Pa. grocery store offers hormone-free meats

By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR PENNSYLVANIA BUREAU
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- When Aileen Magnotto discovered the lump on her breast, she wasn't very concerned.
As a person with no history of breast cancer in her family, who carefully watched her diet and exercised regularly, Magnotto scheduled an appointment with her doctor and never thought to tell her husband or children.
"I've always eaten very healthy food. I've always made home-cooked meals, and I've been doing yoga for years," said Magnotto, who is co-owner of Shop N'Save here with her husband, Michael.
But when a diagnosis of stage 1 breast cancer was made last May 2, Magnotto was shocked. Treatment started immediately with a lumpectomy and was followed by chemotherapy and radiation, but the cause of the disease still vexed Magnotto.
"I figured there had to be a link somewhere, and I spent all summer online researching it," she said.
Hormone-driven cancer
The link -- she believes -- are hormones added to meats and milk, two mainstays in her diet.
"Studies have linked hormones in meat and milk to early puberty and other studies have linked early puberty to breast cancer," she said.
Magnotto found that her own cancer was hormone driven and she now takes Arimidex, a hormone-blocking drug meant to help prevent future cancer.
In the fall, Magnotto really started thinking about her diet and made a decision to find hormone-free meats for herself and her customers.
"I've always wanted to sell organic meats in the store, but it's always been a little more expensive," she said.
Her first opportunity came at Thanksgiving. She decided she didn't want the traditional turkey in her own home and started looking for free-range turkeys. It took time to find a distributor willing to sell a small lot to a family-owned supermarket, but eventually she found one who agreed to sell her 25 turkeys. She had presold only three when the order was made.
"I could have sold 50," Magnotto said of the demand.
That success spurred her on to searching for a regular source for organically grown chicken and hormone-free beef. A trip to a Cleveland supermarket that sold meats free of hormones led her to Wolfe's Neck Farm in Maine for beef and the Amish Gerber Farms in Ohio for chicken.
"It comes to us within 36 hours of slaughter, directly from the farm to us," she said noting that the less meat is handled from slaughter to sale, the fewer incidents of bacteria.
But getting the word to customers was tricky.
Good old days
She said few customers would try samples of the beef and chicken when she told them it was hormone free and organically grown. Changing her strategy, she asked customers if they wanted to try beef and chicken raised like it was when they were growing up. The samples were gone in no time.
Magnotto said the cost is just about the same as the higher-quality meats already sold at the store. She said they are making a lower profit margin on the organically grown, hormone-free meats because they want to offer it at an affordable price.
She is frequently near the meat department trying to educate shoppers about meats free of hormones, telling them of the benefits and comparing the costs.
Education isn't new to Magnotto, who before learning she had cancer had offered cooking classes to low-income people in the store and made her own whole-wheat pasta and low-salt soups for customers.
"It doesn't cost that much more to eat healthy. Not eating healthy food is going to cost you more in the end," she said.
Al Stabilito of the Mahoning Unit of American Cancer Society office in Canfield said the ACS always has recommended a healthy diet of leaner meats such as chicken and turkey, along with fruits and vegetables.
Stabilito said the group has not taken a stand on hormone-free beef or organically grown chickens.
Magnotto says she will keep up her mission to educate consumers about hormones in their diet and perhaps it will help others avoid cancer.
"I felt like I had cancer for only four days. I was diagnosed and then had surgery four days later. I believe I will be OK as long as I keep up a healthy diet," she added.
cioffi@vindy.com