Reply #5: It's a question of concentration, really

[Orrex]

I can't give you numbers, but if let's say that 100 units of growth hormone are required to plump up that chicken. Of that 100 units, only 1 lingers in the muscle tissue after butchering. Of that 1 unit, only 1% survives the preparation, cooking, and digestion processes, so that the human is only getting 1/100 of one percent of the amount required to fatten the bird. Unless you're eating the equivalent of 10,000 chickens, you won't even reach the threshold necessary to plump up the chicken in the first place. Additionally, there's the matter of accumulation: how much of this ingested, chicken-processed growth hormone lingers in the body, and how much is simply excreted? And according to another measurement (I don't have a source to cite, alas, but I read it within the last year), the amount of growth hormone absorbed through this manner of ingestion is a tiny fraction of the amount already naturally coursing through our veins.

Your question is valid, and there's certainly good reason to investigate it, but there's far too much ill-informed fear-mongering in the mainstream and alternative media about the supposed dangers of growth hormone (and the like).