Latest ARS Food & Nutrition Research Briefs Posted

The Agricultural Research Service has posted the July 2001 issue of the Food & Nutrition Research Briefs to its web site at:

/is/np/fnrb

The Research Briefs is a quarterly newsletter containing the latest ARS findings in human nutrition, food freshness and safety, and new foods and varieties.

Now you can search the newsletter from the URL listed above. If you’re not sure how to search for what you want, the “tips” link is very helpful.

Included in this issue:

• New sweetpotatoes now being developed by ARS scientists have less sugar and soak up less oil than traditional varieties, making them perfect for great-tasting and nutritious chips and french fries.

• Concerned about eating peanut butter because you thought it contained trans fats? Fear no more. Careful analyses of 11 brands found no trans fats in any of them.

• A relatively benign influenza virus has mutated into a nasty pathogen in laboratory mice raised on a diet deficient in selenium--a potent antioxidant. The phenomenon has global implications: Pockets of selenium deficiency around the world might be generating harmful mutations in a number of viruses.

• Ticks that transmit Lyme disease have been dropping like flies in parts of Maryland where deer snack on corn in a device developed by ARS scientists.

ARS is the chief scientific agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Contact: Judy McBride, ARS Information Staff, Beltsville, Md., phone (301) 504-1628, fax (301) 504-1641, jmcbride@ars.usda.gov.