Food Safety : The United States

In the U.S the food is regulated at the federal and state levels. All three branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial) are involved in controlling the food industry. Each branch have their own laws.

Remember when the tobacco industry was on trial and being held accountable for their illicit marketing and targeting tactics to further profits all the while denying any health issues associated? America has a similar issue but not as illuminated as the tobacco industry resulting in the surgeon general’s warning. This issue is free to market to children, free to market wherever profits are foreseeable, and free to label products to become more appealing. This issue is the ever growing food industry. Kind of taboo to blame food for the severe and skyrocketing obesity rate in America right? Have you ever checked your labels? Know what’s really in your food? Looked at and researched health programs controlled by politicians and bought and paid for health officials? The American food industry needs to have government regulation to prevent further obesity and malnutrition that is devastating our public health on a national scale.

Robert Kenner jumps from filming at chicken houses, factories, to the grocery stores. He shows how the FDA and USDA don’t control just a small section of the region, but the entire nation.

Canada’s food safety system is globally recognized as one of the safest system, because we believe food safety is the responsibility of everyone in the food environment. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is responsible for food safety at federal level. CFIA impose food safety and nutritional standards set by Health Canada. Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC) is responsible for protecting the health of Ontarians. Canadian government make every effort to protect the population from health hazards and food borne illness. The Health Protection and Promotion Act (HPPA) is the main piece of legislation outlining the important hazard reduction steps. The HPPA authorizes the Ontario Public Health Standards (OPHS) which are functional in their individual protocol. The Food Safety Protocol, 2015 describe the specific requirements that each health unit must follow in order to prevent and reduce foodborne illness. Each premises must undergo a risk assessment that evaluate hazard and level of risk.

This leads to 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths each year. According to the CDC (Centers for disease and control and Prevention) from the years 2005-2010 there were 39 outbreaks and 2,348 illnesses recorded from the 15 different countries that the United States imported foods from. What was peculiar about the imports was that 45 percent of the imports that caused outbreaks were from Asia. Another reason why increased trade in food lead to food-borne illnesses is because of the diseases of the people in developing countries that import the food to the US. Unfortunately, most of the people that work in the fields in third world countries have very low wages and due to that, do not have access to proper healthcare. This leads to the worker not staying home when they're sick and continue working regardless of their health. So, food that was imported from those countries could've been picked with someone with a contagious disease such as an intestinal disease or something worse, which leads to food-borne illnesses in the US. All of these reasons contribute to my decision that I would highly recommend the US and other countries to build more farms and not become so industrialized, that they have to import food to survive. Decreasing imported food from Asia will especially do much

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) are government agencies that coordinate with one another to ensure the safety of our nation’s food supply. For instance, the FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring safety, effectiveness, quality and security of human/veterinary drugs, vaccines, and medical services. In addition, the FDA is also responsible for all cosmetics and dietary supplements, tobacco and products of radiation. There is a law in place, which has been recently signed by President Obama on January 4, 2001 called the Food Safety Modernization Act. This reformed food safety law is over sighted by the FDA agency to ensure that the U.S. food supply is safe, by focusing on ways to prevent contamination from previously reported

Food is considered a basic necessity in order to live. Each year, foodborne illnesses strike 48 million Americans, hospitalizing approximately 128,000 people and killing 3,000 (“Estimating Foodborne Illness”). Over time, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has implemented various legislations in order to prevent illnesses and reduce risks. In 2011, the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was signed by the President which was considered to be a “historical legislation” (Hamburg). Along the course of its development, the Executive and Legislative branches of the United States government played a significant role in approving and modifying the food regulation law. Since its approval as a legislation, the policies have been implemented in order to prevent problems that can make people sick however it is still a work in progress (Taylor).

