November 2010 - Hormones and meat
There have been two recent happenings in the world of Agriculture that I feel are relevant to every consumer and worthy of an article - Steggles advertisements and Coles ban on hormone (HGP) treated beef.
Firstly, let’s get something out in the open - There are no hormones or steroids in Australian chickens!
I proposed this to a friend recently and was met with surprise.
It seems a good story handed down from one generation to the next and no one bothered to question it.
In fact, 75% of people believe there are hormones in chicken, despite a ban on the use of hormones in chickens put in place more than 30 years ago.
Nowadays in the supermarket it seems you buy two chicken breasts to get a kilo of chicken, where previously you had to purchase four, but I assure you this has nothing to do with the use of hormones.
Unlike many other livestock animals, poultry are very efficient converters of feed to protein (meat). Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR), i.e the amount of feed an animal consumes to gain 1 kg of weight, in feedlot cattle is around 6.5 : 1, whereas in poultry it is about 1.6 : 1.
In 5-7 weeks a chicken will go from around 200g to 3.2 kg for the heaviest and be a finished product.
As well as being very efficient feed converters, chickens have been subjected to intense genetic selection over the last 60 years (not to be confused with genetic modification) targeting growth rates, carcass traits and feed conversion efficiency.
At the same time there have been improvements in diets and general health and welfare.
So while it does appear that chicken breasts are much larger than they ever were in the past, it is more a credit to the breeders of these birds rather than the use of hormones in the process.
Broiler chickens at 55 days, raised from strains preserved in 1957, 1977 and 2007, show the difference in growth rate and breast size. (Martin Zuidhof/University of Alberta)
While I am aiming to quash a myth for the poultry industry, I don’t wish to portray a negative opinion of hormones, especially when they are legal for use in the beef industry in Australia.
HGPs are a naturally occurring hormone or synthetic alternative which promote weight gain and improve the rate at which cattle turn grass into meat. HGPs can increase weight gain by 10-20% and increase feed conversion efficiency by 5-15%.
In areas where diet quality can be poor for many months and weight gain limited, these added weight gains are vital to ensure maximum productivity.
They may also aid in decreasing fat deposition by animals in a feedlot situation - which benefits both consumers and producers. In Australia their use increases returns to the beef industry by $210 million each year.
According to the Australian Government regulatory body for pesticides and veterinary medicines (AVPMA) we would have to consume 77kg of HGP- treated beef to ingest the same amount of naturally occurring oestrogen that is present in one egg.
Considering we eat around 35 kg of meat per year per capita that would take 2 years!
It has also been scientifically proven (and these studies evaluated by the World Health Organisation) HGP-treated meat is safe for human consumption.
HGPs do increase the cross-linkages in meat and slightly affect tenderness and this is one reason Coles has stated for avoiding their use.
However, as discussed last month, there are many factors playing on this and HGPs may simply decrease the tenderness score rather than creating an overall tough cut of meat.
As consumers we are entitled to our opinion but it is important that we don’t condemn producers for management tools used to create a quality product that consumers have demanded in the first place.
Kiri Broad