# Tomatoes: to feed or not to feed?



## TheQueen1988 (Dec 29, 2012)

I've only had my babies for a few weeks, and I'm still learning what they can and can't have. I've looked but can't find anything specifically about tomatoes; are they ok to give to the boys, or not?


----------



## Jenzie (Dec 26, 2012)

I've always been under the impression that they're okay in small amounts, but because of the acidity I would guess that too much could give them a stomach ache. My rats have eaten small amounts of tomato that have been mixed in with other foods without any trouble, as well as tiny amounts of pizza sauce, and they've always been fine.


----------



## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

Tomatoes contain the d-limonene compound, the same compound that makes citrus unsafe for male rats. It's in a lower quantity, though, so it's up to you. I don't give them to my boys, but very small amounts may be alright.


----------



## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

Rats can have tomatoes just not the green part/plant/leafs as that contains toxins that can kill rats (and really any animal).

though I searched for Tomatoes and D-limonene and I only found one thing saying it had it but it was an answer on a sketchy website so I"m not sure if that is true. I've never heard of it having it.

Honestly though, in my experience, rats don't really like them all that much.


----------



## YellowSpork (Jul 7, 2012)

In small amounts I've heard they're OK.  But as previously said, very acidic so don't feed them too much! All my rats looooove tomatoes--especially when I get grape or cherry tomatoes and then cut them in half so each rat gets half of one. ^_^ They also really like them dried!


----------



## elliriyanna (Jul 27, 2011)

i just gave mine a little bit tonight its safe and they loved it. but my rats love all foods


----------



## rattie_lover (Jan 1, 2013)

i've been giving them tiny bowls full every once and a while and they are perfectly healthy and love them


----------



## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

pretty much any brightly coloured veg contains some amount of d-limoene, for example sweet peppers and carrots, i looked into this a while ago when there was a big discussion on another forum and food a really intersting list. At the time it was believed that once a rat took in d-l then it remained in its sytem for life. However a few of us did a fair bit of reasearch and discovered research papers that suggested the body can get rid of small amounts, just not loads in one go. From that and the fact that brightly coloured veg has many benefits in terms of things like vitamin C and has pretty low levels of d-l I'm happy to feed it regularly, though i keep it lower level than some veg.

Some interesting articles;
http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol56/mono56-9.pdf
http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/htdocs/LT_rpts/tr347.pdf

Annoyingly i cant find that handy list again, suffice to say though it is present in some levels in most fruit and veg, its the high levels you need to avoid.


----------

