Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
pay a higher price for tender beef, hormone-free beef may be
the way to go. There is no such thing as a free lunch, though, as
hormone-free beef will cost more and has a larger carbon foot-
print because of the longer time required to reach a slaughter
weight.
Growth Hormones in Livestock Agriculture: Pork, Eggs, and Poultry
No growth hormones are given to hogs or chickens, mostly
because they simply are not as effective as they are in cattle. So
if you see pork, eggs, or chicken labeled as hormone-free, the
seller is telling you the truth, but is trying to deceive you into
thinking that its competitors do use hormones.
rBST Hormone in Milk Production
The hormone controversy is most intense in milk production.
This is evident in the label on every bottle of milk in the United
States. When a dairy cow gives birth, its pituitary gland begins
producing the hormone somatotropin. This hormone diverts
reserves of energy into producing milk. Dairy farmers can
boost the cow's milk production by injecting it with additional
somatropin. Manufacturing the hormone is difficult, though,
and was not feasible until the Monsanto Corporation geneti-
cally modified a bacterium to produce rBST: recombinant
bovine somatotropin. Now farmers can inject cows with rBST
and produce more milk from each cow. This means more milk
for each pound of corn fed, each gallon of water drunk, and
each hour of human labor. Because resources are used more
efficiently with rBST, it lowers the carbon footprint of milk.
Consuming milk from cattle that were administered rBST
means humans are consuming a genetically modified growth
hormone. Is that safe? The Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) says it is, explaining that rBST is biologically indistin-
guishable from its non-GM counterpart (BST), that both are
inactive in the human body, and any other differences between
the two milks have no impact on human health.
