Mode of Action
When used as a food additive, ractopamine added to feed can be distributed via the blood to the muscle tissues, where it will bind to specific beta receptors in the muscle cell membranes. A cascade of events will then be initiated to increase protein synthesis, which results in increase in muscle fiber size. Ractopamine is known to increase the rate of weight gain, improve feed efficiency and increase carcass leanness in finishing swine. Its use in finishing swine yields about three kilograms of additional lean pork and improves feed efficiency by 10%. In steers and heifers, ractopamine use increases hot carcass weight by about 5.5 kilograms and 5 kilograms, respectively.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The only mode of obtaining an answer to these questions of the senses is to forego all low curiosity, and, accepting the tide of being which floats us into the secret of nature, work and live, work and live, and all unawares the advancing soul has built and forged for itself a new condition, and the question and the answer are one.”
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