Since I have been shopping in healthier stores and specialty shops I have come across a lot of concepts to eating healthy: organic, all natural, 100% whole grain, free-range, 100% grass fed, omega 3 enhanced, preservative free and products that are rBGH free. Most of the verbiage above I understand but the last one I didn't really know what it meant. I looked online and on Sustainabletable.org it gave a detailed explanation. I have posted it below. (Bold emphasis added).
What Is rBGH & rBST?
Somatotropin is a naturally-occurring protein hormone produced in the pituitary gland of animals; Bovine Somatotropin (BST or bST) triggers nutrients to increase growth in young cattle and lactation (milk production) in dairy cows. Artificial BST is produced using recombinant DNA technology (biotechnology), and called rBST for short. rBST is commonly known as Bovine Growth Hormone or rBGH.2 When injected into cows, rBGH increases milk production 10-15 percent and in some cases up to 40 percent. Approximately 17% of all cows in the US are given the artificial growth hormone.4
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval for rBGH came in 1993. According to opponents of the drug, effects of rBGH were never properly studied. The FDA relied solely on one study administered by Monsanto in which rBGH was tested for 90 days on 30 rats. The study was never published, and the FDA stated the results showed no significant problems.
The FDA continues to assure consumers that rBGH is safe for cows and humans, despite evidence to the contrary. In 1994, the FDA prohibited dairies from claiming there was any difference between milk from rBGH-injected cows and milk produced without the artificial hormone5. This controversy, discussed below, continues today.
In 1998, an assessment by Health Canada (Canada's equivalent of the FDA), determined Monsanto's results of their 90-day study showed concern and reasons for review before approval of rBGH5/6. Today, the European Union7, Japan8, Australia9 and Canada10 have all banned the use of rBGH due to animal and human health concerns.
This article makes the FDA look a little fishy...continue reading below for more disturbing information about how rBGH affects the cows.
Problems included an alarming rise in the number of deformed calves and dramatic increases in mastitis, a painful bacterial infection of the udder which causes inflammation, swelling,11 and pus and blood secretions into milk12. To treat mastitis outbreaks, the dairy industry relies on antibiotics. Critics of rBGH point to the subsequent increase in antibiotic use (which contributes to the growing problem of antibiotic resistant bacteria) and inadequacies in the federal government's testing program for antibiotic residues in milk13. The FDA relies on pasteurization to kill off bacteria, hormones and antibiotics in milk.
So not only do the cows end up getting the rBGH, antibiotics are used with it to fight off infections that it causes. Behind the use of rBGH it sounds like there is a lot involvement with government lobbyists and greedy drug companies. It really makes you wonder about all the marketing about food and healthy living. Do all these companies have our best interests at heart or is it money?
I guess if you take out all the politics, marketing, packaging and commercializing of food you end up with... food that is naturally grown!
The Sustainable Table. (2011). Retrieved February26, 2011, from http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/rbgh/
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