Pumpkin: Scary or Sweet?

Updated 24/10/2016

H B Turner

For some reason I’ve always had an uncomfortable/irrational negative feeling when people recommend pumpkin or any other of the myriad of varieties of squash, and I have avoided feeding them, or even eating them myself, other than the odd courgette.
Upon further investigation is appears that the calcium to phosphorous ratio within them is not optimum for the use of the body, recommendations being 1:1 or technically 1:0.8 (AAFCO) and squash being closer to 1:2. However recommendations for laboratory animals are between 2:1 & 1:2, as long as Vitamin D levels are high enough, so this shouldn’t be a problem right?

Pumpkin contains high amounts of both alpha and beta carotene, known to boost immune function in older dogs and with side effects of too much being Carotenemia (skin discolouration), known to be harmless and reversed when ingestion is halted, but would we…