The main problem I see with measuring by volume is, a tablespoon of say leaf lettuce weighs much less than a tablespoon of peas, so you're actually getting much less food. I've always tried to prepare my meals more by weight because of this. I like the nutrition feature that Ko referenced because you can check your meal by entering it as a recipe, and adjust the amounts of each item to achieve a balance -- by weight or by volume. It does the hard work for you.

KO, on my spread sheet you can enter a fraction of a TBS and it will correctly calculate the nutrients.

1 TSP = 1/3 TBS or .333
2 TSP = 2/3 TBS or .666
1/2 TBS = .5 etc.

So if you give a total of 1 TBS veggies with roughly equal amounts of 3 vegetables then enter .333 for each and the spread sheet will total them with the serving amount of the chosen diet.

If feeding several gliders you can enter the multiple portion of the chosen diet then the amount of fruit and veggie fed for the whole cage and the table will total the full meal for the gliders

for example - 3 gliders
HPW 1.5 TBS (1/2 TBS each)
greenbeans 2 TBS
spinach 1 TBS chopped
melon 2 TBS
papaya 1 TBS
and the table would calculate the total for the cage - especially the total Ca:P ratio for then entire amount of food offered. If the resulting ratio in the calculation is less than you want - you can adjust the amounts of the foods you plan to feed, add or subtract something, to see on paper what the value will be with those changes.

If you are weighing portions - you can enter fractional amounts to get the # grams fed (first column in the calculator). If you have known grams - start with 1 T and see how close you are to the gram wt (first column) you plan to include then adjust up or down by 0.01 tbs increments until you get as close as possible to the grams you will be feeding. You can enter adjustments in .001 increments to be calculated but the table will round to 2 decimal places.

For those just joining the thread - here is the link to the Diet Calculator which can be opened or saved and used to calculate the diet you are feeding.

hstrial-cotte1.homestead.com/references.html

Candy
LuvMyGliderKids@aol.com