§ Ms. ShortTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether there is any evidence of a risk to health in heating milk in microwave ovens; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. MacleanMicrowaving is simply one method of heating food. I am not aware of any good evidence that 215W changes in food brought about by microwave heating would not also be brought about by other methods producing equivalent amounts of heat.
I understand that the account of the research carried out at the University of Vienna and reported in The Lancet of 9 December was very incomplete. It failed to mention that a very small milk sample was microwaved at full power in a sealed tube to an unknown temperature (probably well in excess of 100 deg. C) until it was brown. This heat treatment was far more severe than that received by other samples with which it was compared and bears no relation whatever to the way consumers would heat milk in the kitchen.