Introduction
The issues concerning the safety of human and animal food during transportation to and within the United States are concerns, which are raising the attention of both the American public and the United States Food and Drug Administration. A few of the main worries include, the improper handling of food products, the lack of proper control of the temperature in which the foods are kept, the concerns of cross-contamination, the lack of proper equipment for the loading of food products before they are transported to other area on the country and the lack of security.
In order for these problems to the fixed and restore a proper and healthy means of transporting human and animal foods, there issues needs to be dealt with, which is why ideal regulations of Sanitary Transportation of Human and Animal Foods was put in place whereby the transportation of foods will be executed under safe and healthy conditions for human and animal consumption. It is estimated that every year, about 200 billion metric tons of human and animal food products are globally transported to the United States with about 35 percent of these foods products transported by land, 60 percent by sea and about 5 percent by air.
Brief Background
The history behind the regulation goes back to the 1980s when trucks that carried food from the Midwest to be delivered to the East and West Coast carried garbage in their turn trips. This lead to the implementation of the Sanitary Food Transportation Act of 1990 to help prevent the carriage of garbage in trucks or any means of transportation intended for food carrying purpose. Recent federal regulations indicate that food products have to be protected from physical, microbial and chemical contamination when h...
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...nt of the carrier programs. Furthermore, the USDA should include an evaluation function into all new established programs. Though it is easy to focus on smaller carriers, USDA should also pay more attention to the resources on to the appropriate branch of the industry. Usually, state level outreaches are the most efficient technics on getting to small carriers. A more efficient program consideration would be to establish an online resource venue that also assists with the provision of security support for registered users.
Conclusion
The implementation of the regulation not only helps in the prevention of the contamination of foods during the transportation process, it also helps prevent numerous foodborne illnesses that could possible cause a high mobility and mortality rate in the United States and not to mention the impact it will have on health care cost.
McCoy, J. J. How Safe Is Our Food Supply? New York: F. Watts, 1990. Print.
The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 was an attempt to regulate the meatpacking industry and to assure consumers that the meat they were eating was safe. In brief, this act made compulsory the careful inspection of meat before its consummation, established sanitary standards for slaughterhouses and processing plants, and required continuous U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection of meat processing and packaging. Yet, the most important objectives set by the law are the prevention of adulterated or misbranded livestock and products from being commercialized and sold as food, and the making sure that meat and all its products are processed and prepared in the adequate sanitary and hygienic conditions (Reeves 35). Imported meat and its various products are no exception to these conditions; they must be inspected under equivalent foreign standards.
In our fast pace society, we base everything on time and money. This need to save money and time has transformed the way we see food and purchase food. Food is an essential part of all cultures. It plays a role in every person’s life. The population has the power to choose what we eat and how the food industry is shaped. There are many important questions that we need to ask ourselves in order to keep the food industry in check. These questions are: How do we know our food is safe? What should we eat? How should food be distributed? What is good food? These are simple yet difficult questions.
Meatpacking has become the most dangerous job in America. Unlike poultry plants, in which almost all tasks are performed by machines, most of the work in a slaughterhouse is done by hand. Hazards of the job include injuries from the various machines and knives, strain to the body from poor working conditions, and even methamphetamine use in order to keep up with the production line. Women face the added threat of sexual harassment. This chapter opens with an anecdote about the largest recall of food in the nation’s history. In 1997 approximately 35 million pounds of ground beef was recalled by Hudson Foods because a strain of E Coli was found in the food. However, by the time the beef was recalled, 25 million pounds had already been eaten. Schlosser notes that the nature of food poisoning is changing. Prior to the rise of large meatpacking plants, people would become ill from bad food in small, localized arenas. Now, because meat is distributed all over the nation, an outbreak of food poisoning in one town may indicate nation-wide epidemic. Every day in the United States, 200, 000 people are sickened by a food borne
On January 4, 2011 President Obama signed into law The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). This law has shed new light on the safety and security of our food supply. The last update to the food safety laws in the United States was in 1938. The food safety modernization act pays special attention at trying to modernize the food safety policies in the United States in hopes to prevent problems and concerns before they happen. As we all know, most of our food comes from overseas or sometimes from your neighboring state. The food products travel by car, truck, airplane, boat, or even train. We are all very happy to be receiving our bananas from Costa Rica and all of our other fresh fruits and vegetables that are imported into the United States, but we never stop to think about what pathogens are contaminating our produce and other foods on the way over and if they are safe for us to eat. In an article by Neal Fortin, he states that the law also gives the FDA new standards to hold imported foods to the domestic food standards and it also encourages the FDA to establish and develo...
