American Beef

Posted at January 8, 2010

In the last month there has been daily discussion in Taiwan about the recent decision to import US beef.  They already import US beef, but previously Taiwan did not allow “high risk” beef to be imported from the USA.  High Risk includes ground beef and beef offal (I have no idea what this means, but it should mean internal organs).  There are several potential reasons for Taiwanese people being so upset about it, but the story I get is that those parts of the cow are the most likely to harbor diseases, especially Mad Cow Disease.  As an American, I would never even think about Mad Cow as a risk of eating Beef.  However, it seems that the rest of Asia (Korea went through this last year) thinks American cows are potentially crazy.

In response to this, Taiwan has gotten organized.  All over town, restaurants are posting this picture in their windows:

tawian us beef import sign

I have been seeing this picture everywhere!  You can see from the symbolism that they’ve said NO to US Beef.   The red head on the cow shows that it is in fact MAD, and there’s even a number at the bottom unique to this store.    The situation has gotten to the point where Taiwan has asked America to respect its wishes and will stop importing these beef parts.  Last week, the Taiwan Legislature revised a law to ban the import of the Beef and now the executive branch is busy explaining why to the US government.

Consumer, Current Affairs, Food and Drink, Taiwan

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