Tense cows mean tough steaks

Australian scientists are using electronic sensors to single out happy cows in an attempt to produce better-tasting steaks.

Researchers from the government's scientific body, CSIRO, have found that tense cattle produce tough meat. Beef cows with a (perhaps justifiable) fear of humans exact revenge by producing tougher, scrawnier steaks.

The scientists have come up with a device that measures an animal's state of mind by working out how long it takes them to run away after being weighed.

"When we release cattle from the weighing scale we measure how long it takes them to cover two metres," said a CSIRO livestock expert, Heather Burrow. "Those that are scared of humans move faster, because they're putting a lot of their nutrition into nervous energy and less into building bulk."

Edgy cattle are also more likely to be stressed when taken to the abattoir for slaughter. Stress depletes glycogen, a starch which helps break down muscle after death and makes meat tender.

Ms Burrow said the device would improve livestock selection techniques. Farmers now can only judge the tenderness of meat after the animal has been slaughtered.