Conventional livestock are injected with growth hormones and are fed antibiotics. Combining these factors with the insane living conditions animals suffer on factory farms makes meat in America the worst meat you could ever consume.

Overuse of  antibiotics leaves us with:

• Antibiotic resistant meat
• Antibiotics in rivers and drinking water
• Antibiotic resistant pork farmers and consumers

Medications are even used on animals to prevent sickness, and it is readily absorbed. When we eat meat containing antibiotics, growth hormones, and medication, we are essentially eating those things which are in the meat. In addition, the milk produced by cows also contain these, and then we consume the same things when we drink the milk. But it doesn’t end there. The growth hormones wash of ranch land and into rivers and streams, causing adverse effects on the reproductive systems of fish.

Growth hormones given to the animals cause all types of problems for humans as well. The use of these hormones has been shown to disrupt hormone balance, causing:

• Developmental problems
• Interference with the reproductive system
• Breast, prostate, and colon cancer

Due to major health concerns for animals and humans, the European Union banned the use of growth hormones in beef cattle. Japan, Canada, and Australia have all banned the use of rBGH. But the hormones are still given in the United States… The EU won’t even accept meat from us.

So why? Why, despite all of this, does the US insist on continuing with these methods of “care”? The answer is only 1 word, which everyone probably knows.

Profits.

It is painfully obvious that factory farms don’t care about animals, and are focused on profits more than anything.

• The faster an animal gets fat, the closer it is to slaughter. More animals slaughtered at faster rates = more profits. Tool to hasten this process and attain massive profits = growth hormones.

• The more milk an animal produces, the faster it can be sold for profits. Tool to hasten this process and attain massive profits = bovine growth hormones (rBGH)

• Animals are fed huge amounts of antibiotics that they do not need. If one animal gets sick, the entire herd gets medicated. The outcome is antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria and heavily medicated animals which we consume. The practice of medicating animals has been banned in the EU and Canada, because it is unknown what other effects the medications have, and why.

• One glass of pasteurized milk can contain a combination of 20 painkillers, antibiotics, and growth hormones

It isn’t healthy for the animals, humans, the environment, the economy, or the world as a whole. More on the affects on the environment and the economy later.