Zoo InternQuest is a career exploration program for high school students. For more information see the Zoo InternQuest Journals. For more photos see the Zoo InternQuest Photo Journal.

Are you up to a trip to your grocery store? Many people would agree that going to the grocery store is a burden, even a bore. However this is hardly true when the food selection goes from wriggly to bizarre, including mealworms, mice, rabbits, crickets and baby kangaroo formula in powder form. Guided by Dr. Mike Schlegel, the director of nutritional services at the San Diego Zoo, and Dr. Jennifer Parsons, associate animal nutritionist, we visited the forage warehouse, where all of the “raw materials” for the animal diets are stored. The forage warehouse includes these Fear Factor-qualifying foods—including stiff mealworms and cold rodents.

Stepping inside of the spacious refrigerators rapidly sent consecutive waves of goose bumps down my back; the chilling effect was quickly overridden by my amazement in the large crates and boxes of fruits and vegetables, and the numerous trays of mealworms. The large refrigerator and pantry rooms resemble a market, filled with delicious goods available for the animals to chow down on. Each animal species at the Zoo requires its own unique diet—not only in the specification of certain foods, but also in how the food is prepared and served. Although some of the foods eaten by the over 800 species at the Zoo and Wild Animal Park would not suit our palate, many others would be deemed acceptable.

From Tabasco sauce to papayas to Crystal Light, animals share an array of foods with us, as displayed in the forage warehouse. Unfortunately, animals not only share foods with us, but also diseases and health issues connected to food consumption. Joint disease, obesity, diabetes, respiratory disease, and low weight are a few of the problems Dr. Schlegel and Dr. Parsons are faced with. They analyze the source of the issue and tackle it by offering an altered diet, preparing the food or serving the food differently to ensure that the animals “eat their vegetables” or whatever it is that’s good for them.

For example, the blue-eared lories at the Zoo were having difficulty meeting their energy requirements from their diet. It turned out that the liquid glucose they were fed was hard for them to eat; after the dry nectar was switched with the liquid, the lories’ health greatly improved. Of course, some food-linked health problems are harder identify and find an easy fix for. Sometimes, these issues are not directly related to the food the animals are served. For example, Dr. Schlegel explained that some of the Zoo’s reptiles were insufficient in vitamin D, needed to absorb calcium. The source of the problem was surprisingly, the lack of sunlight in the reptiles’ habitats. Reptiles often lounge on large rocks, absorbing the sunlight. It was decided that special lighting in some enclosures would be installed to provide UVB and in others, special UV transparent glass was installed so the UV from the sun could get in to the reptiles, fulfilling their vitamin D requirements.

Much can be learned from this scientific approach for solving weight issues. Humans have a tendency to try to solve weight issues in a round-about and ineffective way: cutting carbs, skipping meals, following fad diets to shed pounds, or binge eating and eating fatty foods to gain weight. Dr. Schlegel made the concept of eating simple – energy in and energy out. No fad diets, just good science.

In Dr. Schlegel’s workday, he may find a simple fix for nutrition dilemmas, such as in the lories’ case. Or, in the case of the reptiles, the cure may be found with extra analytical thinking and problem solving, which dietitians can provide. By pinpointing the causes of our diet problems we too could be on our way to a healthier lifestyle.

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