Almost every angle of the food industry can be considered dangerous. It is dangerous to make the food, as a meatpacking job is one that is viewed as having abnormally high risks; however when the food is handed over a counter on a tray or prepared in a family of four’s kitchen, it poses a huge risk to humankind. Foodborne illnesses are all too common and almost everybody has the possiblity of contracting a foodborne illness. These are life threatening diseases that need to be monitored and regulated; therefore the enforcement of government regulations in the fast food industry could potentially save many lives that are lost annually due to the numerous factors that need regulation.
The main reason that this law was put into place was because there were no regulations regarding food health and safety. There were also market failures due to the lack of food regulations, because the public could not tell if a certain food product had been altered in any way. Also many food markets completely neglected the environment, due to no set standard for environmental protection.
According to Roni Neff, Marie Spiker, and Patricia Truant, up to 40% of all food produced in America is thrown away (Neff, Spiker, & Truant, 2015, p.2). This wasted food is worth hundreds of billions of dollars that is lost each year in the United States alone, and creates many threats to our country. Food waste is an important and widespread issue in the United States because most of the food thrown away is perfectly fine, it could be used to feed the hungry, and the waste hurts the environment.
During processing of meat and poultry products, contamination by bacteria, viruses and parasites can occur. Contaminated meat and poultry provides an environment for the growth of the contaminating organisms (Northcutt and Russell, 2010). This make such products unfit for human consumption or cause food-borne illnesses to consumers if they consume the contaminated products. In 1959, Pillsbury developed the concept of HACCP when producing microbiologically safe foods for space flights (Northcutt and Russell, 2010; United States Department of Agriculture and Food Safety and Inspection Service, 1999; Keener, 2009; haccpalliance, n.d and Tompkin, 1994).
The third weakness is the fact that food tests, inspections, and the detection of contaminants are taken seriously only after an outbreak of some food-borne diseases, food poisoning, or deaths. The increase in the number of food establishments or outlets such as cold stores, hypermarkets, and supermarkets reported by the Public Health Director has also made inspection and control mo...
Food matters. Nevertheless, food safety in China is worse than what you thought; you can never imagine how toxic it is. Although there are variety choices of restaurant for us to eat nowadays, many people still choose to eat at home. Not only to save money, but also be sensible for their own health. Think about our situation now, we can constantly buy meats that we think is fresh and yummy, but who knows if it’s healthy and safe? Is it truly what you want? What materials will the restaurant serves you? Food safety affects people a lot. Nowadays, especially in China, many citizens are already despair in this affair. Food safety is one of the most principal issues to the entire world; as one of the most important feature in everybody’s life,
... Imported Foods 2 and 3) This can be very dangerous because of all the allergies that people have. Without proper nutrition labels, people do not know what is actually in the food they are eating which could be very dangerous for their health. It is very important for our FDA or other food agencies to check the imported foods from other countries. If people choose to buy food that is imported, they eat it at their own risk.
Food safety is an increasingly important public health issue. Governments all over the world are intensifying their efforts to improve food safety. Food borne illnesses are diseases, usually either infectious or toxic in nature, caused by agents that enter the body through the ingestion of food. “In industrialized countries, the percentage of people suffering from food borne diseases each year has been reported to be up to 30%. In the United States of America, for example, around 76 million cases of food borne diseases, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths, are estimated to occur each year.” (Geneva 2)
Food is the famous topics that have always been discussed among people in the world. This is because food is the most important element for people to live and become a basic necessity for human. All the produced food has been prepared based on technology and advancement of modern science. Mostly, there are several ingredients that have been used to produce a food. These ingredients are either permissible or prohibited. Besides that, there are some mix elements that have been included such as chemical product and synthetic ingredient. Furthermore, all scholars have been discussing about this Halal and Haram issue.
Handling, processing, and preparation such as (cooking, cooling, reheating, holding/service) should be controlled to ensure that the food is not contaminated in any way.