Of Japanese cooking methods, boiling and stewing are usually applied in mass-feeding, but there are very few data on heat transference. Most troubles occur in designing the heating apparatus or improvement of cooking methods. Beside these, there are destroying the shape of food is destroyed during the boiling in the cooking pan. This phenomenon seems to be partly concerned with the osmotic pressure of foods.
The results obtained were as follows:
1. There was no significant difference between fresh water and the 3% starch solution in the convection of heat.
2. Solid substances such as solid-foods, did not disturb normal convection of liquid.
3. The lid of the cooking pan can maintain temperature of the space between the liquid surface and the lid as same as the upper-layer temperature of the water.

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The authors previously reported that the konjac flour prepared from the tubers of Amorphophallus Konjac K. KOCH (Araceae) showed a significant hypocholesterolemic activity.
In the present paper, a comparative study was carried out on its hypocholesterolemic activity using refined konjac mannan and edible-konnyaku (a processed food made from the konjac flour).
1. Male rats of the Wistar strain were fed hypercholesterolemic diets for 8 days, which contained 5% of the crude konjac mannan (CKM), refined konjac mannan (RKM) or lyophilized edible konnyaku (LEK), respectively.
Food intake, body weight gain and liver weight of rats fed on CKM or RKM diets decreased as compared with those of the control group.
The serum and liver cholesterol level, liver total lipids and total fatty acid concentration which were elevated by dietary cholesterol plus bile acids were significantly depressed when CKM or RKM was added to the hypercholesterolemic diet. Considerable changes by the addition of CKM or RKM were also observed in the fatty acid composition of liver lipids.
On the other hand, the serum and liver cholesterol or liver fatty acid depressing activity was not seen in rats placed on the LEK diet.
2. When edible konnyaku was given for 5 days to six young men whose serum cholesterol level was elevated by pre-feeding butter fat for 7 days, no hypocholesterolemic activity was observed.
3. These findings may suggest that an unprocessed konjac mannan itself (macromolecule with viscosity and water-soluble), is essential for the hypocholesterolemic activity.

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The effects of pre-gelatinization of polished rice on the supplementary effects of L-lysine or L-lysine and L-threonine in the growing rats were studied.
Pre-gelatinization was highly effective in the growth of weanling rats fed the diet supplemented without any amino acid. The pre-treatment of rice protected the unfavorable effects of 0.4% L-lysine hydrochloride fortification on body weight gain, food efficiency, weight of organs and of retroperitoneal fat, and fatty acid composition of the adipose fat, whereas the same treatment of rice showed almost no influences in the rats fed the diet supplemented with L-lysine and L-threonine. The influences of either L-lysine or L-lysine and L-threonine were noticeable in the rats fed the raw-polished rice diets. From the results obtained, it was demonstrated that the pre-gelatinzation of rice improved the nutritive value in the growing rats.

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Male Wistar rats (80-130g) were fed diets containing 0, 5, 25 or 60% casein. Experimental diets were consumed during a 2-week dietary adjustment period followed by a 2-week metabolic-period. During the metabolic period the rats were given L-histidine solution dosed orally, and samples of urine were collected at 4 day-intervals.
By increasing the amount of histidine dosed, excretion of free histidine and urocanic acid in urine was increased in rats fed any diet. Ratios of urocanic acid to histidine and urocanic acid to creatinine were higher in the non-protein group than that of the other groups, while these ratios were not so different among the groups of rats fed 5, 25 or 60% casein diets.

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Iriomote Island of Okinawa lies south-west of Japan and the climate is subtropic-oceanic. To obtain basic information on the main dietary-life conditions of people in this district, the authors have conducted a nutritive investigation of the people engaged in rice crop production, during 1969 and 1970. As a result of this investigation in which a low average blood pressure and salt intake was generally seen, we examined the relation between the blood pressure and the consumption of sodium and other several kinds of foods. In this investigation adults-males and females older than twenty, of two communities of Iriomoto Island were chosen as subjects. The results were as follows:
The blood pressure had a tendency to be lower than the average of the National Nutrition Survey, though no statiscal difference was found, especially with people over the age of fourty.
The salt consumption was lower than that reported in the Farmer's Nutrition Survey. This was remarkable in the population under fourty.
The consumption of polished rice was not larger than the average level reported in the National Nutrition Survey, but the consumption of sugar and fat tended to be larger.
Though the purpose of this Survey was to study the relation between blood pressure and salt consumption, adding the age-factor, we could not find any special correlation.
There was no correlation in either blood pressure, and the intake of sugar, vegetable oil and eggs.

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To find out the nutritive value of protein consumed by the Japanese people were divided into some socio-economical group, i.e. by the kinds of occupation, by the amounts of living expenditure and by the dwelling place, the intake of essential amino acids and some chemical scores were calculated from the data of the National Nutrition Survey conducted in Japan in 1971.
The results are shown as follows:
The group-to-group variation of the intake of total protein and animal protein was shown. But, the essential amino acid pattern expressed as mg per g nitrogen and the chemical score were not affected by such socio-economical conditions.

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