What I have learned about Meat in the U.S.:
1) CHICKEN & PORK: All poultry and pork sold in the US must be "Hormone Free". It is now illegal to do otherwise. I do, however, make sure that my chicken was not given Antibiotics, which has nothing to do with "cancer". Antibiotics, however, can severely disable your immune system:
http://www.naturalnews.com/042769_antibiotics_healthy_gut_flora_immune_system.html
With "Fried" chicken (which I don't eat often anyway) I just make sure there isn't any soy in the breading and that they don't fry the chicken in soybean oil.
2) BEEF, MILK, DAIRY, SALMON: Beef, on the other hand, can legally have "added Hormones"
http://www.health.com/health/article/0,,20458816,00.html. Which is why I'm ordering a 1/4 of grass-fed beef from a farmer that I'm sure doesn't use these methods.
Growth hormonesIn 1993, the FDA approved recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), a synthetic cow hormone that spurs milk production when injected into dairy cows, and consumer groups have been concerned about it ever since. The manipulation of growth hormone in the AquaBounty salmon has sparked similar concerns. By itself, rBGH has no discernible effect in humans and is of little concern to your health, and the growth hormone in AquaBounty's salmon is expected to be inconsequential to your health as well. The actual fear is that manipulating growth hormones in cows—or salmon—may increase another hormone, insulin-like growth factor (IGF), which could mimic the effects of human growth hormone in harmful ways. In fact, research has found that milk from rBGH-treated cows contains up to 10 times more IGF than other milk. Higher blood levels of IGF (regardless of what causes them) have been associated with an increased risk of breast, prostate, and other cancers in humans. In a 2004 study, patients with above-average IGF levels had nearly a 50% higher risk of prostate cancer and a 65% higher risk of hormone-dependent premenopausal
breast cancer than people with below-average levels.
