Wagyu: 'the Hummer of Beef'

Wagyu beef, a Japanese tradition catching on in the US, uses cows “bred so that fat corrupts the striations of every muscle,” Tom Junod writes in Esquire. After sampling some at $130 per pound, Junod ponders how Americans can be attracted to such excess. Despite America's ecological awakening, "we respond with the Hummer of beef, the hedge fund of beef, the foie gras of beef," Junod writes.

Touring a killing floor temporarily put him off beef, but Junod came back around in time. "It was a decision that I felt I'd earned the right to make," he writes. But the extravagant Wagyu was a step too far: "I renounce Wagyu, so that I can forget the slaughterhouse once and for all, and go back to eating steak." (More beef stories.)