Tomatoes?

[M3gan]

I have always believed that tomatoes are unsafe/risky the feed to your hamster? Am I correct? I was recently on Instagram looking at 'hamster care' accounts and I found someone recommending you feed tomatoes? When I went on to correct her she contained to tell me that she was correct, but also said if you fed your Syrian one cherry tomatoe it would cause diabetes. The only reason I am making so much effort is to 1. Make sure I am correct. And 2. Because she has over 2K people seeing this and believing it.

[AmityvilleHams]

Tomatoes are indeed risky/unsafe!It's not necessarily about the sugars,but the acids that tomatoes have which can cause oral problems and stomach problems in hamsters as well as other animals including humans(though humans take a lot more of the acid to cause a reaction strong enough to notice).

Furthermore,insinuating that feeding one item causes diabetes is just entirely wrong and absolutely ignorant of nutrition as a whole Hopefully people are at least wise enough to research what she says instead of just taking it as completely truth,otherwise we've got a lot of terribly misinformed people!

[cypher]

It's quite common in Germany to feed tomatoes, no seeds or skins & nothing remotely green though, whereas here it's generally considered unsafe.
They are very acidic so I don't feed them.

[M3gan]

That is exactly what I told her, but alas people will be stubborn. I hope people look in the comments and see that people are disagreeing and look it up and see that EVERYWHERE says there unsafe.

[Bertiebobbins]

Mine have had the odd half a cherry tomato minus the seeds, as they usually get bits of whatever fruit/veg is in the fridge. The person who bred them feeds tomatoes often. Nibble loves them. Glowy usually as a couple of bites and leaves the rest. They are both still alive lol!

However it really isn't very often and I wouldn't be comfortable giving them tomatoes every day.


I do agree though if someone is giving a lot of hamster owners incorrect info they should be called out on it. Clearly opinion on tomatoes varies, but people should have all the information to enable them to make their own decision.

[Pebbles82]

It's probably a bit acidic so I wouldn't give them, as also thought they weren't recommended (may BertieBobbins hams were brought up on them so used to them! There are exceptions, and as a rare thing). Sometimes people have a set mind on things - you could put it that there are so many great veg and fruit that a hamster can have (and list them!) that it would make sense to avoid something acidic like tomatoes.