What chemicals and hormones are in meats?

Question

I hear a lot of people saying that one of the reasons they avoid eating meat is because of all the chemicals and hormones that are injected into the animals, but what places do this? I grew up on a farm we had around 100 head of cattle, and I have an uncle with around 300. Neither of us give our animals drugs. We might give them antibiotics for a couple of days when they are less than 6 months old and visibly ill. I've never seen a cow older than 6 months sick and when they are little they stay with their mother or at least get real cows milk. Why? because mother's milk works a lot better than drugs to keep the young calf healthy. Drugs are expensive, I wouldn't think farmers would want the expensive of pumping animals with drugs, so is this really true that it's done or is it just vegan hype? Or is it just done on a few farms and that is where they are siting the drug use? Don't site ethic reasons to be vegan, give me examples of actual farms that practice drug use that could harm us.

Again I want to know actual farms that use hormones and drugs and what they are. Or if you are a farmer that does, explain the benifits of doing so.

Answer 1

It is not just vegan hype. I am not vegan and I stay away from meat/dairy sources that are not organic. I don't want gentically engineered meat and milk, pumped up with growth hormone drugs (like rbGH and growth factor I) and antibiotics.

http://www.notmilk.com/

Answer 2

Many larger farms use hormones to make production much more possible. I would assume with only 100 head that ranching was more of a hobby or you had other sources of income. Larger farms need to make a profit. They use hormones to regulate reproduction among their herds. There is no proof that these hormones cause any harm to humans. I am not sure on the exact numbers, but I know that a professor in ANIMAL SCIENCE told me that the amount of hormones is thousands, if not millions times smaller than the amount of hormones we actually have in our bodies.