Hormones and chicken.

Jethro

Top Contributor
So an interesting discussion came up today at the lunch room table. Since I work with a group of farm boys, livestock and other types of food and farm stuff is usually being discussed. Today they talked about how Tyson chicken among other major chicken manufacturing facilities here in the U.S. used "hormones" to grow a chicken to full size ready for processing in just 27 days. Of course I argued back that giving thousands upon thousands of chickens steroids or growth hormone couldn't possibly be cost effective. Then they brought up how they used to give every bull calf a couple finaplix pellets (trenbolone acetate) behind their ears to make them grow faster. Once they mentioned that, I figured they couldn't possibly be completely clueless. So my question is this: do you think that major chicken manufacturers use PED's to speed the growing process to achieve a higher yield, and if so, what drugs do think they use to achieve this? And secondly, do you believe that PED grown chicken can have any effect on us when we eat them?
 
Whilst I dont know either way, I will say that it wouldn't surprise me if they did give them a little something...

As to whether or not it would effect the end consumer? Maybe @Joshua would have an idea?
 
Both the us and the eu forbid the use of hormones on poultry and pork and the eu also doesn't allow them to be used on beef cattle however the us do allow beef cattle to undergo hormone treatment
 
Both the us and the eu forbid the use of hormones on poultry and pork and the eu also doesn't allow them to be used on beef cattle however the us do allow beef cattle to undergo hormone treatment

What they allow, and what actually happens can be two different things in some circumstances. I did a little research after I posted and found the reason a chicken can mature in just 27 days supposedly has to do with selective breeding, or at least that's the excuse they give.
 
Both the us and the eu forbid the use of hormones on poultry and pork and the eu also doesn't allow them to be used on beef cattle however the us do allow beef cattle to undergo hormone treatment

What they allow, and what actually happens can be two different things in some circumstances. I did a little research after I posted and found the reason a chicken can mature in just 27 days supposedly has to do with selective breeding, or at least that's the excuse they give.

You could be right mate where there's money involved corruption is never far away
 
Consumers wanting lower priced meat and producers needing to supply this demand in order to stay in business. Wouldn't surprise me to be honest
 
I believe the 'roid beef' in the states is usually the cheaper options and health freaks like Con avoid it. In the UK all our cows are natty.

Not entirely sure how useful tren would be to a chicken. Have no doubt someone somewhere is making chickens a lot bigger with chemical enhancement.

Perhaps our expert from TWC (The Welsh Contingent) @Joshua could chime in.
 
I believe the 'roid beef' in the states is usually the cheaper options and health freaks like Con avoid it. In the UK all our cows are natty.

Not entirely sure how useful tren would be to a chicken. Have no doubt someone somewhere is making chickens a lot bigger with chemical enhancement.

Perhaps our expert from TWC (The Welsh Contingent) @Joshua could chime in.

Well there's no way using tren on chickens would be cost effective, but they would be some scary chickens if that were the case. Also, as far as I know, they have taken all forms of trenbolone off the market in the states for agricultural use. They have now made it so that all forms of agricultural steroids have estradiol built in as to make it impossible for humans to use.

As far as the "roid cows" go, in order for those hormones to somehow find their way into human bodies after cooking would be a miracle. Wouldn't those hormones have to be a certain kind just to make it through the first pass in our livers?
 
There are all sorts of growth / feed promoters in use although they are not necessarily hormones, many of which are similar to those in use in human bodybuilders eg( betaine ).

I am not sure on the legal position stateside, so will defer to @Jasonf88 on that, although I know in the EU, cattle doping with hormones is prohibited. I strongly suspect that there are many places in the world where anything goes when it comes to farming including hormones, and that this will sometimes be contrary to the laws of those places. Some of this food will be getting around the world too.

Bulk growth promoters are not particularly expensive, as when the farming industry consumes materials in the hundreds or thousands of tonnes, the cost of manufacture tends to drop substantially. There is also a significant difference in the quality assurance process in many parts of the world (although not so much in the EU IIRC ) between growth promoters for livestock and injectable pharma for humans.

IIRC there was a study on the transmission of tren from cattle into humans, when humans consumed the meat. To my surprise, there was some transmission of metabolites, although to reasonably cause one to fail a doping test, one would have to be eating particular organs of doped cattle on a very frequent basis eg( a beef farmer who eats juiced cattle's livers daily ).

One of the big turnarounds in poultry manufacture AFAIK has been the alteration in the point of the animals lifecycle that they are culled, resulting in only the higher growth velocities being used eg( culling after their growth spurts ).

Prophylactic antibiotics have been phased out too in the EU from end of 2011 (which IMHO is a very good move).

J
 
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