John Beale, Post-Gazette photos Zookeeper Suellen Stanley feeds a grape to Dweezil, a mandrill. In the dish are Cheerios. Click photo for larger image.

Never again should you complain about getting a meal ready for the family. Don't even think of calling your kitchen cramped. Stifle yourself when you feel like grumbling about making a special, different meal for a picky eater. And if grocery shopping aggravates you, get over it.

Just be glad you're not Patrick Kennedy, commissary supervisor at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.

"We make the daily meals for approximately 400 species. That's roughly 4,000 mouths to feed every day, sometimes three and four times," he said. "I buy 575 to 600 tons of food a year."

When it comes to eating well, humans could learn a lot by visiting the zoo at feeding time. Every animal at the zoo has a special diet, formulated by zoo veterinarians with set standards for nutrition and portion control.

Breakfast for the gorilla group of 10, for instance, consists of grapefruit, white potatoes, broccoli, green beans, endive, romaine, celery, spinach and 13 pounds of nutritional munchies called primate browse biscuits. All food is weighed out to the gram, placed in a separate bag and labeled. The gorillas put down about 200 pounds of food every day.

The commissary kitchen is the size of an average bedroom. There is a double sink, a cooler for prepped produce and one 8-foot prep counter. Beneath the counter are five bulk food bins of specially formulated animal biscuits shaped like all sizes of corks. The middle of the kitchen is crowded with cardboard boxes of produce.

The staff consists of two full-timers, one seasonal worker and two students. They prepare meals by referring to plastic-covered diet sheets mounted on clipboards.

There's very little cooking to do, however. Vegetables for small marsupials are cooked in a microwave oven, and 15 dozen eggs a week for the primates are hard-cooked on a one-burner hot plate.

Rocky, a Kodiak bear at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, devours a cantaloupe. Click photo for larger image.

"The big animals don't get their food chopped but the small ones do," said Kira Albert, an animal diet technician. "We save peelings and outer lettuce leaves for the rhinos to snack on. Nothing is wasted. The biggest chore is taking those little stickers off the fruit."

With the kitchen going through 12 cases of apples a day alone, Mr. Kennedy buys high-quality bulk produce from wholesale institutional vendors.

"I'm feeding endangered species like the snow leopards, Siberian tigers and cheetahs," said Mr. Kennedy, a jovial guy who speaks fondly of his "critters." "I'll match the quality of my groceries to yours any day. My food is as good or better than what you buy at the Iggle."

The commissary pantry shelves include a few supermarket items along with sacks of special animal chows.

"Since a little bit of sweetness helps the medicine go down, I have blackberry syrup and applesauce for some keepers to give," Mr. Kennedy said, pointing out those items. "Bears love to take their meds in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. This stock of orange Gatorade goes to fend off dehydration in the primates. And kangaroos get the contents of a tea bag sprinkled over their food every day because something in their natural habitat supplies caffeine."

	Fruit treats for Kodiak bears, prepared by handlers at the zoo. Click photo for larger image.

Just outside the kitchen are giant coolers. Today's prepped produce will be served tomorrow. The freezer is stocked with herring, squid and caplin, a small deep-water fish, destined for bears and sea lion meals. Kennedy buys 40,000 pounds of seafood by the truckload, an eight-month supply, which is stored in an off-site freezer.

Babar's buddies

Willie Theison has worked with elephants for 28 years. As a keeper, he oversees the training and teaching of his six charges -- one male, three females and two babies.

"They think I'm one of the family. Elephants must be trained in footwork and taught to stand still and to lie down, mostly for ease of handling. They get a bath every day, either from a swim in their pool or from a high-pressure hose.

"Elephants in the wild eat branches and grasses," said Mr. Theison. "They went through 13,000 bales of hay last year, and if the hay is old or dried out, they pick it up in their trunks, take it to the water and soak it to soften before eating it. If any tree pruning is done on zoo property, the branches are brought here to the compound. Elephants will eat or seek food as long as they are awake. Their digestion is only 45 percent efficient, so they have to eat twice as much as they need. The elephant family eats just shy of five tons of food a week."

