Animal Food Regulation

F.D.A. Bids to Regulate Animal Food, Acting After Recall and Deaths

New York Times- October 25, 2013

1.   http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/26/health/fda-moves-to-regulate-food-for-animals.html?hp&_r=0

2.   Category of Issue: Health / Food

3.   Level of Issue: National

4.   The article is concerning a potential policy that is being considered to help a problem/issue that individuals/families face

5.   This article is important to individuals/families because of the food we eat each day. Foodborne illnesses could decrease significantly if we regulated the food that our food consumes.

6.   Being a Nutrition major, I cannot even count the amount of time I have had to watch Food, Inc., a documentary which discusses the types of food that are being fed to animals. Even cows have been trained to eat corn because it is a cheaper source of food for the animals. Just because it is cheaper, does not mean it is ok! Although there are strict regulations in place in order to keep the food we consume safe, there aren’t really any regulations in place for the food in which our food eats. As stated in the article, foodborne illnesses could be decreased significantly by these tighter restrictions. In addition for the farm animals to be taken care of a little better, so would our family pets. In this proposed bill, tighter regulations will also occur for pet food and treats. There have been many cases where pets have died or become extremely sick due to a foodborne disease found in their food and treats, jerky being a specific source. People do not often consider what goes into the food we provide for our pets and they should. They are living animals, just like us and deserve to have a good diet as well. As weary as I am about any type of government regulations, I do believe it is important for the food that both humans and animals consume is tightly regulated. Too many foodborne illnesses and deaths have occurred do to a lack of regulation in this area.