A frequent judge at the Taipei Beef Noodle Festival, Hu Tian-lan said that U.S. beef differs from beef products from other sources mainly in the fact that its fat is evenly spread and is extremely tasty after being fried.

Hu said that U.S. cattle switch their feed to corn from grass several months after they are born, making U.S. beef boast attractively delicious and stay bright red after being fried, instead of turning dark as seen in beef products from other countries.

Meanwhile, Liang You-hsiang, another gourmet who runs a restaurant in Beitou, said that while some Japanese would defy the risk of losing life to eat globefish, the delicious taste of U.S. beef would also make some people to do so.

Liang said U.S. beef boasts unparalleled meat juice and taste, making it the top choice for many beef lovers.

On another front, a civic movement has collected enough signatures in the initial stage of a drive to launch a referendum on U.S. beef imports, the Consumers Foundation said, but the biggest hurdle to achieving the goal still lies ahead.

The Consumers Foundation said it had worked with the Homemakers Union and Foundation, the John Tung Foundation and others since Nov. 1 to collect 132,402 signatures supporting a referendum to re-open talks with Washington on U.S. beef imports.

“The government should address consumers' concerns and answer their appeals to ensure public safety,” a Consumers Foundation official said.

Washington and Taipei signed a protocol on Oct. 22 under which Taiwan agreed to lift its ban on bone-in beef and other beef products — including ground beef and beef offal — from the U.S.

But civic groups and politicians contended that allowing the entry of U.S. ground beef, beef offal and other parts that had been previously barred could potentially endanger the health of Taiwan's consumers by exposing them to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease.

When the government rejected their appeals to re-open talks on the issue with the U.S. government, the groups decided to force the issue by launching a drive for a national referendum on whether or not the protocol should be renegotiated.

Under Taiwan's referendum law, a referendum proposal should pass two thresholds to be accepted. In the initial stage, signatures from 0.5 percent, or 86,000, of the 17.32 million eligible voters of the last presidential election must be collected, a threshold that has been now met by the civic groups.

If a referendum screening committee finds that the proposed referendum conforms to legal guidelines, the referendum's sponsors then need to collect signatures of endorsement from 5 percent of the voters, or 860,000 signatures, for the question to be put to a referendum.

Those thresholds could prevent the referendum bid from reaching a vote, but, in the meantime, other actions have been taken to keep out U.S. beef imports that are considered by the civic groups potentially hazardous.

The Taipei City government has encouraged the city's 15,000 hotels, department stores, hypermarts and restaurants to form an alliance whose members will reject sales of U.S. beef offal, ground beef and spinal cords or their use as ingredients over health concerns.

Meanwhile, lawmakers could not reach a consensus last Friday on how to revise existing food safety laws to address public concerns on the safety of U.S. beef.

Opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators support an amendment that would “ban the entry” of risky beef parts while governing Kuomintang (KMT) legislators prefer a stringent control and inspection system to ensure that only safe meat enters the country.

The legislature is scheduled to consider the issue again on Nov. 24.