Americans on average have grown larger since my parent’s generation.  And we are generally larger than the average foreigner.

Now the fattening of America has been noticed by the media and is getting some attention.  You are probably familiar with many of the components: convenience foods; fast foods; TV Sloth; constant marketing of food; unbelievable access to food by historical standards; sedentary life style. 

While these are certainly all contributing factors, there is one factor that I've never heard mentioned; animal growth hormones.

This first occurred to me many years ago.  We rented an old farm homestead from a farmer who was just using the cropland and outbuildings.  He lived just down the road a piece, and we visited frequently. 

He raised livestock, pigs and chickens.  The chickens were free ranging and were quite plump.  Free ranging does not mean they were not fed.  He fed them chicken feed, and it was laced with growth hormones and antibiotics.

We bought poultry from him.  I noticed when I put a chicken on the electric rotisserie that as the bird heated up it sprung a leak.  As it rotated, it hosed out a stream of yellow chicken fat from the leak.  The chicken was plump alright, and it was FAT.

Now livestock of every kind is regularly pumped up for greater market profit using growth hormones.  It shortens the time to market.  By law the producers, whether independent farmers or industry suppliers, are supposed to stop feeding the livestock the growth hormones for a prescribed number of days before market so that their metabolism flushes the hormones out of their system.

But, the temptation is to fudge in those cases where the animal is bought based on weight is great in the profit driven mega agribusiness.  And there is little-to-no real monitoring of this requirement by a grossly understaffed FDA.

Here's the point.  Could it be that the Great American Consumer is getting a continuous dose of residual growth hormone that should have been flushed out of the animal's system before market?  This dosage probably isn't very high, usually, but when it is ingested meal after meal for decades, it is possible that it is a meaningful factor in the fattening of America.

Whadaythink about that?!?!