Subject: [sci.bio.food-science] Additions and Changes to FAQ, and New User Info

From: [email-masked] (Paul E. J. King)
Date: 14 Dec 1996 07:00:51 GMT

Archive-Name: sci/food-science-faq/diff

Posting-Frequency: biweekly
Last-modified: 1996/10/27

NEWS for Oct 27, 1996:

New Information has been added.

Immediately under the section "Information for New Users":

     DOWNLOADING This FAQ: This is not an exhaustive list. Pick a
     site nearest you. All paths end in "sci/food-science-faq/"
     except for Gopher sites, which use menus, and FSP sites, which have
     protocols that I am unfamiliar with. FSP stands for "File Service
     Protocol". There are several other sites not mentioned here. To get
     the very latest list, look under:
 
     <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/news-answers/introduction>

     They include Gopher sites, FTP sites, FSP sites, and web sites in 
     Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
     This list is intended only as a representative sample.

     From Canada:
       <gopher://jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca:70/>
            This is the only Canadian FAQ repository, located in the
            University of New Brunswick.
     From Germany:   
       via FSP from: ftp.Germany.EU.net, port 2001
       <ftp://ftp.Germany.EU.net:80/pub/newsarchive/news.answers/>
            This FTP site uses compression. You must download a GZIP
            decompression package to see the text, which should be
            available at this site.
     From Hong Kong:
       <ftp://ftp.hk.super.net/mirror/faqs/>
            One of many Asian sites.
     From Mexico and Central America:
       <ftp://ftp.mty.itesm.mx/pub/mirrors/usenet/news.answers/>
             This FTP site uses compression. You must download an
             UNCOMPRESS package to see the text, which should be
             available at this site.
     From South Africa:
       <ftp://ftp.is.co.za/usenet/news.answers/>
     From the United Kingdom:
       <ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-faqs/news.answers/>
       via FSP from: src.doc.ic.ac.uk, port 21
     From the United States:
       <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/>
       <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/sci.answers/>
       <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-hierarchy/news/answers/>
       <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-hierarchy/sci/answers/>
           rtfm.mit.edu is the central repository for most of the
           official FAQs that appear on the Usenet. In fact, this is the
           place where you are *guaranteed* the most up-to-date FAQ,
           since they have to do the auto-posting.
       <ftp://ftp.mirrors.aol.com/pub/rtfm/usenet/news-answers/>

     From the Web:
         Old postings to sbfs can be found at http://dejanews.com, using
     "sci.bio.food-science" as a search string.

     Other WWW Pages: Check out a site nearest you:

       Germany: <http://www.Germany.EU.net:80/>
          This actually leads to a search engine where the FAQ must be
          downloaded via FTP as above. The files are compressed with
          GZIP.

       The UK:  <http://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-faqs/news.answers/>
          This is a "bare text" web page. In other words, there are no
          live web links. It is a plain text FAQ.
 
        <http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/sci.bio.food-science.html>
          This is the other British Homepage worth mentioning, which
          will hopefully be updated soon. All links mentioned in this
          FAQ are live, and is a good starting point in surfing to
          various food science web sites.

       The USA: <http://www.smartpages.com/faqs/>
          This site is in the process of upgrading as of this writing.
 __

FAQ 3/3, GROUP 2, Question 10: With regard to BSE, is British beef safe to eat?

         BSE is an extremely serious disease of cattle, considered to
    originate from infected meat and bonemeal in cattle feed
    concentrates. Its eradication is of primary importance to safeguard
    herds, and hence to the future supply of bovine meat and dairy
    products for the human and animal food chains, together with
    important bovine by-products.
    
         For there to be any risk to humans consuming beef and
    bovine-derived foods two conditions would _both_ have to be
    fulfilled: [1] that BSE could be transmitted from cows to humans; and
    [2] that parts of the animal capable of carrying the infective agent
    could enter the human food chain.
    
         As to the first, the emergence in the UK during the past two
    years of ten anomalous cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) of a
    previously unrecognised pattern, reviewed by the UK CJD Surveillance
    Unit (CJDSU), led the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee
    (SEAC), in the absence of other explanation at the time, to the
    conjecture that the UK cases were "most likely" to have been caused
    by exposure to infected cattle brain or spinal cord before 1989 (at
    which time they were banned from the food chain). There is now some
    scientific evidence consistent with transmission, at least to some
    humans.
    
