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SparseGhostC2C t1_j46pjrt wrote

Reply to comment by Coquenico in where does epinephrine comes from? The one used for people with allergies because Google only says It comes from glands so I don't understand if it's donated or sintethized by other means. by SALAMI_21

That's my curiosity though, knowing the inefficiencies of a lot of industries, are we actually smart enough to be harvesting this stuff from beef or dairy livestock, or are they slaughtering them expressly for epinephrine?

I have no idea, just genuinely curious

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Nago_Jolokio t1_j46rj6o wrote

We've been using livestock for meat for tens of thousands of years, we've had a long time to learn how to be efficient harvesting the resources.

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SparseGhostC2C t1_j46s4io wrote

I know that historically there are human cultures that are efficient in using everything they take from an animal, but modern westernized humanity is not really among those, inefficiency in the name of profit is kind of... everything now.

Citing to me that we know how to do it doesn't prove to me that we do, I'm perfectly aware its possible. I don't mean to come off as hostile, but this isn't really an answer to my question

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thedeebo t1_j4712wi wrote

You don't think there's a profit motive in using all the parts of slaughtered livestock?

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SparseGhostC2C t1_j472mh5 wrote

No, I don't. Because I don't know what it takes to process and extract epinephrine from an adrenal gland of livestock, for all I know it's prohibitively expensive to harvest, and maybe the cows need to be raised a certain way for the product to be viable.

There are absolutely industries with manufactured inefficiency for the sake of convenience and profit, I really don't think it's unreasonable just to ask the damn question

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thedeebo t1_j477krv wrote

It's fine to ask the question, but you've already reached a conclusion despite acknowledging that you don't know the specifics.

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Doc_Lewis t1_j4769nr wrote

I would assume that its use as a durg would mean you can't just extract from meat animals, similar to the chicken farms whose sole purpose is to provide clean eggs for vaccine production you'd probably have a farm growing cows or whatever specifically to get the epinephrine (if you didn't synthesize it).

That being said, extracting more profit is the name of the game, slaughterhouses absolutely find ways to use all of the animal if it can be done. Why raise a whole cow only to sell the steaks? The offal, blood, bones, off cuts and little bits of remaining meat all have uses. That's why pink slime exists, trying to extract all the meat, even if you've got to sanitize it and press it into nuggets.

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SparseGhostC2C t1_j477wn8 wrote

I totally understand the impetus with meat products to maximize gains and make everything a product for profit's sake, but as you also illustrated that Epinephrine being for medical use might restrict how it can be harvested.

That was kind of the nuts and bolts of what I was asking about, I've tried googling around because I'm curious and its not the easiest to find citable sources on whether meat or dairy cows are also harvested for their adrenal glands. I suppose the biggest question is how much more difficult it is to synthesize vs harvest, as I'm sure whichever is easier and cheaper is where most of it comes from.

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FireTyme t1_j46zlan wrote

if anything we've become less efficient at it. in older days we'd use the bones for stock/arrows/tools etc. we'd use the skin for leathers. sinew for string/rope. fat for fuel and preserving and soap. meat and organ meat for food. nowadays we throw most of it out to waste, organ meat barely gets eaten. leather = murder to some people so its used less and less in clothing taken over by much higher environmental impacting synthetic leather. i've spent a project on waste meats for biofuel and theres so much crap that just doesnt get used anymore.

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jejcicodjntbyifid3 t1_j47874d wrote

Exactly. And that was all done within the context of a tribe

It didn't need to be somehow shipped to a different plant just so that they can extract the hooves and re use those

Be nice if we synthesized these sorts of things, assuming it is equally as effective

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Bowinja t1_j4754ft wrote

The term that would clear things up would be by-product. Adrenal production from glands of sheep and cattle would be a by-product of the meat industry. Extrapolating based on scale, extraction of adrenaline wouldn't significantly increase the environmental impact of the meat industry since I would be confident the supply of glands would be saturated by the supply of livestock.

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leSchaf t1_j476kb9 wrote

I don't actually have first hand knowledge but slaughtering livestock just for adrenal glands simply makes no sense. A meat processing facility will buy livestock, slaughter them, process them and then sell the various components. There's a certain demand by companies making compounds such as epinephrine for animal parts used in synthesis. They will go through a supplier that will purchase animal parts from meat processor that they know they can sell at a certain price. I'm sure for at least some meat processors it's more lucrative to separate out kidneys with adrenal glands to sell separately at a higher price than e.g. just sell them together with all the rest to a company making dog food.

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sighthoundman t1_j49fby3 wrote

>I don't actually have first hand knowledge but slaughtering livestock just for adrenal glands simply makes no sense.

And yet.

We (as in humans, not as in you and me) slaughter rhinos for their horns, sharks for their fins, (both of those are "traditional medicine") and elephants for their teeth (to make trinkets and piano keys).

Bezoars (most frequently gallstones but sometimes other types of spherical objects from an animal's intestines) were popular in Europe from the 11th to the 17th centuries. Unicorn bezoars could cure anything.

Only the piano keys is /s. Everything else went away when we adopted a more scientific approach to life (/s), but was once believed to be true.

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