Most people understand that you are what you eat, but it still usually takes an awakening incident to incite diet changes, especially since you can’t see most chemicals and unnecessary ingredients. I had one of these epiphanies while driving across the western United States on a road trip with my oldest daughter. We saw a billboard that depicted a girl with braces, and the gist of the message was, “Would you feed your daughter hormones?” I knew that the last thing I needed was my daughter, who was eight at the time, going through early puberty. I had my hands full with her already. I most associated hormones with milk, since it seemed you’d have to increase a cow’s hormones to increase its milk production. Also, I read that as more kids were eating fast food, becoming obese, and getting diabetes, they were starting puberty prematurely.
We were never fast-food fans, but I had always been a big milk drinker and, I felt the best thing I could do was to start buying organic milk. The number of steroid hormones approved by the FDA since I’ve been watching hormones for the past ten years, has decreased. There are currently six kinds of steroid hormones approved by the FDA for use in food production in the US: estradiol and progesterone (female sex hormones), testosterone (male sex hormone), along with zeranol, trenbolone acetate, and melengestrol acetate. The last three are synthetic growth promoters used on cattle and sheep.
Bovine Somatotropin (bST), which organic milk cartons tout not containing, is a drug given to cows to increase milk production (Monsanto trade name Posilac). Posilac is made of a protein hormone; you hear it called bovine growth hormone. The FDA reports it is safe for humans based on a number of factors, but it is banned in other countries including the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Canada. Large-scale studies comparing people who eat hormone-treated meat and dairy to people who do not, have not been done. Therefore, to this day, the statement on the billboard regarding early puberty is suspected, along with breast and other types of cancers, but has not been proven.
