The Fda: Food and Drug Regulation

The FDA: Food and Drug Regulation:

It consists of laws and organizations designed to ensure the rights of consumers as well as fair trade competition and the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), an agency of the federal government, is in charged with monitoring food and drug safety. About one third of its nearly $2 billion budget is devoted to food safety, sanitation, and processing. One third of the budget is devoted to the study on the quality of marketed drugs and new drug evaluation.

FOOD SAFETY:

Is a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness. This includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potentially severe health hazards. The Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) is the public health agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture responsible for ensuring that the nation's commercial supply of meat, poultry, and egg products is safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the federal agency that is responsible for overseeing most of the U.S. food supply. FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by ensuring the safety and security of our nation’s food supply; this is a vital part of FDA's mission and a primary task of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN).

FDA and USDA STANDARDS and INSPECTIONS:

Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C) was passed by Congress in 1938 giving authority to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to oversee the safety of food, drugs, and cosmetics. The U.S. FDA is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is responsible for the safety regulation of most types of foods, dietary supplements, drugs, vaccines, biological medical products, blood products, medical devices, radiation-emitting devices, veterinary products, and cosmetics.

NUTRITION LABELING:

FDA's Food Labeling program develops policy and regulations for dietary supplements, nutrition labeling and food standards, infant formula and medical foods. Food labeling is required for most prepared foods, such as breads, cereals, canned and frozen foods, snacks, desserts, drinks, etc. Nutrition labeling for raw produce (fruits and vegetables) and fish is voluntary. They refer to these products as "conventional" foods.

NUTRIENTS BY SERVING SIZE:

The FDA publishes tables of foods and their serving sizes, which can be found in the Code of Federal Regulations. FDA regulations list over 100 categories for food, from soup to nuts, whose nutrients must be listed by standard serving size. The following must be listed per serving portion on nutrition labels:

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