         As to the second, while the BSE infective agent can be detected
    in the brain, spinal cord and retina of BSE-infected cows, extensive
    tests have failed to detect it in muscle meat or milk of infected
    cows. Measures have been taken, and strengthened, to exclude from the
    food chain certain parts of the animal (specified bovine materials,
    SBM), including all those parts shown to be capable of carrying the
    infective agent. These measures require the most stringent
    enforcement and heavy penalties for evasion. These safeguards do not,
    of course, protect against possible consequences of having consumed
    infective SBM in the past.
    
         Having regard to the present scientific evidence, therefore, and
    provided that the above measures are fully implemented, consumption
    of muscle meat, milk and tallow from British cows, would appear to
    involve virtually no risk of causing CJD, i.e. to be safe within the
    normal meaning of the term. SEAC has stated that, if there is any
    risk to humans, it is extremely small, and no greater for children,
    hospital patients, pregnant women or people who are
    immuno-compromised than for healthy adults.
    
         As regards animal health, measures have been taken, and
    strengthened, to reduce the incidence of BSE in cows and these have
    led to a dramatic reduction in new cases and are expected to lead to
    the virtual elimination of the disease.
    
         On the basis of present scientific knowledge, no further
    animal-related measures are needed; in particular, no form of
    additional culling is needed. If additional measures are taken, it
    will be for other than scientific reasons.
    
         While that sums up the present state of knowledge, scientists
    always have to keep open minds. They have to act on existing
    knowledge while recognising that further research will bring new
    information and knowledge, which may in turn lead to revised
    conclusions. 
 __

That's it for the changes! Now on to New User Information. No need to read the
rest of this "NEWS" section unless you're new to the group. 
 __

                           INFORMATION FOR NEW USERS

This FAQ has been accepted to the *.answers newsgroups, and can be found in both
sci.answers and news.answers.

     DOWNLOADING This FAQ: This is not an exhaustive list. Pick a
     site nearest you. All paths end in "sci/food-science-faq/"
     except for Gopher sites, which use menus, and FSP sites, which have
     protocols that I am unfamiliar with. FSP stands for "File Service
     Protocol". There are several other sites not mentioned here. To get
     the very latest list, look under:

     <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/news-answers/introduction>

     They include Gopher sites, FTP sites, FSP sites, and web sites in 
     Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
     This list is intended only as a representative sample.

     From Canada:
       <gopher://jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca:70>
            This is the only Canadian FAQ repository, located in the
            maritime province of New Brunswick.
     From Germany:   
       via FSP from: ftp.Germany.EU.net, port 2001
       <ftp://ftp.Germany.EU.net:80/pub/newsarchive/news.answers/>
            This FTP site uses compression. You must download a GZIP
            decompression package to see the text, which should be
            available at this site.
     From Hong Kong:
       <ftp://ftp.hk.super.net/mirror/faqs/>
            One of many Asian sites.
     From Mexico and Central America:
       <ftp://ftp.mty.itesm.mx/pub/mirrors/usenet/news.answers/>
             This FTP site uses compression. You must download an
             UNCOMPRESS package to see the text, which should be
             available at this site.
     From South Africa:
       <ftp://ftp.is.co.za/usenet/news.answers/>
     From the United Kingdom:
       <ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-faqs/news.answers/>
       via FSP from: src.doc.ic.ac.uk, port 21
     From the United States:
       <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/>
       <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/alt.answers/>
       <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-hierarchy/news/answers/>
       <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-hierarchy/alt/answers/>
           rtfm.mit.edu is the central repository for most of the
           official FAQs that appear on the Usenet. In fact, this is the
           place where you are *guaranteed* the most up-to-date FAQ,
           since they have to do the auto-posting.
       <ftp://ftp.mirrors.aol.com/pub/rtfm/usenet/news-answers/>

     From the Web:
         Old postings to sbfs can be found at http://dejanews.com, using
     "sci.bio.food-science" as a search string.

     Other WWW Pages: Check out a site nearest you:

       Germany: <http://www.Germany.EU.net:80/>
          This actually leads to a search engine where the FAQ must be
          downloaded via FTP as above. The files are compressed with
          GZIP.

       The UK:  <http://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-faqs/news.answers/>
          This is a "bare text" web page. In other words, there are no
          live web links. It is a plain text FAQ.

