Food
1. The American food industry produces enough food to satisfy every American’s caloric intake twice over. With this abundance of food, the industry wouldn’t suffer, but Americans would greatly benefit, if business standards increased the transparency of food marketing. Take the organic food trend for example. I’m located in Tennessee, and most organic food available to me comes from California. Marketing for organic food portrays it to be good for the environment and good for your body. However if it must be shipped from California to Tennessee, then the carbon emissions from shipping alone negate the environmental benefits. Then there’s the fact that the days it took to ship here drained many of the nutrients out of the food which would have benefited me. The better alternative? Buy local food. It not only would help the entire environment, but help my local economy. This is just one example of how business practices in the food marketing sector could improve.

2. It must be written into law that on every shift in any establishment serving food, whether mobile or fixed, at least one person, preferably the manager if one exists, be ServSafe certified.

3. ServSafe testing should be broken up into several sections. A person working at a Taco Bell for example needs to know very little about seafood, yet in order to be ServSafe certified, a great deal of the test goes forth into seafood. Or a person working the concession stand at a movie theater needs to know mostly about hot dogs, popcorn, drinks, and candy, yet ServSafe training donates little time to this. Each ServSafe section should follow along the type of food found in the relevant establishment. This way the food preparer knows more about the particular food he or she is working with.

4. Foods which are generally accepted as unhealthy should
be taken out of schools. (sodas, candy, and so on) Trans fat should also be eliminated from schools. All marketing for unhealthy foods, particularly on the 12-minute news program many American students must watch at school everyday, should be eliminated.

5. Universal healthcare should include nutrition plans customized to a person’s unique needs and wants, with free recipes made available to them.

6. No special tax should incurred on unhealthy food unless the voters absolutely demand it. American businesses must be able to generate a profit, and it’s up to consumers to decide their own habits; however the information given to them should be as accurate as possible.

7. A few major urban areas are experimenting with saving the leftover food from restaurants. Food safety should always be top concern; however tons of perfectly good food are thrown away every hour in restaurants. It would only take two or three trucks to meet the hunger needs of thousands of homeless Americans everyday. This should be put into place starting with New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Washington D.C., Houston, and several small cities in order to be tinkered with and perfected before being put into operation on a larger level.

8. Nowhere near enough long-term research has been done in genetically-altered food. This causes consumers to be leery enough not to purchase it. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must push this forward.

9. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is incredibly underfunded, understaffed, and unorganized. The responsibilties which fall under the FDA’s jurisdiction have piled up year after year while funding has remained flat. The retention rate of employees in the FDA is only half that of other government agencies. The FDA requested $2.1 billion for 2008. That fund should be placed at $20 billion for the first year in order to work out the huge demands placed upon the FDA. Look at nearly anything in the pharmacy aisle and you’ll see, "This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA." Innovation in the food and drug industry can’t move forward until we’re sure of certain claims, and a MASSIVE backlog of ideas is in need of evaluation by the FDA. The entire culture of the FDA must change. Corporate influence over the FDA must come to an end. Our society must catch up with our technolongy.