Health Watch

TOKYO (AP) ― The U.S. ambassador was among customers thronging a major Japanese fast-food chain Monday to savor the return of a popular rice dish topped with American beef that was off the menu for more than two years due to mad cow disease fears.

"It was great. It was well worth the wait," U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer said after eating Yoshinoya D&C Co.'s "beef bowl" with chopsticks.

Japan and nearby South Korea banned American beef in December 2003 because of fears about mad cow disease. Japan eased the ban in July, and South Korea earlier this month.

But in both nations, the reception to American beef has been mixed, with the comeback being welcomed only by serious meat-lovers, like those who lined up before Yoshinoya restaurants for hours before they opened.

"It was delicious because I hadn't had it in a while," said 32-year-old construction worker Hiroaki Kaneko, who was among the first to eat a beef bowl, and took out four more for his co-workers. "I'm not a bit worried," he added about the mad cow fears.

Yoshinoya, which runs 1,000 restaurants nationwide, couldn't bring the beef bowl back before the day billed as "Resurrection Festival for the Beef Bowl" because of difficulties in getting a sufficient beef supply.

The company will serve beef bowls Monday until they sell out. It will offer beef bowls again for the first five days in October, and similarly for Nov. 1-5.

Tokyo is now allowing only cattle 20 months or younger, although the U.S. has said that beef up to 30 months old is safe.

"It's great to have American beef back in Japan. It's a safe healthy product," he said after eating beef bowls with his wife Susanne.

Many Asians choose to shun American beef and remain worried about mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a degenerative nerve disease in cattle. Eating contaminated meat products has been linked to the rare but fatal human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Last month, Zensho Co., a barbecue-beef restaurant that's smaller than Yoshinoya, became the first restaurant chain in Japan to serve American beef since the easing of the ban.

But most major Japanese supermarket chains have yet to sell American beef, saying there isn't enough demand. Five Costco stores run by the Japan unit of U.S. warehouse retailer Costco Wholesale Corp. are selling U.S. beef.

In Korea, Nam Ho-kyoung, president of the Hanwoo Association, a nationwide cattle industry group, said he opposes the government's decision to allow in U.S. beef, citing lingering safety concerns over mad cow disease and the widespread practice among restaurants of touting cheaper foreign beef as Korean to lure customers.

"Consumers won't know that they ate it," Nam said.

Before the ban, Japan was a top destination for U.S. beef, importing $1.4 billion worth a year. South Korea was the third-largest foreign market for American beef, after Japan and Mexico, importing $815 million in beef and beef products.

One beneficiary of the regional fears about American beef has been the Australian beef industry.

In 2005, Australia exported a record 405,000 tons of beef to Japan worth around $1.8 billion and 106,000 tons of beef to South Korea.

In Tokyo, Koji Terada, who lined up two hours before Yoshinoya opened to eat his beef bowl, believes that inspections of U.S. beef exports to protect consumers from mad cow are tougher now.

"I'm a bit worried, but that's not going to stop me because I want to eat it more," the 22-year-old salesman said.

In Seoul, Jung Young-doo, a 58-year-old taxi driver, shrugged off fears about the safety of American beef.

"Just wait until it comes into my neighborhood," he said. "I am going to eat it right away."

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