Secondly, iguanas have the propensity to eat anything they are offered. I once heard someone refer to iguanas as living garbage disposals . Thirdly, most people seem to have a deep-seated belief that animals must eat animal protein in order to grow and be healthy at least while they are young. Perhaps this stems from the fact that most of us are omnivorous ourselves, and we tend to be most familiar with carnivorous pets like dogs and cats. Thus, we are tempted to apply these eating habits to our iguanas, too.
Most plants contain proteins in lower levels.
In a strictly herbivorous diet, it is important to mix and match different plants to get the variety of proteins and amino acids necessary for good health. There are a couple of reasons why including animal products as a staple part of your iguana s diet is a bad idea. For one thing, animal products often contain large amounts of fats and cholesterol, which are no better for your iguana than they are for you. Secondly, iguanas bodies are designed for maximum utilization of plant foods. They aren t able to adequately process the high concentrations of proteins found in animal products.