I haven't seen this on here and I've read through quite a few threads, so I just wanted to make sure this is normal. I noticed the other day when we were hand-feeding meatball some chicken, that he chews it up and seems to suck all the juice out and then spits out the little chunks. He does this with pretty much everything solid except mealworms. He does have teeth, but not sure if it's normal for them not to swallow the food after chewing it up. Funny thing is we just noticed it the other day and he's always with my son, who also spits his food out after chewing it up. I hope he's not copying him. Please let me know if this is normal behavior or if I should get him checked out.

Oh yeah, that's pretty typical. Gliders are sap suckers, they will often take the juiciest parts of the food and spit out what they don't want. That's one of the things that makes them such messy eaters. They will do that with a lot of veggies, fruits, pretty much anything really, eat the insides of foods and throw out the husks.
That's also something that can make their eating habits misleading. When you look at their food dishes, at first glance, it may appear that they have not eaten very much. Closer inspection may reveal they've really "sucked out" the good insides of most of their veggies and things.

Maybe your son was a sugar glider in another life!

Totally normal. You might also find remnants of their food will look like little moon shaped pieces. This is normal as well. Just wait until they start throwing their food in your face, or worse...poop. The joys of suggie parenthood!

Thank both of you!
Tigerlily, That is really funny... about my son being a sugar glider in another life... he frequently jumps off furniture and licks his fingers like Meatball does. I think you are right. They also fight over food. He will play tug-o-war with a piece of chicken in his mouth while Meatball tries to pry it out with his hands... not sure which one is the animal.
Fazioli, not looking forward to poop wars, GROSS! (but expected none the less)

As already mentioned, the little cresent shaped pieces your gliders leave behind are appropriately named “spittings.”

These are the pieces of food they do not or cannot digest. With that being said, I want to add another thought to this topic while we’re on it...

I got my first 2 babies from PP so when I was researching, attempting to wade thru all of the misinformation… this was one of the first things that jumped out at me. People ask why we do not recommend pellets for our gliders,… well, like you have done, IMO all we have to do is watch how they eat their food and it should be self explanatory....

How can they get any type of liquid squeezed from a dry, hard pellet? There is no juice to extracate! So for myself, that was reason enough not to feed pellets as part of their staple diet. (Not to mention most have very little nutritional value)

WOW! JazzNZoeysmom, that is an excellent point. Explaining why he eats and swallows all of his papaya but leaves the skins of his other fruits and just sucks the juice from the chicken and veggies. I've started blending all his veggies to liquid form so he can get more nutrition from them. But for some reason, those meal worms NEVER get spit out.
I am so happy I found this site so I can get all my questions answered by the right people.

Thinking about it, I've never seen any of mine spit out chewed up bits of yogurt drops ...