        <http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/sci.bio.food-science.html>
          This is the other British Homepage worth mentioning, which
          will hopefully be updated soon. All links mentioned in this
          FAQ are live, and is a good starting point in surfing to
          various food science web sites. See "SCI.BIO.FOOD-SCIENCE ON
          THE WORLD-WIDE WEB" below:

       The USA: <http://www.smartpages.com/faqs/>
  __

A SHORT NOTE ON FTP RETRIEVAL OF THIS FAQ (for PC/Windows users with SLIP):

If you find your web browser too slow on your system, a better way to FTP is by
use of freeware  like  WS-FTP. It can be downloaded via anonymous FTP from
<ftp://129.29.64.246/pub/msdos>. WS-FTP is free for private, household use. A
fee is required for commercial use. You may find the transfer on WS-FTP is much
faster, and that it uses far less memory. Also, WS-FTP allows you to maintain a
menu of your favourite FTP sites. This is not intended to be an endorsement of
WS-FTP.
 __

SCI.BIO.FOOD-SCIENCE FAQ ON THE WORLD-WIDE WEB:

Our FAQ has been converted to HTML for users of the World-Wide Web. It may be
found at two locations:

     <http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/sci.bio.food-science.html>. 
                                   or
                          <http://dejanews.com/> 

The first site is a direct link to our FAQ; the second requires you to fill out
a search form for the correct newsgroup, since DejaNews lists ALL news articles
posted on the Internet over several months. In both cases, the great thing about
seeing out FAQ on HTML is that all of the links we mention are LIVE links. That
is, if you have Netscape, you may point and click on our FAQ from any web site
we mention to wherever those links take you.

I also have my own personal web page, with most of the links mentioned in this
FAQ. The intent was to write a simple web page that was easy to move around in.
You may find it a bit more user-friendly than the web pages offered at Oxford or
by Deja News. I won't be updating it as much as the FAQ, so it may not have the
most current URLs. I stress here that the entire FAQ is not on my home page -
just the links mentioned in it. Visit the site and tell me what you think! The
web site is at 

                 <http://cgi.idirect.com/index///pking.html> 

(the triple forward slash is not a typo). There are no major graphics, so it
_should_ be a quick download. Mileage may vary with your connection speed, and
with the traffic at either your host site or ours, however ...
 __

VIEWING THE SBFS FAQ ON NETSCAPE 2.2 and above:

Of the Web Browsers, I have found Netscape to have the best news reader. This is
because the Netscape's web browser turns any mention of a web URL into a live
link, as well. What is ideal about this kind of arrangement is that if you point
and click on the "blue" URL reference on the news browser, the web page will pop
up in a new window. That means can surf the 'net without ever losing track of
our news articles. 
 __

Professional food scientists, academics, and others involoved in the food
industry are invited to list their "favourite", or "most highly recommended"
textbooks in the food science field to be added to the FAQ for the benefit of
non-food scientists. The following format is preferred for ease of editing
(loosely based on the Journal of Food Science):

SUBJECT: Author(Year). Title. Edition. City: Publisher. ISBN. Comments.

The basic idea is to provide enough information for someone to walk into a
library or bookstore and order it. The ISBN number is essential. Comments are
optional.
 __

PERSONAL FOOD SCIENCE WEB PAGES:

News for persons maintaining a "personal" food science web page:  Jim Eilers
([email-masked]) is maintaing a list of persons who are maitaining a
home page of Food Science links. If you are such a person, email him at
[email-masked], and if you wish to view his homepage, "surf" to:

              http://homepage.interaccess.com/~jreilers/foodsci.htm
 __

               "ETHNIC" FOOD PREPARATION METHODS ON THE WEB

Ralph, Rachel, and I have proposed a new sub-section dealing with an important
and as of yet overlooked aspect of foods: Ethnic (non-American and non-British)
food preparations. Specifically, we are looking for web pages dealing with
details on the preparation of foods that are described as "halal", "kosher",
"pareve", and so on - you fill in the terminologies for your ethnic group. How
are these foods prepared, inspected, and manufactured? What does the consumer
expect in terms of organoleptic properties and health benefits of such foods?
Are there any mass-produced foods that have the designation? How does a person
in that ethnic group know they are buying a food prepared according to their
ethnic or religious doctrines?

If you know of any web pages that describe or even mention these things, please
send your suggestions to Paul King at <mailto://[email-masked]>
 ___

You are all encouraged to contact one of us if you have suggestions 
additions, or other 'major' questions we haven't thought of. Our names and 
email addresses are:

Rachel Zemser, creator of the newsgroup sci.bio.food-science 

J Ralph Blanchfield, Food Science, Food Technology & Food Law
    Consultant, Chair, IFST Member Relations & Services Committee and Web
    Editor, IFST Web on the WWW <mailto://[email-masked]>

Paul King, Creator and Maintainer of the List of Common Abbreviations 
    <mailto://[email-masked]>

For a glossary of scientific, marketing, industry, technical and legal terms of
relevance to food science, see FAQ 2 of 3. For a list of common questions and
answers about food and food science, see FAQ 3 of 3.

 - Paul King