Food Safety and Its Effects on the Regulation of Agricultural Products

1553 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Brought upon the meat inspection act of 1906

Food Safety:
Its Effects on the Regulation of Agricultural Products
Foodborne illnesses and disease have always been a great problem concerning human health. Until the advent of the industrial revolution, the human population significantly increased over that time period and has been steadily rising ever since. Food production, along with the human population, needed to be significantly increased as well. One of the problems of this new period was the introduction of more disease; people were often packed together in small locations and these cities breed all sorts of different pathogens. Widespread cholera outbreaks and other foodborne illness outbreaks were common place. People began to become afraid of the food they ate and doubted the cleanliness of agricultural products. Government involvement was needed to combat these new outbreaks. Food safety laws were then put in place to prevent widespread outbreaks and to ensure the quality of food. Food safety has made a profound impact on the regulation and production of agricultural products.
The introduction of food safety within the United States can be accredited to the literary works done by muckraking journalists during the early 1900’s. The use of yellow journalism exposed the horrid conditions of the meat packing industry. A great example would be the novel The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair, which helped expose many of the problems present in the food industry. After these pressures were put in place the United States government intervened and proposed two acts: Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Meat Inspection Act. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was part of the first consumer protection laws enacted by the Federal Government in the 20th century. This act ulti...

... middle of paper ...

...een exposed. This includes the withholding of information from food manufactures and also to increase support for health inspectors so they can properly do their job. Health inspectors should be the ones with authority in the food industry and companies should comply with food safety regulations, but since companies do not want lose money they are sometimes unwilling to comply with the USDA’s demands. On the other hand, the USDA has had some success, like reducing the instance of foodborne illnesses over the coming year. The USDA has also been successful in publicly announcing food safety tips around the country with simple guidelines: clean, separate, cook, and chill. U.S food safety has played an important role in the regulation and production of agriculture products and will continue to improve the cleanliness and wholesomeness of U.S agricultural products.

Show More
Related

  • Gabriel Kolko's The Triumph of Conservatism

    1082 Words  | 3 Pages

    The beginning of Meat Inspection Act seemed to be at 1904, after “The Jungle” of Sinclair published. In fact, it started twenty years earlier, the regular law, used to satisfy Europe, the largest meat export market, but in 1865 Congress passed an act to prevent the importation of diseased cattle and pigs. Because of disease, European like Italian, French, and English restricted or banned the importation meat, and they turned to another supplier. Some bills were introduced but they failed to gather sufficient support. May 1884, Bureau of Animal Industry was established, it was doing good job in fighting Europe restrictions, helping the packers, but not helping the domestic consumers. March 1891, the first major meat inspection law was passed; some country removed the prohibitions on importing American pork. It distressed the European packing industry as well. So, they imposed more standards. Government had to do more action; major percent meat slaughtered was inspected. Some of companies exploited the law, but most of them, especially big companies agreed with the committee in 1902. In 1904, Smith, who was a great information aid to Sinclair, published a series of articles in The Lancet...

    Read More

  • Ethics In Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle'

    1390 Words  | 3 Pages

    With regulations being set and laws enacted, the United States has seen a change for the better within the food industry and for the consumers overall. As a result, as much as a company is willing to cut on cost, without the consumers, every business in any industry will become bankrupt. The power is in the consumer and as long as consumers are educated properly and willing to speak up, there is a bright future ahead. However, because not everything can be seen, it is important to have books such as The Jungle and authors like Upton Sinclair to let people know what is going on and what not everyone is able to see. In doing so, this will raise awareness, create transparency and demand that companies practice ethically for the betterment of the

    Read More

  • Beef's Argument Over Grain-Fed Cattle

    1665 Words  | 4 Pages

    McCoy, J. J. How Safe Is Our Food Supply? New York: F. Watts, 1990. Print.

    Read More

  • Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and the Pure Food and Drug Act

    1672 Words  | 4 Pages

    Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” gave the most in-depth description of the horrid truths about the way America’s food companies, “the only source of food for people living in the city,” are preparing the food they sell. “The Jungle” describes the terrible

    Read More

  • The Meat Inspection Act of 1906

    586 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1906, socialist Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, a book he hoped would awaken the American people to the deplorable conditions of workers in the meat packing industry. Instead, the book sent the country reeling with its description of filthy, rat infested plants, suspect meats processed and sold to consumers, and corrupt government inspectors. President Roosevelt became seriously concerned by the charges brought forth by Mr. Sinclair and determined the only way to protect consumers from unscrupulous business and unsafe food was to enforce regulation.

