Japan promoting 'mother cow' ethical wagyu exports

Or a totally "ethical" scenario would be ending the whole industry

I don’t see meat going away, considering the overwhelming majority of the world eats it. At least not until lab-grown meat becomes viable.

Nothing ethical about taking a female cow, inseminating her, taking away her baby (leaving her bellowing in grief), taking her milk from her, and doing it over and over and over again until her body is exhuasted, and then killing and eating her. There is nothing ethical about that at all.

Notnsure about the ‘bellowing with grief’ bit, but with regards to dairy cows, that’s generally how it’s been done since…well since the beginning of animal husbandry. The alternative is to juice the cow with enough artificial hormones to essentially fool the body into thinking its pregnant, so it produces milk. The downside to this method is that said hormones are often passed into the milk and then into human consumers.

Killing a healthy cow ethical? That's new

I’d be kinda pissed if my beef came from an unhealthy cow. All joking aside, it is possible to humanely slaughter animals. Some large-scale producers use inert gas chambers to render the animals unconscious before the suffocate. Traditional small scale butchers will often slash the animal’s throat so that it exsanguinated almost immediately. However, this requires an artisan’s touch to ensure it is done properly.

Unfortunately, humane slaughter tends to be inefficient by nature, meaning meat from humanely slaughter animals will be significantly more expensive. And while the average consumer might be shocked by how an abattoir operates, when push comes to shove, they want their meat cheap. The best thing we can do is push for stricter regulatory guidelines as well as research into lab-grown meat. If I could get a slab of bacon from a lab for the price of a slab from a pig, I’d be down.

If it tastes good, is not terribly unhealthy and is not overly expensive you could sell to Texas, Brazil and Australia. Top exporters of beef so you know they know quality, value and flavor when they come across it.

Wouldn't that be a coup.

. I never liked the looks of it when I was in grocery stores in Japan, and at over $80/kilo I sure wouldn't buy it here. Yuck!

Must taste like sour grapes

My local grocery store, here in Canada, recently started advertising wagyu beef. I never liked the looks of it when I was in grocery stores in Japan, and at over $80/kilo I sure wouldn't buy it here. Yuck!

Purely anecdotal, but the lower fat content seems to appeal to the western palette more; vs the fattier but smaller portion sizes that are popular in Japan and East Asia.

Not sure about that... there's a lot of fatty meat in Western cuisine. Sausages (popular in many countries) are full of ground fat. The French cook meat with copious amounts of butter, duck fat, and other animal fats. I guess in the case of steaks, people would expect a leaner tenderloin type cut. But actually wagyu is quite popular in Western countries too. They even sell it at Costco.

Just more marketing, people supposedly already know that wagyu cows are treated well compared to other cows

All I have to say is... "Where's the beef?"

Purely anecdotal, but the lower fat content seems to appeal to the western palette more; vs the fattier but smaller portion sizes that are popular in Japan and East Asia. I have had a few friends come visit that are kind of surprised by the relatively high fat content in wagyu. I definitely am more in the Japanese camp as far as meat goes, but it is also something I eat pretty sparingly.

Makes sense that these lower fat content wagyu cuts are doing well in Europe, I am not sure how much the "ethical" side really sways people. Those with ethical objections to the butchering process aren't really going to care which kind of cow it came from, they tend to object to eating meat to begin with. I am an ex-pescatarian and I definitely wasn't drawing the line based on how each specific animal was treated.

Just take a spoonful of Olive Oil sprinkled with some salt, pepper, and a splash of sugar granules. Eat the cholesterol pill and anti uric acid meds and all is good. Sit back and watch your comments get blown to the off-topic section although the topic is about fat Wagyu meat you will be told you are vulgar and picking and making fun of the society that are huge, out of shape, and making your health insurance skyrocket. God Bless You..

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Japan promoting 'mother cow' ethical wagyu exports

The new meaning of 'Ethical' seems to be 'killing' AKA 'murdering??' ..... wow! @Magali Beuchat /Japan Today..... great new definition..... and of course hopelessly shameful!!

