'All our (my) Yesterdays'

[ppppenguin]

Now, it is illegal to feed pigs with this sort of food - why? Are there different diseases around now .....

Yes there are. Prion based diseases have been around for many years (scrapie in sheep) but it's only recently that they have been recognised in other animals or their mechanisms understood. Mad cow disease and v-CJD. Cooking/steaming/sterilisation doesn't eliminate them. It may well have been an overreaction to ban pigswill but it is very likely that feeding sheep remains to cattle caused the spread of disease. Whether pigs played any role isn't clear. Cattle are herbivores for which this kind of feed seems a bad idea while pigs are omnivores.