Beef Hormones

It's that time of year again!

4-H beef club members are selling their steer projects. In relation to this, there has recently been a lot of hype regarding hormone implants in beef cattle and opinions on these are often quite mixed. From a more holistic point of view these are a very negative thing. From a producers point of view these are economically beneficial.

First of all, let me explain what hormone implants in cattle can be used for. In the beef industry the main drug of discussion involves a synthetic version of estrogen called zeranol is implanted beneath the skin. According to the Ralgro website (http://www.ralgro.com/implants/mag_qfar.asp), zeranol functions to "stimulate the pituitary gland of the animal to produce increased amounts of somatotropin, the animal's own natural growth-promoting agent..." Ralgro also claims that since the drug is not actually an estrogen, it does not accumulate in muscle tissues. Obviously this is a good thing for human consumption of meats. I would imagine that hormones are also used in dairy production, but I don't know enough about the subject to say anything concrete.

I did some research on the subject and came across a website called the Canadian Animal Health Institute (CAHI). This non-profit organization supports growth promoting hormones on a basis of strict laws which ensure the following;
- any new drugs which enter the market meet Health Canada regulations, and
- that there is no implant residue found in meat samples.

The CAHI goes on to make several other points, the most striking of which I will paraphrase here:
- the implanted hormones are already present in humans. Using estrogen as an example, an adult will produce about 136,000 ng of estrogen daily where the estrogen found in a 6-ounce serving of beef from a treated animal is 3.8 ng, and
- hormones are naturally occurring in other foods such as cabbage, milk and soybean oil.

The website also makes a valid point, stating that drugs were designed to improve cattle efficiency, thus making meat cheaper to produce and therefore buy. More information can be found at  http://www.cahi-icsa.ca/pdf/Beef-Hormones-Factsheet.pdf.

On the flip side, there is concern from consumers whether or not hormone implants could cause cancer or otherwise negatively affect humans. The major concern stems from a worry over humans ending up with hormone imbalances. Some people claim that animals given hormone implants excrete excess hormone in their urine which then can make its way into urban water supplies and thus cause hormone increase in humans. Links have been drawn between this and a startling number of young girls beginning menstruation at ages as young as nine. Whether or not these links are valid has not been fully researched but one would only hope that if there were harmful levels of hormones in water sources we would know about it!

In the end, how you feel about eating beef that comes from a treated animal is up to you. If you have concerns, there are a number of farmers who market their beef as hormone-free. The best way to ensure that you are happy with what you are eating is to learn where your food comes from and talk to those who are producing it.