Proper Nutrition Labels and Food Safety Nutrition labels being labeled poorly is a concern of every consumer in the United States. Improper nutrition labels brings food safety concerns to United States citizens. Some argue against the fact that food safety is a concern. They believe that all food is safe in United States of America, but there is multiple reasons and evidence why there is concerns that it is not safe. I think that food being consumed in the United States should be labeled properly regardless of what others say. Contaminated food can cause many horrible things.
The food that we consume should be properly labeled because it can cause sickness and maybe even death. “About 3,000 Americans die and an estimated 48 million are sickened by food that is not properly labeled. ” (“Food Safety-Would new legislation make the food supply safer? ”). If we eat unsafe it causes many harms to our body. Unsafe food will also cause problems with our health physically and mentally. “One reason why our food is so bad is because the facilities where it is being packaged and produced are not clean and are not free of rodents. (“Food Safety-Would new legislation ake the food supply safer? ”).
Inspections have to take place to make sure these facilities are clean. Most of the time companies are to blame for letting their facilities get this nasty. Since the factories are not clean, more companies are having to recall their products. Having to recall products worries the costumers buy wondering what it is in that certain product that it got Buchanan 2 recalled for. Everyone needs to make sure they read the ingredient list to make sure there is no hormones or anything like that in there food.
Imported food is another cause of sickness. We do not know how they label their food or what they put in it overseas. If Americans do not read the ingredients of what it make contain you might receive a food-borne illness. It can also make people with food allergies have problems. If the food label is improper it might cause reactions to those that deal with allergies. For instance, if someone is allergic to eggs. The label might be wrong and say that the product does not contain eggs when it really does. This specific someone might have an allergic reaction because the product was labeled wrong.
Another problem would be that if the expiration date is not on the label or not labeled correctly, it might cause sickness or death. It needs to be labeled correctly, so the food will still be good and not cause anyone to get sick. We also do not want our food to spoil. In the end, every United States citizen needs to make sure they read the ingredients, make sure their food is cooked thoroughly, and their food is labeled properly to prevent illness and death in the United Sates. If those that have health issues depend on the nutrition label to guide them through life.
For example, those that are diabetic depending of checking the label to see how much sugar that the certain food might contain. Depending on the people’s health issues is what they look for on the label. People that decide to diets depend on the label also. They might need to know what their calorie intake is or how much of something they are receiving. If the nutrition label is improper it can cause many problems for these specific people. An improper nutrition label might cause the wrong amount of a certain intake. It may even cause them to die because that label is wrong.
Most United States citizens count on the nutrition labels to be correct survive their life. Buchanan 3 The government needs to do something about our food not being labeled properly. They need to strengthen our food regulation system. The government advocates for food safety laws and proper nutrition labels. The government has created organizations such as the CDC and FDA to help improve our nutrition labels and food safety. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have taken great measures to make sure our food gets properly labeled and that it is safe to consume.
President Barack Obama promotes proper nutrition labels. “President Obama signed a law in 2011 to allow the agency to make more frequent inspections to farms, food processing plants, import shipments of food, and gave the power to mandate food recalls. ” (“Food Safety: Should Congress strengthens food safety regulations”). This law is a good thing because without inspections we would not know if our food is going to be clean or not. Because the Unites States had less frequent visits before this law was passed, many adults and children got sick. “According to an FDA report released in
February 2013, more than half of ground turkey, ground beef, and pork chop samples collected from supermarkets for testing contained such bacteria, also known as “superbugs. ” (“Food Safety: Should Congress strengthens food safety regulations”). The contaminated food was cause by the less inspections visits to the farms, plants, and import shipments of food. “Many factory farms also inject antibiotics in animals to prevent disease and to augment growth. ” (“Food Safety: Should Congress strengthens food safety regulations”). Most of these antibiotics that are injected into the animals are not listed on the nutrition labels.
They leave out the antibiotics on the label to make the consumer think that they are eating healthy. Therefore, the government are taking actions to make sure that our nutrition labels are properly labeled and that our food is safe to consume. Buchanan 4 The Food and Drug Administration is an organization that the government created to protect the public from any unsafe food that may cause harm to citizens. “The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) protects the United States from unsafe foods, drugs, medical devices, cosmetics, and other potential hazards. (“Food and Drug Administration”).
The FDA wants to ensure every American that their food will be safe to eat and properly labeled. “To ensure compliance with its regulations, the FDA employs more than 1,000 investigators and inspectors who visit more than 15,000 food-processing, drug-manufacturing, and other facilities each year. ” (“Food and Drug Administration”). The Food and Drug Administration employees want to make sure that our food gets labeled properly and make sure that our food is safe to eat.
They want make sure that every United States citizen does not worry about their food being safe to eat when they eat it. The FDA made laws to make sure that our food is getting processed and packaged correctly. “Other laws with major implications for the FDA’s activities include the 1990 Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, which requires all packaged foods to carry labels with nutrition information, and the Prescription Drug User Fee Act of 1992, which requires drug and biologics manufacturers to pay fees that support FDA assessment of their products. (“Food and Drug Administration”).
The FDA want to protect the United States of America from any harm that food and drugs might cause. They protect the US by making sure that our food is labeled roperly and that our food is safe to consume. Some United States citizen argue that our nutrition labels are perfectly fine. They are not worried about the risks that improper food labeling might cause.
With improper food labeling brings up food safety issues, which some have no concerns about. Food safety is an issue that few Americans think about until someone becomes sick from eating contaminated food. ” (“Food Safety”). Their argument would be that our food is safe in the United States and we need to Buchanan 5 worry about more important things such as terrorist, government, and etc. “America has the afest food supply in the world, and it has never been safer,” Senator Tom Coburn (R, Oklahoma) stated in 2010 in USA Today. ” (“Food Safety: Should Congress strengthens food safety regulations”).
Many people do not see the problems dealing with proper nutrition labels and think it is not useful. “Indeed, opponents of new regulations argue that having 15 different government agencies play a role in regulating U. S. food safety is wasteful, confusing, and overly bureaucratic. ” (“Food Safety: Should Congress strengthens food safety regulations”). Even though some argue against proper nutrition labels and food safety, food safety and proper utrition labels is a concern to many in the United States of America.
Nutrition labels need to be labeled properly to keep down food safety issues in the United States. Without food safety, more people would be dying from eating unsafe food. All America needs to do is address that food needs to be labeled properly and everything would be fine. All United States citizens needs to be aware of improper nutrition labels and make sure that their food is safe when they consume it. Improper nutrition labels causes many problems within the United States and I think they need to be labeled properly.
