Saturday, November 29, 2008

Hormones and Antibiotics, Oh My!

Consumers, beware! Don’t believe everything you read on the label.

Due to concern over growth hormones and antibiotic accumulation, many companies have started labeling their products as “Hormone Free” or “Raised Without Antibiotics.” While this trend may have begun as a means to help us avoid taking in excess toxins with potential long-term consequences, this has evolved into a mere marketing ploy. For example, Tyson Chicken has recently “come clean” about their practice of labeling chicken as “Raised Without Antibiotics” even though they do, in fact, inject their chickens with them. They skirt the issue by injecting the birds before they are hatched so that their claim is still technically true. Shady.


With regard to “Hormone-free “milk, you simply have to trust the producer. The hormones in question occur naturally in cows, so it would be nearly impossible to test for the addition of extra, synthetic ones. Producers have to sign an affidavit stating that they don’t inject these hormones (specifically, rGBH), but who trusts corporations these days… Monsanto, the company that manufactures the synthetic hormone, claims that milk from these cows is just as safe as the all-natural variety. Maybe we should just believe them—I’m sure they have our best interest at heart (*wink*)

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