Elephants love to chew. They get six sets of teeth in a lifetime, according to the keeper. They use chains as a teething ring and can often be seen chewing on the metal links when they are teething.

"The main treats for my elephants are carrots and apples," Mr. Theison said. "They like pumpkins and watermelons, especially the smashing part. And every year I buy a case of Girl Scout Thin Mints. They love them."

Juma, male lion at the Pittsburgh Zoo, gets excited as he sees a horse bone. Once a week the lions get this particular treat, and the gnawing is good for their teeth. Click photo for larger image.

Holidays are celebrated. On birthdays, baby elephants blow out the candles on a carrot or banana cake from Jenny Lee bakery. At the holidays, they get Christmas trees. To eat. Employees bring in their evergreen trees, sans tinsel and ornaments, toss them onto a pile and the elephants nosh away. Mr. Theison also gives each of them a stocking filled with mangos, papayas and big thick candy canes. Savannah, one of the mothers, loves to suck on a candy cane.

To stay in shape, the elephants go for a walk with their keepers every morning. Before the zoo opens, they cover the complete circuit of asphalt "people paths," occasionally getting up to a jog, just fast enough to get them breathing hard and their heart rate up.

Everybody loves the elephants, especially the boss, Dr. Barbara Baker, chief executive officer and president of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium. She has been known to bring in purple Marshmallow Peeps and Reese's Pieces to hide for the elephants.

The lion king and queens

Kathy Suthard is lead keeper of the carnivores and the two veggie-loving rhinos. She's been at the zoo for 26 years. The tall, pretty blonde is in charge of four lions, three tigers, two snow leopards, one Amur leopard, a cheetah and the rhinos. She runs her own commissary out of a Pepsi cooler in the lion house.

"All the cats eat ground horse meat purchased from vendors who package zoo carnivore diets. It comes in frozen and has to be thawed for 24 hours," Ms. Suthard said. "Some of the cats will snag a snack on their own. Mallard ducks, free-ranging on the Allegheny River, will fly up here to the zoo hoping to cadge a free meal. Occasionally, they become the meal."

The lions eat the whole duck, usually leaving the beaks and feet.

Once a week, the lions will get a horse leg bone with some meat on it for a treat. The gnawing and chewing is good for cleaning their teeth. For another occasional change-up in their diet, the keepers toss them a whole dead rabbit -- the works, hair, ears and entrails.

The lions grab the rabbits and run to a corner to eat in solitary contentment.

Tigers don't get rabbits, but then they have a better chance of snagging one of the mallards.

"Toma, the young Siberian tiger, never turns down a meal," Ms. Suthard said. "She's the smallest of the cats but a fierce hunter. All of the cats will get smelts as an occasional treat. The cats get no people food. None."

Rhinos have not evolved much, according to Ms. Suthard. All they need is food, reproduction and a good climate.

Rhinos like to eat timothy hay, a staple, and alfalfa hay, which is greener and richer.

"For treats, the rhinos love crunchy tree branches," said Ms. Suthard.

"And when they get strawberries, watermelon and cooked sweet potatoes, they just close their eyes in rapture."

Underwater

The commissary delivers buckets of sardines and herring for larger fish and penguins, plus bags of cut-up oranges, lettuce, bananas, strawberries and blueberries for the South American fish.

Jennifer Moffat, the aquarist for the cold marine gallery, has her own kitchen backstage, behind the glass-enclosed exhibits, where she preps fish meals. And yes, it's stinky. She makes a stew of mysis, the tiniest shrimp, for sea horses and sea dragons while other fish get shrimp and krill.

Ms. Moffat's favorite critter, it's no secret, is Squirt the octopus. After she preps his lunch of herring, squid and soft-shell crabs, it looks restaurant-ready. She stuffs it into a container with a twist-top lid and drops it into Squirt's tank. Squirt is 1¹/₂ years old and weighs about 50 pounds, and he'll grow to about 150. He has eight tentacles, and the span is 12 feet.

