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Regulating Food In America Essay

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Is the Food in America Being Properly Regulated?
Today it is not hard to walk into a grocery store and pick up the food you need for the week. People do not have to question how the food got there or what is in the long list of ingredients on their snack. Everyday people put their trust in the agencies such as the FDA and USDA to regulate their food and drugs and to keep them healthy. Americans are aware that their food is being regulated but many people are unaware of what is being done to make sure the food is safe. To get some perspective on how the United States regulates food it is beneficial to look at Europe's approach. The European Union takes a precautionary approach when it comes to regulating food, this is something that is not seen …show more content…

FDA is incharge of making sure food is regulated properly, but they need to put more regulations in place to ensure the food available to the public is safe. Concerns about our food are more than just what we are eating or what is added to the food, people should also be thinking about how food is handled. The way food is produced and distributed throughout America is unsanitary and causes risk of diseases. Donavan discusses the issues with transporting meat, “...large quantities of animals are often transported between states or even countries in tight, poorly ventilated spaces.” (Donovan para 9). The type of environment these animals are kept in allows for diseases to be caught and spread fast. Large farms work to be as efficient with money and time as possible but that …show more content…

The FDA and USDA work to try and make sure food is as safe as possible but their approach needs to be reevaluated. Splitting the control of regulations between multiple agencies causes confusion that can prevent proper precautions from being taken. The FDA regulates the majority of the food available to Americans but due to ineffective testing and lack of precaution taken more work needs to be done. It is important that food safety is taken seriously because of how much of an impact food has on people's lives. In order to keep the American public healthy, food regulations need to be up to

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Millions of people each day go to the store and purchase meat, produce, and medicine, without worrying if it’s safe, or whether it may be contaminated with things like paint stripper or cocaine. Prior to 1906, there was no organization to monitor whether or not any food or drug contained what it said, let alone if it was safe to be consumed. Even though legislation wouldn’t come for many more years, research into food safety dates all the way back to 1862 when scientist Charles M. Wetherill, who worked for the Department of Agriculture, began testing samples of food for purity. Wetherill’s first project focused on the alcohol content in wine but later led to him and other scientists focusing on problems such as contaminated milk from cows with

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Worldwide, millions of people are consuming fast food, unaware of the mental and physical consequences it can cause to their body. The fast food industry lacks to label the food they advertise, leaving individual’s clueless and with little, to no choice. In the article An Equal Shot: Big Fat America the author claims that “The real solution here is to give people the choice to eat organic foods that are in season and are locally produced. But that can only work if people are informed, and that means more labeling.” On the other hand, if the fast food industry informed people about the ingredients they are putting into their bodies and labeled more of their food items, it would be no one, but the individual to blame.

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For many decades the food system was an endless controversial issue on how our food was processed and the impertioness. This issue influenced Upton Sinclair who wrote a book called “The Jungle”, which exposed the secrets of the meat industry and unsanity poor conditions of the slaughterhouses, indeed, this book inspired president Roosevelt right into action for solutions for the problem, with great struggle the meat inspection Act of 1906 came into law. Till today many reformers and authors are exposing the large corporations that have full control over the food production and how fast foods had a huge affect on families all over the world. For example, Fast Food Nation, Food Inc, and Fast Food Babies had one aim and that was to bring awareness

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Recognizing the need for strong consumer protections, he championed legislative measures aimed at ensuring the safety and fairness of goods and services available to the public. One of his significant contributions in this regard was the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, which aimed to protect consumers from harmful and mislabeled products. Additionally, Roosevelt advocated for the Meat Inspection Act, which established standards for the inspection and regulation of meat processing facilities to safeguard public health. These initiatives demonstrated his unwavering dedication to ensuring that consumers had access to safe and reliable products and were not subjected to deceptive or exploitative practices by unscrupulous businesses. Roosevelt's proactive approach to consumer protection not only enhanced the safety and quality of goods but also laid the groundwork for future regulatory frameworks aimed at upholding consumer rights and promoting fair trade practices in the United

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Different people will have have their many opinions about that, but one thing for sure is food goes through a lengthy process to be grown and sold, yet not all people have access to it and citizens never really know what they're eating.

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That same day, The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was created. This act required the makers of prepared food and medicine to host government inspection as well. Overall, these acts have now been a reassurance to the public that meat and other things are in good

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From this point on there have been federal regulations and policies regarding the food

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Not only had the act progressed food safety, it had also made one of the most well known organizations to this date, the FDA. With this accomplishment, The Jungle had reached a height unthinkable—it had influenced the political climate of the Progressive

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Upton Sinclair wrote in The Jungle, “There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about it.” The conditions in the meatpacking industry were unsanitary and needed to be changed. “Sinclair’s expose led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.” This is also known as the FDA. The FDA is in place to make sure that food is safe to

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Wiley, chief chemist at the Department of Agriculture, had lobbied for over 20 years for federal food and drug regulation as he had tested chemicals added to preserve foods and found many were dangerous to human health (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2008). The tumult over The Jungle, strengthened Wiley's lobbying efforts in Congress and on June 30, 1906, President Roosevelt was able to push through the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2008). The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 authorized inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to stop any bad or mislabeled meat from entering market. The Pure Food and Drug Act regulated food additives and outlawed misrepresentative labeling of food and drugs. Does that policy exist today?

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Besides improving regulation and stopping mislabeling, the Pure Food and Drug Act “gave unprecedented new regulatory powers to the federal government, … [and] empowered a bureau that evolved into today's Food and Drug Administration (FDA)” (“Pure Food and Drug Act (1906).”) by creating an “economic legacy … [which] includes strong consumer

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My opinion about the food industry is that it full of lies that help large corporation to make more money no matter how the animals much suffer. Also they don’t care about the health of people neither because the government lays on the labels of the food that people has consumed. People have to know “how ethical arguments” work and to find the proof of the arguments. For example on of the argument is that “actions can be justified by small consequences. This could be describing as the labels changing into the consumer choice of product that they want to buy.

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The Pure Food and Drug act of 1906 was the 1st consumer protection law by the Federal Government, this act was passed by President Theodore Roosevelt. The main purpose of the Pure Food and Drug act was to prohibit transportation of contaminated, poisonous, and misbranded foods, drugs, medicines and liquors. Without the pure food and drug act our food, medication, and other product would be filled with dangerous chemicals that would have harm in our health and potentially cause death. Before the 20th century, there were no laws or regulations that protected Americans from hazardous foods and medicines. This meant that there were no restrictions of what chemicals could be put in one’s food or medicine, leaving the open to mass deaths of contaminated or poisonous products.

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Don’t even get me started on the American food industry! The american food industry is one of the only food industries in the whole wide world that favors money over the health of its citizens. The food that most Americans eat is processed crap, if you can even call it food! How many of you have eaten popcorn, chips, candy, or crackers in the last week? The amount of chemicals in the food we eat as a country on a daily basis is freaking ridiculous.

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Food should be safely consumed without unnecessary thoughts of fear or regret within the individuals, however companies relentlessly target consumers by chemically modifying food to increase profit. One must not feel the need to worry about lethal products or ingredients that are present within purchased food. The manipulation of the consumer by major food companies presents a major issue that requires a quick solution in order to improve health within America. Many within America suffer from addiction to many food products. The constant craving and consumption of these goods leads to the accumulation of disease and can cause drastic weight gain.

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