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Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

bbc.co.uk

21–30 of 94 posts

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#21

Interesting research…. …but don’t feed the garden birds will harm my mother brain healt, she is convinced that without her food those “poor little birds” will death! :)

I like the short story “what men live by”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Men_Live_By

My conclusion from the story isn’t that we shouldn’t do our best but we shouldn’t worry. The universe existed before I was born and it will continue to exist after I am dead.

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#22
post #8

If these are migratory birds, then it is possible you are going to kill them by keeping them feeding while they should be migrating. We have this problem here in Poland Then you find birds dead because they are not adapted to surviving the winter.

That's an interesting point.

In the (UK) context of this study/article, blue tits and great tits (and indeed most garden birds) are generally non-migratory in the UK, so I think that's an orthogonal issue.

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#23
post #15

I often see people giving bread or other completely inappropriate food to birds in parcs or horses, chickens in small farms or ducks, swans, gallinules, fishes in estuaries I think we can also raise the problem in people diet as well, it's quite related. Our ideal food is plant-based, vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds, leaves, bulbs (eating raw garlic is incredible), that's what we're designed for chewing and digesti…

> Our ideal food is plant-based This is a myth. We eat lots of cereals of course, but the longest living people are definitely ommnivorous and eat a lot of seafood also. We can survive on bread and water, but this is not ideal. Common people identify plant eaters with primitive, but is a mistake. Specialized plant eaters developped a lot of modern features. We don't have ever-growing teeth. We don't have a gut split…

My favourite are the people who claim being a vegan is our natural state but eat fortified foods to get enough B12.

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#24
post #8

If these are migratory birds, then it is possible you are going to kill them by keeping them feeding while they should be migrating. We have this problem here in Poland Then you find birds dead because they are not adapted to surviving the winter.

That's an interesting point. In the (UK) context of this study/article, blue tits and great tits (and indeed most garden birds) are generally non-migratory in the UK, so I think that's an orthogonal issue.

To be fair bird movements are quite complicated: e.g. a Robin in the UK between September to March might be a member of a migratory or a non-migratory population. And Blackcaps are an example of a mostly migratory species in the UK but where less migratory individuals come to feeding stations in winter months.

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#25

An alternative narrative: if feeders favor dominant/ bully birds, it might help the less dominant ones by freeing up just about every other spot in the area. If you knew the high school bullies were hanging out in the gym 90% of the time, the gym is actually helping you avoid the bullies (assuming you don’t have to go to the gym).

But what if the bullies reproduced yearly? Wouldn't you want to reduce the bully's food supply?

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#26

I often see people giving bread or other completely inappropriate food to birds in parcs or horses, chickens in small farms or ducks, swans, gallinules, fishes in estuaries I think we can also raise the problem in people diet as well, it's quite related. Our ideal food is plant-based, vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds, leaves, bulbs (eating raw garlic is incredible), that's what we're designed for chewing and digesti…

> that's what we're designed for chewing and digesting since million years You’re being downvoted because this is just wrong. Humans aren’t “designed”, we evolved and we evolved as omnivores NOT for a plant based diet. I’m not saying we can’t switch to a plant based diet now, it is probably better for us and the planet; but this “humans are naturally vegan” is just silly.

Sure we are omnivore like most primates, and fortunately because some human sometimes don't have anything else to eat. And meat is often better and safer cooked. I eat fish sometimes, but very rarely (2-3x/year), it's not about vegan, it's about unprocessed food (fruits, and most vegetable don't need to be cooked, and it's drastically reducing their benefits to do it). I think it's something people have to experience in the long term before arguing against it. Yes people can survive eating processed food, but I'm just saying it's not optimal

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#27
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My teenage son is a picky eater, still thinks unbleached wheat bread sandwich crust tastes bad. I used to feel like it was a waste to toss, still felt bad to compost, now that I feed the crust to my hens and see how they light up, I no longer feel bad. As for garlic in the raw, I'm glad you can eat that, I can as well but my wife absolutely cannot eat garlic even though she does enjoy the taste. If you really love ga…

I definitely prefer to eat garlic raw, you can let it in your mouth for a while, saliva will make it less strong. But cooking it is killing too much of its important macro-nutriments. I don't eat pastas or other starch because with experience I feel like they're "glueing" my digestive system and make digestion less efficient. My diet is mostly fruit currently (tons of free figs along my rides, persimmons, clementines…

> I was picky like your son when young, but fortunately I changed my diet later

That's a weird statement to make after describing how you only eat very peculiar food - raw leaves, fruit and some veggies. ( Who the heck eats cucumbers nom-raw?)

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#29

I often see people giving bread or other completely inappropriate food to birds in parcs or horses, chickens in small farms or ducks, swans, gallinules, fishes in estuaries I think we can also raise the problem in people diet as well, it's quite related. Our ideal food is plant-based, vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds, leaves, bulbs (eating raw garlic is incredible), that's what we're designed for chewing and digesti…

I think you're being downvoted because you're giving non-mainstream health advice and acting as if it's sensible and obvious. Most people are used to hearing strange health advice from others and have developed strong "bullshit detector" instincts around this topic. "Eat raw garlic" would be a textbook example of this form of health advice, as it has an extremely unpleasant taste in any significant quantity and also…

It’s dangerous health advice as well, going completely vegan without some planning can result in all sorts of health issues.

Everyone should Google “vegan b12 deficiency”

Plant based diets can be healthy but you’re putting nutritional yeast in a lot of meals.

Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?

#30

I often see people giving bread or other completely inappropriate food to birds in parcs or horses, chickens in small farms or ducks, swans, gallinules, fishes in estuaries I think we can also raise the problem in people diet as well, it's quite related. Our ideal food is plant-based, vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds, leaves, bulbs (eating raw garlic is incredible), that's what we're designed for chewing and digesti…

I think you're being downvoted because you're giving non-mainstream health advice and acting as if it's sensible and obvious. Most people are used to hearing strange health advice from others and have developed strong "bullshit detector" instincts around this topic. "Eat raw garlic" would be a textbook example of this form of health advice, as it has an extremely unpleasant taste in any significant quantity and also…

> Garlic is the plant necessary in everyday life from the past until the present days. It contains active compounds that are responsible for its effect on almost every part of the human body. Garlic is an excellent tonic for the human organism. It has been used for medical treatment of everything, from ancient civilizations to date > From all of the above-mentioned data, it can be concluded that administration of garlic should not be avoided; on the contrary, its intake should be as much as possible since it underlies human health.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3249897/#sec1-3...

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