The necessity of monitoring edibles through food safety laws.

Without food, survival is impossible for any living thing, and the same is applicable for us: humans. Food is what makes us healthy, strong, and able to fight the other harmful elements. Thus, food should be available to us in its natural or organic state. Any food that is contaminated with preservatives, pesticides or any other chemicals for commercial purpose is not considered as organic food. The food has already been tampered with and it is processed to make it stay fresh longer or have an extended shelf life. But all these can be dangerous for the end consumers, because there might be cases where the set limit for use of such chemicals is surpassed and hence the food becomes poisonous. For such reasons, different organizations and independent bodies have come forward to set up food safety laws, to ensure that the general public is shielded from such chemically altered food, which causes more harm than good. It the set up to ensure that food is available in its organic state, free of all manmade additives, so that the general public gets access to food that is safe, healthy, with all its nutritional values intact. It is the responsibility of these governing bodies to carry out the vital function of checking whether the food that is being sold to the public are conforming to the set standards of food safety and act accordingly. WHO or World Health Organization is the most influential organization in this regard that is responsible for creating the food safety standards. It also looks after the enforcement of these standards and decides the penalties for non compliance. There are other organizations too, like the US Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, etc. and also some regional and state groups which are the notable organizations that acts as a vanguard when it comes to food safety laws and its implementations throughout the nation. The main aim of these organizations is to make sure that the food that the general public buys for consumption is in its safest possible state. Food handling, food labeling, food refrigeration and method of transportation are all covered by food safety law. It is also under the purview of this law to decide when and why a food should be declared to be unsafe, and to be discarded. It also looks after the interests of the manufacturers and farmers who sometimes find it difficult to adhere to the terms and conditions set by the food laws. It is upon the law, to see that no health hazard is created by unscrupulous use of any man made additive and that there is no risk to the wellbeing of the consumers resulting from food manufactured or produced by the farmers. The responsibility of this ultimately lies with the safety laws to monitor the firms or organizations which has produced and packaged or supplied the food. As with all laws and regulations, there are loopholes here also in food safety law. The inspection process though strict cannot cover all the areas and hence there can be gaps in the process. At state level only, a food inspector should ensure that the food he or she is checking should be meeting all the standards set by the safety laws. Then only it should be declared that the food is safe enough for consumption. If this is stringently followed then there are fewer chances of gaps or loopholes. It is also necessary to inform and adequately train all the different people involved in food production, manufacturing, packaging, transporting, storing and selling to ensure that they understand the processes and checkpoints of the safety laws so that there can be fresh and healthy produce in the market.