001263 Argentinians Seek Beef Alternatives

Buenos Aires, Argentina - It's dinnertime as Manuel Pazos stokes the fire and turns the barbecue spit at his rotisserie here. Fragrant meat juices drip and hiss over the flames but this isn't Argentina's world-famous beef he's cooking up: it's chicken.

“Before people loved beef of all kinds,” said Pazos, who began cooking 30 years ago when beef ruled supreme. “Now people like chicken ... and a lot more vegetables.”

On top of a health scare that hit the beef industry hard this year, changing eating habits have threatened the once-sacrosanct popularity of beef in Argentina, where per capita consumption of red meat has been declining steadily for a decade.

Low-cholesterol diets, vegetarian food and sushi have become popular. Fresh fruits and vegetables, and fish and poultry, are cheaper than ever.

“I do eat beef once or twice a week,” said Carlos Fernando, one Argentine whose habits are changing. “I used to eat a lot more meat, but when you're almost 50, you have to take care of your cholesterol.”

Statistics show Argentines are seeking alternatives: consumption of chicken has doubled in the past decade, from 24 pounds per person a year to 48 pounds.

In 1990, Argentines ate 180 pounds of beef on average per year. By 1999, consumption fell to 140 pounds. That's still well above the average consumption in most countries, but far short of the days when gauchos - legendary cowboys of the Pampas - roamed the plains eating beef breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Worse still, with the global beef business taking a beating in the light of the mad cow disease outbreak in Europe - Argentina's exports have been steadily dropping over the past five years, despite the nation's herds being untouched by the mad cow epidemic.

“We have a lot of difficulties in the international market. Out of doubt, consumers are rejecting beef in general,” said Hector Salamanco, director of the Argentine Beef Industry Association.

At home, some restaurants have had to adapt to these evolving tastes.

Ovidio Alfonso, manager of a steakhouse here, has installed a salad bar. His waiters still wear gaucho outfits but now must maneuver around diners grazing on their greens.

Meanwhile, butchers pour scorn on changing culinary customs.

“They're all buying more vegetables and things you can cook in the microwave,” complained one butcher, Idereneo Barrios. Framed pictures over his head showed dozens of skinned carcasses hanging from hooks in the same shop 30 years ago, when business was six times heavier.

Now, dozens of sushi bars have sprouted in the capital, hundreds nationwide.

“Sushi is great for executives,” said Silvia Morizono, proprietor of three sushi restaurants. “It's very light, very quick, and it doesn't make you fall asleep.”

But the beef eaters are battling back.

President Fernando De la Rua, known to savor a good outdoor barbecue, has named six Argentine celebrities as “agricultural ambassadors” to promote the beef overseas - tennis stars Gabriela Sabatini and Guillermo Vilas among them.

They're part of a campaign to promote Argentine beef as far afield as the United States, Europe, Asia and even Mexico under the slogan: “Be like the rest of the world. Eat Argentine beef.”

But no amount of good publicity could save Argentine beef from a deep crisis earlier this year.

Beginning in August, Argentina suspended exports of fresh and frozen beef after cattle bred near the Paraguayan border were believed to be infected with the virus that causes hoof-and-mouth - a potentially fatal cattle disease that doesn't affect humans.

In October, international authorities gave Argentina's herds the all-clear. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman announced his country would resume imports of Argentine beef - in a major boost to the local industry. Under trade agreements, Argentina is allowed to export 20,000 tons of beef to the United States each year.

However, recent setbacks aside, the local industry can rest assured that the Argentine love affair with the “asado” is unlikely to end anytime soon.

At restaurants here, hungry hordes still gather during the lunch hour to select their cuts while sweaty butchers cleave brick-sized hunks of red meat and pat them onto sizzling grills.

As the beef industry's Federico Landgraf says of red meat: “It's more than just a meal. It's part of who we are.”

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