Food
The case of Stephanie Smith is certainly alarming, and having familiarized myself with both the ammonia in hamburger issue and the pink slime issue, I will argue that my faith in the USDA and FDA to provide protection to American consumers in terms of the food they eat is sorely lacking. I understand the reality that I have personally not become sick from eating food in America, but that does not mean that the system is working well. By looking at the history of the system, I feel that many of the issues we have today represent a shift away from the foundations of the system.
Required reading on this issue is Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which detailed the practices of the Chicago meatpacking industry. This book was the first to bring many of these issues to light. In those days, it was not uncommon for people to become sick from the food they ate, and meat was an especially egregious culprit. The book caused public uproar that reached all the way to the White House.
The result of this scandal was the creation of the modern system of guaranteeing food safety. The government created the Food and Drug Administration's precursor body to look at the food industry and ensure that foods sold were healthy; the "drugs" part came later in response to similar issues with health tonics and the like. The USDA is also involved in the food system, especially at the agricultural level. In general, the system was designed to ensure that safety of the nation's food supply. In that sense, it is important to understand what the food safety system is and what it is not. The food safety system is only concerned with safety, not with quality. There is a difference between the two. Most people are naturally revolted by things like pink slime, but if it is healthy to be consumed, that is all it needs in order to gain approval. There is nothing in the food safety guidelines that protect Americans from eating crap.
The Food Safety System
Since the food safety system exists to ensure that integrity of our food system, we need to have a better understanding of how this works. One...
Food Safety Manual Food Safety Purpose and Scope of Manual Foundations for Use Safe Food Handling The Flow of Food Purchasing and Receiving Storage Preparation Service Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) Employee Food Safety Training Food Safety Manual Nearly 1 in 6 Americans will become sick due to foodborne illness each year and of these, 3,000 will die (CDC, 2011). Since 1997 the number of Escherichia coli has been cut in half, but the prevalence of Salmonella infections has remained stable. Salmonella
Validation of Commercial Baking as an Effective Step to Control/Inactivate Salmonella in Baked Products Major findings, analysis and conclusions Description of the baking industry and baking emphasis in the United States. Purpose and structure of importance Description of the problem being addressed and its importance to the practice of applied food safety Process of Consultation Outline how the client (ABA) will be engaged and carefully define the problem Identification of key stakeholders Overview and feedback of findings and
Essay Topic Examples 1. The Impact of Globalization on Food Safety: Opportunities and Challenges: Explore how globalization has affected food production and distribution, bringing diverse food choices to consumers worldwide but also introducing complex food safety concerns. Delve into the challenges posed by longer supply chains, variations in safety standards across different countries, and the increased risk of large-scale foodborne illness outbreaks. 2. The Role of Technology in Enhancing Food Safety: Examine the technological
Holley's (Chase, 2010) on grounds of dereliction of duty. If the State 'got paid' the same regardless of how many violations it prosecuted, that second dimension of moral hazard would overlap the primary incentive for producers to cheat. Adverse selection is often considered a result, rather than a cause of moral hazard, where offering a risk-bearing product creates incentive for demand by the riskiest consumers. Obvious modern examples include offering
causes of foodborne illnesses include inadequate hand washing at any stage including the consumer, cross-contamination such as using the same cutting board for meat as cheese, improper storage temperatures such as a refrigerator that is not set cold enough, improper cooking temperatures, particularly regarding meat, the contamination of food by animal waste, which generally occurs in factory food production, and the contamination of soil or water supplies from natural
Wal-Mart specifically is pioneering the development of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) projects with up to two thousand of its key suppliers today (Kumar, 2007). The goal of this pilot is to enable food and beverage suppliers to coordinate more effectively with Wal-Mart on mixed pallet mode shipping of products (Kumar, 2007). This is critical for Wal-Mart from the standpoint of supporting their expansion strategies into smaller, more diverse stores
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