Looking from the conflict perspective the, amount of control the government has in terms of regulating what kinds of food are “safe” to eat is appalling. Seventy Five percent of all non-organic processed foods in grocery stores today contain genetically engineered ingredients and over 90% of Americans don 't know that there food contains GMO’s (Cambell, 2003). Genetically modifying foods (GMFs) are

After watching the Food Inc. documentary I now look at our nation’s food industry differently. As a consumer I feel that there are many things being hidden from us. Nowadays the top four companies for meat control about eighty percent of the market. There’s only about three or four companies controlling everything and they are more powerful than ever. A majority of these companies are putting profit over consumer’s health. They are not considerate about the health and safety of the food produced or about the animals being raised. We have bigger and better food now but we have also have obesity, and diabetes problems and many other health related deficiencies that use to not be as big of an issue back then.

On the first place, it is the responsibility of the CDC to stop and prevent further spread of food born disease. Stronger rules and regulations should be imposed by U.S. regulatory agencies for all food items sold and most importantly for frozen item, which are more prone for spreading food born diseases. Vendors should strictly follow general food safety measures and fines or punishment must be imposed according to the area/people affected.

Way long ago food was grown for their own towns and distributed to their very own towns. There was no way to transport large amounts of food across the country without the food being spoiled upon arrival. However there’s a solution to this. Genetically modify the food. Well while that is great for the wallets of food companies it is not great for the human body and our environment. The United States is suffering from an epidemic of obesity which later leads to heart disease problems. Furthermore heart disease is one of the leading cause of deaths in the U.S. Food companies see it in their best interest to genetically modify food, but fail to realize there are causing harm to human health and the environment. There needs to be a

Regulating what the government should control and what they should not was one of the main arguments our founding fathers had to deal with when creating our nation, and to this day this regulation is one of the biggest issues in society. Yet, I doubt our founding fathers thought about the idea that the food industry could one day somewhat control our government, which is what we are now facing. Marion Nestles’ arguments in the book Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health deal with how large food companies and government intertwine with one another. She uses many logical appeals and credible sources to make the audience understand the problem with this intermingling. In The Politics of Food author Geoffrey

France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, all member states of the European Union and also participants of EU’s legislation and policy on GMOs, amongst other EU countries. A policy that is aimed to prevent harmful effects on the environment as well as monitor the safety of humans and animals in the area (Library of Congress, 2015). It is also seen to be one that accurately represents the concerns of local consumers and producers in the area. The success of this policy is due to science-based risk assessment that is designed to protect the health of organisms in the area; the success of this policy has led to no human or animal health related GMO incident in member countries. The United States is currently adhering to the opposite ideal and does not have a federal law relating to the regulation of genetically modified organisms. Furthermore, since the US is so heavily dependent on genetically modified foods, regulations on GMOs are not aimed at restricting production but rather focusing on the nature of production. (Library of Congress, 2015) After learning about the success of a restrictive GMO policy such as the one implemented in the EU, an average American consumer may wonder why the US has not adopted a similar policy? Or why the US might not be able to adopt a comparable federal legislation? The unforeseen issue with the United States government choosing not to restrict the increasingly growing GMO sector, leads to several adverse issues for an average daily consumer. As with

I would recommend that all the employees should follow strict compliance in serving drinks to the customers. If they already knew that a customer is already totally drunk at the bar, they should call the police so that they could protect their customers from the risk of hurting themselves or others because they are already not capable to protect themselves from any harm and most likely they can cause a large amount of fine or the closing of an establishment if any of these are committed.

Recognition of Bess or “Clean, Safety and Healthy” has been enforced to all food premises trader in Malaysia in 2012 and currently regulated under the enforcement of Food Safety and Quality Department, Ministry of Health and Nutritional Department, Public Health Office, Ministry of Health in which it is fully supported by several related agencies such as Ministry of Domestic Trades, Co-Operatives and Consumerisms (KPDNKK), local authorities, Agricultural Department, FAMA, and Islamic Religion Department etc. This recognition program is an effective effort that has been implemented by the Ministry of Health in order to encourage all food premises trader in the country to provide and sell the food which must guaranteed to be