    Read More

  • Progressive Era.

    569 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the Progressive era, consumer safety was a hot issue. In Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle, there were many disturbing things the American people learned about the meat packing industry. After people saw that their meat had dead rats and tuberculosis many did not want to buy any meat. People were disgusted by the things that they could buy without knowing what it was. This brought about stricter health codes and made the consumers have a little more peace of mind.

    Read More

  • Main Goals of The Progressive Movement

    2014 Words  | 5 Pages

    Whorton James, review of Pure Food: Securing the Pure Food and Drug Acts of 1906, by

    Read More

  • Lack of Food Safety in America

    964 Words  | 2 Pages

    To give background on the FDA and USDA for better understanding the USDA is responsible for meat and poultry, while the FDA is responsible for dairy, seafood, and vegetables. The USDA was founded in 1862 to encourage food creation in the United States (Sherrow 15). Dr. Peter Collier was the first person to suggest rules and laws for the safety of our food (Sherrow 15). Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act in 1890. The Act made the USDA inspectors inspect all pig products (Sherrow 15). In 1906 the Comprehensive Meat Inspection Act was passed. The act assigned inspectors from the UDSA to the United States’ 163 slaughter houses. In the slaughter houses the meat needed to be inspected before and after slaughter (Sherrow 15-16). The FDA is also responsible for protecting food from terrorists and anyone who wants to try to harm the public (Wilson). The FDA oversees 167,000 farms in the United States and 421,000 worldwide farms. The FDA only has 1,100 inspectors to inspect those farms (Wilson). The number of inspections done by the FDA went from 4,573 in 2005 to 3,400 in 2006 (Sherrow 34). According to the Center of Science in the Public Interest the FDA has no authority for prev...

    Read More

  • Progessives and The Pure Food and Drug Act

    859 Words  | 2 Pages

    One the key pieces of legislation that was a prime example of the progressive era, was the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. This law came about due to muckraking, and also because of public and political interests. Muckraking, such as Upton Sinclair’s piece, “The Jungle”, helped in the timing of the adoption of this legislature. This piece of legislature, allowed for the regulation of processed food items in United States food markets. The Pure Food and Drug Act was assigned to the Department of Agriculture under the Bureau of Chemistry (Law, 2004).

    Read More

  • Changes in America Between 1920 and 1960

    1408 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the beginning of the 1900’s, the country made dramatic changes toward progressivism in domestic issues. These changes were first made by President Theodore Roosevelt, who signed the Pure Foods and Drug Act of 1906. This bill was made, “For preventing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors, and for regulating traffic therein, and for other purposes.” This would help bring progressive change to many manufacturing industries that were newly developed in the late nineteenth century. These jobs were dangerous to an equal and fair way of living for the American working class and were resolved by this act.

    Read More

  • meat packing industry

    992 Words  | 2 Pages

    At the turn of the twentieth century “Muckraking” had become a very popular practice. This was where “muckrakers” would bring major problems to the publics attention. One of the most powerful pieces done by a muckraker was the book “The Jungle”, by Upton Sinclair. The book was written to show the horrible working and living conditions in the packing towns of Chicago, but what caused a major controversy was the filth that was going into Americas meat. As Sinclair later said in an interview about the book “I aimed at the publics heart and by accident hit them in the stomach.”# The meat packing industry took no responsibility for producing safe and sanitary meat.

    Read More

  • Regulation of Food Production and Decrease Contamination

    1372 Words  | 3 Pages

    This law was never passed, even though they worked for years on it. The sad thing about all of this is the incidence of people dying from contaminated food is astronomical. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates “1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases” every single year (Estimates of Foodborne Illness in the United States). The amount o...

    Read More

  • Muckrakers In The Progressive Era

    1253 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Jungle caused such an outcry that President Roosevelt tried to mandate government enforcement of sanitary and health standards in the food industry. After Congress wouldn’t pass a meat inspection bill, Roosevelt released the findings of the Neill-Reynolds report. The Neill-Reynolds’s report found that the meat packing industry was as horrendous as Sinclair claime...

    Read More

  • Bahrain Food Control Systems Review

    739 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Foodborne Illness

    2492 Words  | 5 Pages

    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)

    Read More

More about Food Safety and Its Effects on the Regulation of Agricultural Products

Open Document