Buying veggies at Asian grocery stores

[naturestee]

A friend of mine gave me a tip that an Asiangrocery store near me had good quality, cheap cilantro. Ofcourse, I had to check it out and he was right. They also hadbasil and mint and much cheaper prices, baby bok choy (much more leafthan stem compared to the normal stuff I've seen, my buns don't carefor the stem too much), and a bunch of other veggies I've never heardof.

Anyone know much about Asian veggies? Most don't appear onsafe/unsafe lists because they're unusual, but the prices are so goodthat I'd like to try them if possible.

I bought one unknown veggie after talking to the owner. It'scalled dau miu, and it's young snow pea leaves. I haven'tbeen able to find much info, but since snow peas are in the same familyof plants as alfalfa this *should* be okay in small doses,right? The owner said a lot of people feed it to theirrabbits, but I didn't ask if those were pet or meat rabbits.And of course people feed their rabbits all sorts of things theyshouldn't.

I'm interested in trying Gai Lan or Kai-lan. It's also calledChinese broccoli or Chinese kale. It's the same species asbroccoli and kale (yes, they're different varieties of the samespecies) so it's definately safe although a possible gas problem forsensitive buns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai-lan

There were some other veggies too but I forgot their names and some weren't labeled. Any recommendations?

And for those that haven't ever been to an Asian grocery store, I do recommend it!

 

[Kathy]

naturestee, being Chinese and having shopped atthose markets for practically all my life (always used to be dragged bymy mom!), I can say that I'm sure Gai Lan is okay for rabbits. I knowmy turtle loves it.

I think dau miu should be fed in moderation though. My mom used to tellme not to eat too much of it but I can't remember why (don't worry,it's not between life and death, probably just some "myth" again). I'llgive her a call tonight and ask her again. I think she was talkingabout that, I can't be 100% sure.

 

[naturestee]

Thanks Kathy!

Someone on Etherbun just gave me these links on bunny safe veggies inSingapore and China. I'll put them in the Bunny 101 veggiethread to for future reference.

http://www.rosybunny.com/veggielist_eng.htm

http://www.hrss.net/aar/care/care_diet_faq.html#veggies

The veggies I was interested in are all on there. Maybe yourmom was cautioning about the dai miu because of gas? It is alegume and might be gassy.

 

[maherwoman]

Oh wow! Great idea! Thereare a lot of areas like that around here in Southern California, thathave asian grocery places, so it's definitely worth printing out thelists to have with us!

Thanks for letting everyone know! That's great!

 

[naturestee]

Just thought I'd share that the buns like thedau miu (snow pea leaves) and the basil that I also bought at thatstore. I'll try something different in another week or two.

For those of you that feed low-pellet/no-pellet diets, this is a greatway to find more veggie variety for your buns. Not to mentionthat it was pretty cheap too.

 

[maomaochiu]

maomaochiu loves the snow pea leaves and gan lan as well.

 

[ChinaBun]

I found this to be an interesting thread,because . . . my rabbit ALWAYS eats from an Asian market! Every two orthree days I go to a covered market close to my school, where I live.There are a dozen or so vegetable vendors there. They all know that Ibuy veggies for my rabbit, so they call out to me "Rabbits like this!"in Chinese when I walk in. I go to different sellers, though there aretwo that I go to more often. There's one that always seems to give me ahigher price, a special foreigner's price. I guess they think if I'mrich enough to buy vegetables for my pet, I can afford to pay a fewextra cents.

I liked the link to the pictures of Asian vegetables. I discovered thatwhat I had been calling parsley is really cilantro. This is Qingqing'scurrent favorite veggie. Until a week ago, carrots had been herfavorite, though she gets a limited amount of carrot pieces. She alsolikes the youmaicai that's on the page. Now I know that the Englishword for another veggie she likes is bok choi. I'm not a good cook, soI didn't know all the names of vegetables! She used to like cucumbers,but she turns her nose up at them now. Same with eggplant.

She gets a variety of fresh vegetables. Because of my location, I can'tget pellets. She doesn't seem to have suffered any from the lack ofpellets. I've tried to get her to drink water, but she won't do it. Iassume that she gets her water from the veggies. The only times thatshe has had water were when she had recovered from a stomach ache. Iknew she was getting better, because she would drink some water, andsoon after she would eat something. Why did she get a stomoch ache? Onetime I let my students give her too many carrots. A couple times Ithink it was because I gave her beans. She loves beans, too, but aftergetting a stomach ache twice I realized it must have been the stringbeans. And one time I apparently gave her veggies that were too old. Iwas more careful after that. It scares me when she lays around andstops eating.

I just got back from the market. I got some bok choi, cilantro andyoumaicai. She already has a couple of carrots leftover from the lasttime I went shopping. As my students say, she's a lucky rabbit. Sheeats and sleeps and plays.

Nancy