Food & Nutrition News Briefs

• A team of Japanese researchers found that when milk, pork or beef is cooked for 6 minutes in a microwave oven, 30% to 40% of these foods' available B12 is lost. Conventional cooking also causes B12 loss, but not as quickly. Milk had to be boiled for 30 minutes to create the equivalent B12 loss caused by 6 minutes of microwaving.
• The common belief is that mad cow disease is caused by feeding cows rendered sheep infected with the disease called scrapie. But there has never been a case of mad cow disease in any cow born and bred on an organic farm, and many organic farmers have given their cattle scrapie-infected feed.

An organic farmer in England has been trying to convince health officials in that country that mad cow disease is actually caused by an organophosphate pesticide called Phosmet used to treat cows. Officials ignored him for several years, but have since reconsidered his idea because they have been unable to find a strain of scrapie that looks like mad cow disease. Many scientists now believe that mad cow disease has always existed in cattle at very low levels, and Phosmet may be the trigger that caused this formerly rare endemic condition to become an epidemic.

• General nutritional advice has usually come with a standard warning to reduce salt intake, but recent studies show that people on low salt diets are at greater risk for heart attack and stroke. This data and an earlier study suggest that low-salt diets should only be recommended for those with high blood pressure who might benefit from this type of intervention. In light of this new information, several health experts no longer give blanket advice to lower salt.

Based on information in: Microwave News, Mar/Apr 1998; The Halifax Herald Limited, 13 April 1998; Consumers' Research, May 1998;