Is "hormone-free meat" a contradiction in terms?

[Number Six]

I sometimes hear people say they buy hormone-free meat. I don't know for sure but on the surface this seems like a contradiction in terms. Doesn't all meat have hormones and when they say "hormone-free meat" don't they mean they're not adding extra hormones? Or am I mistaken?

More generally, what are the role of hormones? They do certain things to a body but they're not generally bad, are they? I assume that if you add too much then danger can result but does just adding some hormones to an animal to make it bigger mean it's meat is less safe to eat?

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I sometimes hear people say they buy hormone-free meat. I don't know for sure but on the surface this seems like a contradiction in terms. Doesn't all meat have hormones and when they say "hormone-free meat" don't they mean they're not adding extra hormones? Or am I mistaken?

More generally, what are the role of hormones? They do certain things to a body but they're not generally bad, are they? I assume that if you add too much then danger can result but does just adding some hormones to an animal to make it bigger mean it's meat is less safe to eat?

I remember when growth-promoting sex hormones were banned in the UK in the late 80's that it was pointed out to me that there were more sex steroids in a cabbage than there were artificially added hormones in beef.

It all began, as I recall, with an unfortunate incident in Italy in which children got fed the actual stilboestrol implants buried in chicken meat with unfortunate (boys with breasts) consequences. Clearly Italy was a model of agricultural regulation and because a problem arose there, all of the EC (now EU) had to tighten up its controls.

It's always seemed to me to be one of the least bad aspects of high intensity agriculture and the baby probably did get thrown out with the bathwater on this occasion.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

I think your argument is with semantics - though still sorta valid. Obviously the meat is not devoid of hormones, since the animals natural hormones will be present. They just don't say "extra" hormones haven't been added.

I suppose one could make the same case about "organic" since all meat, fruits, vegetables, fungi, herbs, etc. were once alive, and therefore all food is "organic." They just shorten the content statement by not mentioning "non-organic" materials like salt, phosphates, etc. aren't included.

Hell, if we want to get truly pedantic, no food can be "chemical free" since it all - organic or not - is comprised of chemicals, be it DNA in a piece of chicken, or saltwater in a piece of taffy.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I vaguely recall that there was an animal welfare issue involved in some cases too. Milk cows being given artificially produced hormones that increased their milk supply but increased the incidence of mastitis and other health problems, or something along those lines.

In much the same way that it's not good for humans to shoot up too much in the way of artificial hormones, it's probably not good for animals.

That said, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if modern meat animals had more growth hormones than their wild ancestors just through controlled breeeding for size.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

A couple of posts seem to imply a lack of awareness of what growth promotong hormnes are. What they have not been for the most part is actual Growth Hormone, a peptide hormone, realsed by the pituitary gland, that has to be injected not taken orally. Most growth promoting hormones are sex steroids, often of the type found in the gender opposite to that of the recipient. It is those that the fuss was being made over residues in the food. The arguments against GH injection were more complex.

As I recall, the sex steroids present in 1kg cabbage would be equivalent to that present in 1000kg growth-promoted beef. Hence my relative lack of concern about the beef.