You have now. I just saw it on Doc Oz this morning before I found something else to watch beside that infomercial show.
Ractopamine is a feed additive to promote leanness in animals raised for their meat. Pharmacologically, it is a beta-adrenergic agonist. It is the active ingredient in products known as Paylean for swine and Optaflexx for cattle, developed by Elanco Animal Health, a division of Eli Lilly and Company, for use in food animals for growth promotion.
Ractopamine use has been banned in most countries, including the European Union, mainland China and Russia[1][2] while 27 other countries, such as Japan, the United States, Canada, and South Korea, have deemed meat from livestock fed ractopamine safe for human consumption.[3]
Commercial ractopamine is a mixture of all four possible stereoisomers.[4]
Good stuff, yum, yum. And its in all your bacon, and just about all had products unless it is ractopamine, free. now don't forget all the other additives they give the meat you buy at the grocery store thinking they are safe to eat.
Steve
------------------ Technology is great when it works, and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't
If I eat bacon from a pig raised on it, will I lose weight too?
NOT for human consumption. But they did a study. From Wiki...
Pharmacokinetics in humans
A study was conducted to define the pharmacological response of humans to ractopamine. A single oral dose of 40 mg of ractopamine hydrochloride was given to human volunteers. The drug was rapidly absorbed; the mean blood plasma half-life was around 4 hrs and it was not detected in plasma 24 hrs after dosing. Less than 5% of total ractopamine excreted represented the parent drug, while the urinary metabolites were monoglucuronide and monosulfate conjugates, with ractopamine monosulfate being the major metabolite present.
The metabolic fate of ractopamine hydrochloride is similar in the target species (pigs and cattle), laboratory animals, and humans. Besides the pharmacology effect, ractopamine may cause intoxication effect; therefore, any consumption by humans of a meat and/or byproducts of animals that consumed ractopamine with feed for growth stimulation, may result in such clinical effects as tachycardia and other heart rate increases, tremor, headache, muscle spasm, or high arterial blood pressure. The effect of ractopamine on humans is not entirely known, but consumption of products that contain ractopamine residues is not advisable to people with cardiovascular diseases.
ractopamine may cause intoxication effect; therefore, any consumption by humans of a meat and/or byproducts of animals that consumed ractopamine with feed for growth stimulation, may result in such clinical effects as tachycardia and other heart rate increases, tremor, headache, muscle spasm, or high arterial blood pressure. The effect of ractopamine on humans is not entirely known, but consumption of products that contain ractopamine residues is not advisable to people with cardiovascular diseases.
I can maybe understand using it in swine production, but not so much with beef cattle production. It works by converting fat into lean meat (muscle) during the last 60 days of finishing. Everyone I talked to that used a feed lot that tried it said the carcasses dressed better (high % of usable meat) but graded lower due to the smaller amount of marbleing in the better cuts. You will always lose more $ on lower grading even tho the animal itself may weigh more on the rail. There are simply better and less controversial ways of getting to a lean grade than this product, better genetics being one and implants being another. Racto is a shortcut that I think the beef industry would be better off without---I don't know a whole lot about swine production, but have seen reports that indicate as much as 80% of the US pork on the market has been raised (at least in finishing stage) with Ratco.
(It's generally not used with cattle on grass pasture--just while they are on feed in drylot in the last stages before slaughter)
