• Discussions taking place within this forum are intended for the purpose of assisting you in discussing options with your vet. Any other use of advice given here is done so at your risk, is solely your responsibility and not that of this forum or its owner. Before posting it is your responsibility you abide by this Statement

Can Diabetic Guinea Pigs Have Red Pepper?

Claire W

Claire W

Forum Donator 2025/26
Joined
Mar 23, 2008
Messages
38,119
Reaction score
31,234
Points
2,915
Location
Lancashire (Originally from Nottingham)
This isn't exactly a health and illness question but I've never had much response when asking in food.

My piggies are on a low sugar and carbohydrate diet due to Ellen being diabetic as a youngster and Edward having on and off glucose in his urine.
Ellen is now in remission and has been stable for quite some time but I don't want to set her off again.

I stopped feeding red pepper when she was diagnosed as I believe that it's higher in sugar than the other colours but I am wondering if diabetic piggies can actually have red pepper?

I just ask as most bags contain red peppers and I am throwing them away as neither me or my husband like them.

It would be great if the piggies could have them to stop me from wasting them although I obviously won't feed them if they could cause problems.

I'm hoping that someone will know the answer as even my vet is unsure on what to suggest.

TIA
 
considering that guinea pigs have the same hormonal response of us humans (and are used into labs for this reason) the rule for a diabetic piggie should be the same of a diabetic person.
Therefore you can read this research and you can read even more if you do some good research online.
3 reasons why bell pepper is good for diabetics
I can add what is explained (fueling a great argument) by a quite famous italian doctor (dr. Mozzi) whose diet is making diabetic patients get rid of their insuline and medicines. About this doctor most of the usual rules followed by diabetic centres are totally wrong; he says that the the flour is the main culprit of diabetes. There is another (cardiologist) doctor in USA who totally agrees with this hypothesis and in one of his books explains the effect of the flour on glycemia, on heart, on the weight, and even on the brain. Dr. William Davis "Wheat belly".
Most pellets are made of flour. A bell pepper is made of 95%water...
 
rome_italy said:
considering that guinea pigs have the same hormonal response of us humans (and are used into labs for this reason) the rule for a diabetic piggie should be the same of a diabetic person.
Therefore you can read this research and you can read even more if you do some good research online.
3 reasons why bell pepper is good for diabetics
I can add what is explained (fueling a great argument) by a quite famous italian doctor (dr. Mozzi) whose diet is making diabetic patients get rid of their insuline and medicines. About this doctor most of the usual rules followed by diabetic centres are totally wrong; he says that the the flour is the main culprit of diabetes. There is another (cardiologist) doctor in USA who totally agrees with this hypothesis and in one of his books explains the effect of the flour on glycemia, on heart, on the weight, and even on the brain. Dr. William Davis "Wheat belly".
Most pellets are made of flour. A bell pepper is made of 95%water...
Click to expand...

So would you say they can have red pepper? It's only red that I'm wary of as I know orange, yellow and green contain barely any sugar.

Thankfully they only have limited pellets :)

@pig in the city did you feed your diabetic piggy red pepper? Any thoughts?
 
Claire W said:
So would you say they can have red pepper? It's only red that I'm wary of as I know orange, yellow and green contain barely any sugar.

Thankfully they only have limited pellets :)

@pig in the city did you feed your diabetic piggy red pepper? Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Hi Claire, l really can't remember. I only ever feed about 2 x 2cm cubes of red pepper to any piggy anyway. Its a shame you don't live nearer , we love red pepper but hate green!
 
I can think of a couple of boys that will happily take them off your hands, lol.

That said, I can't imagine a slice or two would do much harm. Yes, you'd be throwing out most of the pepper but if you would be throwing it out anyway, would that be a problem?

Also, apparently ducks can eat bell pepper, as long as it's chopped small enough, if you don't want to chuck it.
 
Claire W said:
So would you say they can have red pepper? It's only red that I'm wary of as I know orange, yellow and green contain barely any sugar.

Thankfully they only have limited pellets :)

@pig in the city did you feed your diabetic piggy red pepper? Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
If he were my piggie I would not be worried of a piece of bell pepper, but I would follow the rule of not feeding them with more than 80-100g of vegs a day, considering they are herbivores and not vegetarians... if you put on the scale a piece of pepper you easily reach the 100g. I believe in these latest studies about diabetes because I know some (old) people (86y.o. for example) getting rid of insuline and other medicines after 30 years of diabetes just following this "new" diet wheat/rice free eating little fruit, no sugar, but a lot of different vegs (also bell peppers). Of course the modern bell peppers (and fruit) have been selected and are different from the ones grown by my Nan which weren't sweet at all. When I was a child an orange juice was sour and needed some teaspoons of sugar, nowadays the same orange juice is sweet. Also bell peppers are sweeter than before... and this might be a problem for our body; but the effect of the flour is terrible even 5 hours after the meal (that old lady I know has the glucometer at home and made a lot of experiments on herself).
Pellets are made of flours, sugars, fruits or starch and they have no water at all, few grams of them probably stimulate piggies' pancreas more (and for a longer time) than a piece of pepper...
The guinea pig is used as a model for studying human diabetes in several studies, hence I would follow for them the same rules... especially the still unofficial ones which are showing amazing results in human patients (at least the ones who are able to forget the wrong tradition at meals).
And often a diabetic piggie is also oversize... I have lots of doubts about the famous charts of "normal" weights...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top