Is Your Diet Making You Fat?

While US law makes it illegal for people to self medicate with hormones, administering these same compounds to to US livestock is not only allowed, its basically par for the course. One of the scariest things used on US farms to get animals to grown large as quickly as possible is Zeranol which is a non-steroidal estrogen agonist. It is a mycotoxin (a toxic secondary metabolite produced by molds), derived from fungi in the Fusarium family, which may be found as a contaminant in fungus-infected crops. Shockingly Zeranol is approved for use as a growth promoter in livestock, including beef cattle, in the United States. Its application is not approved for use in the European Union. 

If you are trying to lose weight, Zernnol is something you want to avoid at all costs and here is why:

The reason Zeranol is given to livestock is very simple, its been shown to increase feed efficiency by 11%. So what does this mean? It means livestock fed a normal amount of calories, will gain 11% more body weight just because it was treated with this mycotoxin.  What does this mean to you? Well for one it means if any of the Zeranol which is a 4 times more powerful derivative of Zearalenone a is heat-stable mycotoxin found worldwide in a number of cereal crops, such as corn, barley, oats, wheat, rice, and sorghum and also in bread, gets into you, you'll gain excess weight even if you are reducing calories! This could effectively destroy your weight loss plans! You could have a great diet and nutrition plan, exercise for hours a day and still gain weight if your food contains this mycotoxin. If you're under the impression that gaining weight while you are on a diet is the worst thing possible, sit down, it gets even worse, Zeranol increases cancer cell proliferation in already existing breast cancer. 

The fact that Zeranol is commonly given to our livestock should frighten everyone. "High  concentrations of Zearalenone in cattle have been associated with infertility, enlargement of the mammary gland, reduced milk production, vaginitis and vaginal secretions especially in immature dairy heifers. In gilts, there are swelling of the vulva, vaginal prolapse, enlargement of the uterus, enlargement of the mammary gland, infertility, embryonic death and reduced  litter  size. While, in young boars the  effects include testicular atrophy, swollen prepuce, mammary gland enlargement and decreased libido. Poultry species are found to be less susceptible to the estrogenic effects of ZEN. A possible effect on the health of turkeys and young chicks may include vent enlargement and secondary sex characteristics, when very large concentrations are fed."

Now here is where things get really scary. So far nearly all concern about the practice of administering Zeranol has been focused on whether trace residues of these hormones in the meat have human-health consequences when humans are consuming animals who have been treated with Zeranol.

There is another way that these dangerous toxins can find their way into humans. A substantial portion of the administered hormones pass directly through the cattle into their feces and end up in the environment, where it can get into other food and drinking water.

Scientists are noticing this, and just beginning to ask for better management of livestock's hormone-laced waste stream, which has flowed unabated in North America for decades.