Mad cow desease or Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE for short) is a neuro degenerative disorder of the central nervous system of cattle of all breeds. It is believed (although not 100% proven) that this desease is caused due to the feeding of animal tissue (usually from cattle by also from sheep or pigs) to cattle.

It is common practice nowadays to feed cattle proteins from animal sources. This may be bone meal, blood meal, brain tissue meal or even feather meal. The reason why cattle are fed animal protein is because the protein levels that are present in most plants are relatively low and some strains of bacteria in the cows rumen break them down into undesirable fatty acids such as butiric acid which are less than ideal for the production of milk and flesh mass on beef cattle. (Acetic acid is best for milk production and propionic acid produces the best muscle mass).

The thing that farmers and industrialists alike are constantly looking for is protein types that the bacteria resident with the rumen will not recognise and therefore will pass through the rumen unaffected by the bacteria and pass into the true stomach where they will passed into the bloodstream through the cows intestine. For this technique to be successful, the farmer must alternate the type of protein given to the cow in its feed so that the bacteria of the rumen will not grow to recognize it and hence metabolise it.

Animal proteins contain prions which are proteins that can change the structure of other proteins that they come into contact with. Factories that make animal protein feed (Often in the far east) are renouned for not adhering to procedure and this can cause fluctuations to happen both in the processing time and temperature levels. You see, if the proteins are properly cooked, they will not cause any damage because when cooked, proteins change their structure.

The effect of eating unproperly processed protein feed can cause the prions within the protein of the feed to change the structure of the proteins of the cattles brain and spinal cord. This causes the tissue to become spongy meaning thet there are empty spaces within the tissue where there should have been nervous tissue. This wasting and structural change of the cows brain tissue cause the signals that come from the brain to malfunction causing the cow to apear to have fits and ceasures. This condition can take up to five years to develop in the cow.

Although few cases were reported above the norm, in technical terms, this condition can be passed on to humans especially where meat is only lightly cooked (or red in the middle). This desease cost farmers billions of dollors worth of damage , especially in the UK where some six million cattle either died because of the desease or were slaughtered in an attempt to eradicate it.

It is believed that some bad feed is still being exported from the far east, (easpecially from India).