Squirt grabs the food jar with one tentacle and unscrews the lid with another.

"I save unusual containers and infant toys so he has to work to get his meals," said Ms. Moffat, hiding the crabs among the rocky ledges of the habitat. "If an octopus isn't mentally stimulated, he can become destructive and hurt himself. At Halloween, I gave him a pumpkin stuffed with fish, and he ate the whole thing."

Bears, giraffes and zebras

Mo Brown is the bear keeper, and his twin brother Ed is keeper for the giraffes and zebras. The good-natured brothers have been animal lovers all of their lives, both working at the zoo for 35 years.

Rocks and the pool are what people see in the bear exhibit. Behind that is their night home, where they sleep and eat in private. Mo Brown gives them fish and an occasional bone with meat to clean their teeth, but bears eat 75 percent plant foods by choice. Because they eat the same thing every day, keepers give them treats so they have something to look forward to. They love blueberries and nuts.

"Rocky, the male Kodiak, is the most laid-back and friendly animal I've ever met," said Mo Brown. "He loves grapes and peanuts but hates tomatoes and broccoli. Susan-Bear was hand-raised and expects all my attention. I can touch and pet her. Sometimes I'll buy yogurt at the supermarket and dump it on their greens. Susan-Bear prefers Breyer's yogurt with the fruit on the bottom. She won't touch light [yogurt]."

The giraffes like to nuzzle up to Ed Brown. When they aren't eating branches as big as a man's thumb or their ration of produce, they graze from huge food buckets mounted on the wall 12 feet high, 2 feet higher than a basketball hoop.

Monkeyshines

Suellen Stanley takes care of what she calls "the fuzzy ones."

"The kids know the names of my primates," she said. "The mandrills are the ones with the bright faces and bottoms, and the chimpanzees look like Rafiki from 'The Lion King.'"

The primates all get along well in their social groups, she says, because parents teach their offspring social skills and manners. The babies can get away with anything. But as they get older, more is required of them. Primates want their young to grow into happy, well-adjusted animals as adults.

"My animals are leaf eaters and have a special diet of high-protein biscuits and lots of produce. Given a banana, they'll peel it and eat the sweet inside first, and then eat the peel, too. They get only healthful treats such as plain yogurt or cottage cheese. The monkeys have their evening meals downstairs in their bedrooms, which are fitted out with hammocks and shelving for their toys and balls. The animals need mental stimulation to ensure that they are well-adjusted."

Ms. Stanley wants people to know that when they see a sign that says, "Do Not Feed the Animals," it means just that. "Our veterinarian-prescribed diets are very species-specific to keep them healthy and maintain a good weight," she said. "We have no obese animals at the zoo."

Animals can get sick just as people do. They can catch a cold or flu and get arthritis and have coronary trouble. As with humans, diabetes can run in their families; the zoo had a mandrill a few years ago that was diabetic.

"People, trying to be nice, will bring in treats and toss it to animals," said Ms. Stanley. "If our mandrill had gotten any candy, he'd have been in big trouble.

"Then there are the social issues. If someone throws food into a habitat, there would be competition but only one animal would get it. We are careful to take care of social structure and dominance issues."

"People mean well," she says, "But please, don't feed the animals."

The food court

And what about the top of the food chain, Homo sapiens? Us?

We are omnivores, eating either meat or plant foods. We are considered to be "opportunistic" feeders, surviving by eating what is available.

At the zoo's Safari Grill, members of our species lunch in a habitat of picnic benches under zebra-striped umbrellas. The zoo attracts roughly 750,000 people a year.

This year, because of the new polar bear exhibit opening later in August, that number is expected to reach 900,000. Next year, visitors may top the 1 million mark. Most of them stop to eat.

Because people are not an endangered species, they make their own dietary choices. These include chicken fingers with fresh-cut french fries, cheeseburgers, cheese fries, hot dogs, pizza, salads, deli sandwiches and ice cream.

Many of this species are obese, and many show no signs of ever having exercised.

Some of their young are undisciplined.

They have no keepers.