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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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