Wagyu beef gets a makeover

Tokyo

SEIKOU SEKIMURA is betting that aficionados of Japan's wagyu beef - one of the world's most-expensive meats - are ready for a diet version of the fat-laden, melt-in-your-mouth delicacy.

In the rural northern prefecture of Miyagi, the 64-year-old farmer says he is producing a low-calorie beef with all the flavour of the seven-ounce prime cuts that can fetch US$260 or more at posh restaurants. The trick isn't less fat - the flesh of his cattle still has wagyu's familiar honeycomb of taste-enhancing white tissue - but making it easier for humans to digest.