The world is turning to Vegetarianism and Veganism...... hope you know that news as well!

You guys are welcome to it, and you can pay all your income towards it if it makes you feel better when you put in your mouth, wait for a minute, collapse, and moan "Ummmmaiii!" like no one who isn't acting ever does. Then, when they tell you it's fake I'll chuckle with the rest of the normal people. The whole "wagyu" thing is a con, and a joke on the consumer. The only sad part about it is that the government prioritizes and protects it, so that we cannot get fair prices on imported meat from elsewhere (with exceptions).

"I thought of exporting the meat overseas first, as Japan still does not understand the importance of efficiency in meat production," Onishi said.

….

I stopped reading after this piece of nonsense

They don't call it the "slaughter" house because of the..."ethics" going on! lol.

I sometimes eat meat, but also don't really care for overly-expensive, super-marbled meat all that much. And 7-8 year old "refattened mother cow" meat sounds like something I would personally avoid, if marketed as such.

"...refattened mother cows, typically processed..." Ah. In other words..."wagyu" hamburger made from a processed mix of cows' meat, with the age of source-meat conveniently left off the menu...pass.

This lifestyle sounds good to me.

Until the six months are up.

I’m very interest in animal welfare, raise 100% free range chicken for eggs which I sell. I can tell you from my experience, animal welfare in Japan is basically a joke! Exceptions do exist but are very few. Almost all cattle here, wagyu or not live 24/7 chained in a barn. That’s the reality! I suspect this will be a marketing gag to “blind” overseas customers.

Good beef needs a marbling of fat but Wagyu is too fatty, it’s unhealthy.

Animal fat is not unhealthy. Sugar and hydrogenated vegetable oils are unhealthy. Anyone who eats a "low fat" diet (i.e. high in sugar) is far less healthy than someone who eats more animal fats and protein instead of carbs.

Cholesterol is also not unhealthy, unless you have chronic inflammation in your cardiovascular system (which causes plaques to form in your blood vessels). Inflammation is caused by sugar more than anything (and also an imbalance in the Omega-6/Omega-3 ratio, usually caused by consuming too much vegetable oil and not enough Omega-3 rich foods like fish).

Tl;dr avoid eating lots of sugar in your diet, and you'll be fine.

englisc aspyrgendToday  07:13 am JST

Good beef needs a marbling of fat but Wagyu is too fatty, it’s unhealthy.

You (and others) should educate yourself about the properties and facts of oleic acid in Wagyu before writing such inaccurate statements.

Here is an excerpt from the abstract of one of many papers about it. You can find many others

"Highly marbled Wagyu and Hanwoo beef have higher proportions of monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) due to higher concentrations of oleic acid. MUFAs have little effect on total cholesterol. They are heart-healthy dietary fat because they can lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol while increasing high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol. Clinical trials have indicated that highly marbled beef does not increase LDL-cholesterol. This review also emphasizes that high oleic acid beef such as Wagyu and Hanwoo beef might be able to reduce risk factors for cardiovascular disease."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5243954/

Wagyu mother burgers! Awesome!

I purchased some wagyu beef here in the U.S. It cost four times the cost of prime beef. I had never seen that level of marbling in a ribeye steak. However the meat flavor was so muted because of all of the fat. Overall I was very disappointed. All I could think of was maybe it is better in Japan and some flavor was lost in the shipping process.

Killing a healthy cow ethical? That's new.

Ethical treatment of mother wagyu would be a retirement home, not slaughterhouse.

There really isn't anything ethical about industrial meat production.

You got to love the vegans, polluting reach and every discussion space they enter.

"...attracted by the new wagyu from the standpoint of ethical meat production..."

You just gotta love that throwaway line.

So you take breeder cows that have been in service for years popping out calves, give them 6 months of intensive fattening-up food, then kill them.

How about a different "ethical" ending. Let them live out their lives in pasture.

Or a totally "ethical" scenario would be ending the whole industry.

Good beef needs a marbling of fat but Wagyu is too fatty, it’s unhealthy.