraction | Unit Cost | Cost | ||||
| 1 | 10 oz. pkg | Frozen Spinach | 1 | $ 0.83 | $ 0.83 | |
| 0.5 | 10 oz. pkg | Frozen Collard Greens | 0.5 | $ 0.79 | $ 0.40 | |
| 0.5 | lb. | Raw Kale | 0.5 | $ 0.99 | $ 0.50 | |
| 0.5 | 24 oz. pkg | Frozen Peas and Carrots | 0.5 | $ 1.73 | $ 0.87 | |
| 1 | lb. | Frozen Smelts | 1 | $ 3.39 | $ 3.39 | |
| 2 | Hardboiled Eggs | 0.17 | $ 1.25 | $ 0.21 | ||
| 0.7 | lb. | Red Bell Peppers (2 med.) | 0.67 | $ 2.99 | $ 2.00 | |
| 5.5 | cups | Water | 5.5 | $ - | $ - | |
| 24 | packets | Plain Powdered Gelatin | 0.75 | $ 5.99 | $ 4.49 | |
| 8 | oz. | Plain Toasted Wheat Germ | 0.67 | $ 2.95 | $ 1.98 | |
| 1 | tbs. | Marpet Reptile V/M/A | 0.25 | $ 5.00 | $ 1.25 | |
| 5 | cups | Boiling Water | 5 | $ - | $ - | |
| total: | $ 15.91 | |||||
| Use a quart
steamer with about 3 cups of water to defrost and
slightly blanch all vegetables (except pepper). Put all
vegetables through the cuisinart in batches, blending
each batch 2-3 minutes. Defrost fish and put through
cuisinart and then blender. Deshell and blend eggs. In
all cases, add sufficient water (use steamer liquid) to
liquefy ingredients. Mix all ingredients and do a final pass through the blender, place in a large pot. Dry mix wheat germ in cuisinart until consistency of brown sugar, then add to pot. Follow package directions for dissolving gelatin, using the boiling water, then add to pot. Stir over a low heat, until just starting to steam (not boil), turn off. Stir in vitamins. Cool, then refrigerate. Cut into 3/16th inch strips and freeze. Defrost and cut into 1/4 inch cubes to serve. Makes about 14 cups (7/8th gallon) |
I also did a nutrient analysis of this recipe, which is below. I notice looking at this that I appear to have treated the collard greens as "extra kale". I don't remember why I did this, but take it as a recommendation to substitute more kale in place of the collard greens in the recipe above. To understand this table, all columns except "Ratio" are for 100 gram samples of the foodstuff. "Ratio" is the number of 100g measures of that food in the recipe: this is used as a multiplier for the 100g values, to get to the actual percentages in the food. Note that the info for water is just for that naturally occurring in the food. The added water in the recipe is not included.
| Food | Ratio | Water (%) | KCal | Protein (g) | Fat (g) | Carb (g) | T Fiber (g) | Ash (g) | Ca (mg) | P (mg) | Fe (mg) | Na (mg) | K (mg) | Vit A (IU) | Vit B1 (mg) | Vit B2 (mg) | Niacin (mg) | Vit C (mg) | Sat Fat (g) | MUFA (g) | PUFA (g) | Chol (mg) |
| SPINACH,FZ,UNPREP | 2.88 | 91.6 | 24 | 2.9 | 0.3 | 4 | 3 | 1.1 | 111 | 41 | 2.1 | 74 | 323 | 7758 | 0.084 | 0.153 | 0.44 | 24.3 | 0.05 | 0.01 | 0.13 | 0 |
| PEAS,GREEN,FRZN | 3.456 | 79.9 | 77 | 5.2 | 0.4 | 13.7 | 4.7 | 0.8 | 22 | 80 | 1.5 | 112 | 149 | 727 | 0.258 | 0.1 | 1.71 | 18 | 0.07 | 0.03 | 0.18 | 0 |
| SMELT,RAINBOW,RAW | 4.608 | 78.8 | 97 | 17.6 | 2.4 | 0 | 0 | 1.4 | 60 | 230 | 0.9 | 60 | 290 | 50 | 0.01 | 0.12 | 1.45 | 0 | 0.45 | 0.64 | 0.89 | 70 |
| KALE,RAW | 3.744 | 84.5 | 50 | 3.3 | 0.7 | 10 | 2 | 1.5 | 135 | 56 | 1.7 | 43 | 447 | 8900 | 0.11 | 0.13 | 1 | 120 | 0.09 | 0.05 | 0.34 | 0 |
| WHEAT GERM,TOASTED | 2.304 | 5.6 | 382 | 29.1 | 10.7 | 49.6 | 12.9 | 5 | 45 | 1146 | 9.1 | 4 | 947 | 1.67 | 0.82 | 5.59 | 6 | 1.83 | 1.5 | 6.62 | 0 | |
| PEPPERS,SW,RED,RAW | 3.087 | 92.2 | 27 | 0.9 | 0.2 | 6.4 | 2 | 0.3 | 9 | 19 | 0.5 | 2 | 177 | 5700 | 0.066 | 0.03 | 0.51 | 190 | 0.03 | 0.01 | 0.1 | 0 |
| EGG,CHICKEN,WHL,RW | 1 | 75.3 | 149 | 12.5 | 10 | 1.2 | 0 | 0.9 | 49 | 178 | 1.4 | 126 | 121 | 635 | 0.062 | 0.508 | 0.07 | 0 | 3.1 | 3.81 | 1.36 | 425 |
| gelatin | 1.68 | 0 | 357.14 | 85.71 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 214.29 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| total in 100g of mix | 22.76 | 69.96 | 117.84 | 15.21 | 2.25 | 10.17 | 3.00 | 1.38 | 59.67 | 199.53 | 2.01 | 67.62 | 320.94 | 3367.43 | 0.25 | 0.19 | 1.41 | 51.93 | 0.45 | 0.46 | 1.02 | 32.85 |
| total % in dry mix | 51% | 7% | 34% | 10% | 5% | 0% | 1% | 0% | 0% | 1% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 1% | 2% | 3% | 0% |
Again, as with the Kroshinsky recipe, I feel this is too high in protein for mature fish (typically 2 years old and older, by my definition) unless they have additional food sources that are mostly vegetable matter.
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|