The government needs to do more

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When it comes to the food industry, the government has not really done a lot to help it, or at least not enough.  State and local governments are years ahead of the federal government when it comes to the healthiness of foods, what certain foods do to your body, etc.  This is not good for the health of americans because common citizens do not have the knowledge on foods and healthy eating that they should have.  Jill Filipovic, a NY attorney and writer for Cosmopolitan’s online blog, wrote more about the lack of effort the government has been making to educate citizens on the unhealthy ness of certain foods in her article titled “To save Americans' health, government must intervene in food industry.”  The government should provide the common citizens with more knowledge on healthy and unhealthy foods, as well as be more involved in the industry by adding more health and safety regulations.

In the article, the author starts it out by talking about how the food industry has to rely on the industry for it to regulate itself, and not the government.  The government has not intervened in the food industry for decades.  While there are government programs that try to regulate the safety, cleanliness, and other aspects of the industry, their involvement is not nearly where Jill Polivic says it should be.  The government implemented food safety standards as a part of the Food Safety Modernization Act in 2011, which was the last piece of government involvement we have seen or heard about.  The last time before 2011 in which the food industry has had the government step in was decades ago.  Although the government implemented new standards when it comes to safety, none of the new implemented regulations were anything new to restaurants and kitchens across the country.  It did not affect how the industry worked and the changes were not major at all.

Another thing that the government is lacking is knowledge.  As a part of the their safety act in 2011, they touched on the unhealthiness of trans fats.  While this is good news that trans fats will be regulated and used less, it is scary to think that for as long as the state governments, local governments, and common citizens have known that trans fats are so unhealthy for you that the federal government is only doing something about it now.  Scientists have even proved trans fats caused heart attacks and heart failures, and statisticians have claimed that a ban on trans fats could prevent 7000-20000 deaths annually.  With this type of knowledge being common knowledge, it is astounding as to how the government has not done anything about it, especially when it could save lives and prevent heart attacks.  While it is easy to say that the government needs to do this and that, we really should be thinking of specifics things that they could implement.  With that being said, some of the things I think the government should look further into could be gluten free diets, superfoods such as kale, wheatgrass, quinoa, etc.  Also food supplements that could be in pill form or tablet form but are filled with vitamins, minerals, omega 3s, etc.