>We will slice up (always very small and always small quantities) banana,
>orange, grapes, apples, broccoli, raisins (of course), small-diced
>carrots... not all at once but often enough.  We'd read in one of the
>books that they needed a high protein diet but that having fruit &
>veggies was a good thing.
 
Okay, first off, no one knows if feeding sugars or starches (or certain
types of sugars or starches) can increase the risk of insulinoma, but the
hypothesis DOES has some reasoning behind it, and it is possible.
 
Some foods are major no-nos because they have a documented history of
causing blockages and thus requiring emergency surgeries or causing
deaths.  Among these are: carrots (esp. raw), broccoli stems, some types
of dried bananas, and any other food that is hard, thick, and difficult
for ferrets to digest.
 
WE are descended from primates that were mainly eaters of vegetables,
fruits and insects for tens of millions of years, and in the
non-industrial state meat still makes up a minor portion of the diet.
(Yes, people in the more of the ancestral state are gather-hunters (3:1)
instead of hunter-gathers (25% vs. 75% of diet) if a person is going to
be accurate.)  We also have a diurnal history for a long time.  FERRETS
are descended from animals that were obligate carnivores for tens of
millions of years.  They are descended from burrow dwelling (DARK)
crepuscular (dawn and dusk) hunters.  What is healthy for them is not
healthy for us; what is most healthy for us is not healthy for them.
They need way more animal food (and not just meat since a muscle-only
diet has nutrient shortages) and they need way more true darkness.
 
BTW, even humans aren't made for the amount of sweets that are in the
modern industrial society diets.
 
That said, we give some raisins (though NOT many), and some Nutrical, and
if one gets a UTI then we include some dried cranberries from a place in
Michigan for the tannins, and we do get ferrets with some insulinomae,
but only very few over a span of 19 years, and have had only one die of
insulinoma so far since surgery has been marvelously successful for our
crew.  Have one elderly one now who is not a surgical candidate due to
almost dying in two previous surgeries for a chronic problem of her's and
she may wind up passing eventually of her insulinoma.  Then again, we
don't give sucrose laden starchy treats like Cheerios (though Glueball
steals those against our wishes at times).
 
One of the things that sets our guys apart from too many others is that
they get a LOT of exercise.  It really seems to keep them healthier -- a
lot healthier.
 
They also have night covers, and very, very dark nap places since we are
in a tiny place and can't provide a black-out room for them for the long
spaces of time that would better simulate how many hours their wild
ancestors got.
 
Might these things help.  Yes, they might.  Then again, a home sample
simply is too small to know, there is a dearth of actual studies, and
surveys simply have too many inherent sampling and reporting errors to
be trust-worthy.  All that folks can do is to learn what hard info is
available, and to then try their best, understanding that some of it is
simply guess-work.
[Posted in FML issue 3601]