Feeding hamsters nuts
Feeding nuts to hamsters: You can feed almost all kind of nuts to hamsters' including walnuts, peanuts and almonds. With the exception of any salted nuts. Most nuts can be fed with the shells on, as hamsters' love to spend time trying to get at the inner and edible part of the nut. They will eventually succeed in doing so, particularly monkey nuts with the softer shells. You may want to crack or break the really hard ones first, such as the walnuts, hazel nuts etc: hamster will do the rest, and this will also help to keep his teeth in trim. With the exception of almonds the shell of the almond must be removed first.
The main concern about nuts has always been the fat and cholesterol content, but it is important to distinguish between saturated and unsaturated fats. Saturated fats are found mostly in meat and cheese etc: Theses types of food contain the bad cholesterol that clog up the arteries with plaque (Plaque is the hardened deposits that form on the inner wall's of blood vessels) they are considered to be the bad cholesterol fats.
Nuts are plant products and are low in saturated fats and contain no cholesterol. Ninety percent of the fats found in nuts are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated type. See also Sunflower seeds
Although many of us would consider almonds to be nuts technically they are closer to peach pits than nuts. Almonds are the fruits of deciduous trees (trees that shed their leaves) instead of growing a sweet fleshy pulp around the seed almonds develop a leathery coating. Beneath this coating lies a hardened pit with a dark skin very much like the pit or stone from a peach.
The almond lacks the sweet fleshy outer covering like other members of Prunus such as the plum and cherry. This is replaced by the leathery coat containing the edible kernel (the inner and edible part) which is often called a nut.
Almonds come in two varieties there is the sweet almond and the bitter almond. The bitter almond is used in cooking and for flavouring just like the sweet almonds can be. The bitter almond is more strongly flavoured and contains a toxic amount of prussic acid: also known as hydrogen cyanide and may yield from 6 to 8%. The bitter almonds are processed to remove this poison before they can be used for consumption. Humans consuming a handful of raw unprocessed bitter almonds can lead to death from cyanide poisoning. Once the prussic acid has been removed it can then be further refined into a poison called Cyanide. Prussic acid is also found in small quantities in the leaves and seeds of some of our most common fruits particularly in apple pips; it is the prussic acid in the pips that gives you that bitter taste when you accidentally bite on one.
After the almond has been processed, oil can be extracted from the kernel; this is used for flavouring in cooking and is also used in skin care preparations. The sweet almond is grown for eating and has the largest share of the nut trade world-wide.
Fresh sweet almond possess demulcent and nutrient properties. The outer brown skin and the reddish brown powder adhering to them can cause irritation of the alimentary canal, also referred to as the GI tract; they are usually blanched to remove this brown skin when used for food, once the brown skin has been removed they can be safely fed to hamsters.
If feeding fruit to hamsters' remove all pips and stones beforehand. Pear pips, the kernels of plums peaches, apricots, and apple core pips contain cyanogenic glycosides that may result in seriously upset tummies or even poisoning.