Forbes.com
Cathy Bussewitz
July 20, 2007
Excerpt…
TOKYO – As U.S. baseball strikeout champion, Nolan Ryan used to hurl a lot of cowhide. In Japan on Friday, he pitched a different bovine product: U.S. beef.
The retired Hall of Famer – and now Texas cattle rancher and beef promoter – visited Tokyo to assure Japanese consumers and regulators that U.S. beef is safe and urged them to expand their imports.
“I believe our product is totally safe, ” Ryan said, adding the beef he exports to Japan is the “same quality as that which I serve in my house.”
Japan banned American beef imports in 2003 for two years after the first case of mad cow disease – or bovine spongiform encephalopathy – was found in the U.S.
Now, Japan allows only imports of U.S. beef from cattle 20 months or younger, and Washington is pushing Tokyo to open its doors to meat from cows up to 30 months old, arguing that they are free of disease….
Full article at Forbes.com.