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Re the fruit question, I do feed my birds about 10% of the diet daily in nutritious fruits -very rarely apple and grape, but most often berries, mango, papaya, cantaloupe, passion fruit. Fruits do provide valuable nutrients, but remember that in general our cultivated fruits are much sweeter than native fruits that would be eaten by wild birds. Fruit has been bred by humans for umpteen generations to have sweeter flavors, and wild fruit often is much tarter. Therefore the fruit we have available is higher in sugar - that's why I never feed dried fruit to my birds - extremely high sugar contents!
A couple of examples of total sugar contents: Raw apricots 9.24%, dried 53.44%, Plums, raw 9.92%, dried (prunes) 38.13%, red or green seedless grapes 15.48%, raisins (dried seedless grapes) 59.19%.
I also don't believe that animals do choose a healthy diet based on some innate knowledge of what is good for them and what nutrients are needed, just as many people have terrible diets and choose to eat junk food. If I were to put out sunflower seed and nuts for my bigger birds (Grey and Macaw) plus a separate bowl or bowls of vegetables, grains, fruits, legumes, guess which one they would gorge on? Nuts and sunflower seeds, very high fat, deficient in certain very important nutrients, leading to malnutrition and obesity.
That's why I feed the diet from Feeding Feathers (Yahoo) forum, Shauna's Mash diet that has all the vegetables run through a food processor. I also put the legume sprouts in the processor too because of a certain Parrotlet that won't eat them otherwise :) The Mash diet encourages birds to eat everything, getting a well-rounded, varied diet. Doesn't help much to offer a good diet in chunks, and the bird picks out a few favorites and leaves the rest.
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