Food safety has been put on the frontline in the United States of America. From the novel “the Jungle” unhygienic practices were one of the common practices which were across United dates meat industry. As a result, Nations put in place some food safety legislation to minimize the increased food-borne illness. However, despite the considerable progress in legislation, food-borne illness remained a significant problem to the United States of America. In 2011, the food safety modernization act, which is currently one of the most regulatory updates in the United States (Drew & Clydesdale, 2015) . In 2015, the Modernization Act was not yet implemented. The main aim of the Act was to attempt to address gaps with respect to industry practices, oversight, and regulations. As a result of delayed implementation, it is evident that more than 48 million United States citizens become sick as a result of unsafe food. Therefore, to have food safety state, it is necessary to have the disciplined handling of food, preparation, and storage. In the United States of America, there are several organizations that have come up to fight the issues of food-borne illness which has for the past 10 years killed many Americas (Drew & Clydesdale, 2015) . The paper will, therefore, discuss the cause of food-borne illness, the preventions measures and also discuss the role played by United States government to keep food safe in the United States of America.
From the report of the center for disease control and Prevention (CDC), it is evident that one out of six America citizens gets sick. Additionally, there are more than one hundred and twenty-eight thousand (128,000) other Americans who are hospitalized and another three thousand (3000) die as a result of food-borne diseases each year (Lang & Heasman, 2015) . The signs and symptoms of the food-borne disease can be detected and consumers can be treated if they are noted early enough. These signs include upset stomach, abdominal cramps, nausea, and vomiting fever among others. Contaminated food can affect anyone who eats it; however, the severity of the illness is different from population to another. It is, therefore, necessary to understand how food becomes unsafe to eat in order to prevent food-borne illness. Besides, it significant to understand prevention measures to keep food safe for consumption. There are at least four factors that lead to food-borne illness to occur.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
One of the influencing factors of food-borne illness is demographic. As discussed earlier, everyone can be affected by contaminated earlier but the severity of the illness is different. More precisely, the risk of contaminated food is increasing as the population ages. As a result, people with poor immune systems like infants, young children, pregnant women and the elderly are highly affected by unsafe food. Another influencing factor is the consumer lifestyle and demand (Drew & Clydesdale, 2015) . As most of the people are busy, they end up eating food on the run. As a result, they spend less than the required time to prepare their foods, prefer restaurants or even ready food. Typically, this means that maybe by the time they eat their foods; it may have been, transported, cooked, cooled and stored. This process again will for a reheating of the food to seal to the final consumers. As a result, each processing step brings in a new hazard that may lead to the growth of pathogens which cause food-borne illness. Evidently, in 2015, two out of three Americas ate their meals away from home which may have pathogens as a result of many processes involved before the final customer.
Food production and economics is another influencing factor to contaminated food diseases. A few decades ago, the outbreaks of food-borne illnesses were rare and could be back to the local events. Today food is produced in a different way from how it was produced back then. Food used to be grown and produced on the local basis. The same food was used at the local centers where it was consumers fresh. Currently, food production is centralized and products are shipped all over the nations as well as the world. As a result, any mistake made in processing will be felt national wide instead of only the local. The way farmers raise their animals can also be an influence food-borne illness. For example, crowding a large group of animals’ together increased their stress, therefore, weakening their immune systems (Drew & Clydesdale, 2015) . This overcrowding also facilitates the spread of diseases.
New and evolving pathogen is another factor than influence unsafe food. Five decades ago, the scientist had identified four food-borne pathogens (Drew & Clydesdale, 2015) . Currently, there are over twenty pathogens. Since pathogens are living organisms, they are constantly evolving. It is therefore important for scientists in the United States to trace outbreaks. Some pathogens in hamburger disease were present in ground beef, milk, apple cider, raw milk, and lettuce.
In addition, there are biological hazards which are involved in food-borne illness. These include viruses, bacteria, and parasites. Bacteria and virus are the main cause of biological hazard that is connected with contaminated food diseases. These hazards are inherent in the production process or due to poor storage and mishandling. Besides, there are chemical hazards which include natural toxins. Most natural toxins are as a result of the food itself since some food like mushrooms, PSP in Molluscan shellfish are made pathogens (Lang & Heasman, 2015) . Food allergens are also a chemical hazard. This is because some people are affected by proteins in foods. Nevertheless, there are physical hazards which can involve metal shaving from packaging cans and broken glasses.
Despite the many causes of food-borne illness, there are steps to keep food safe. One of the steps is to clean. There should be a thorough washing of the hands and the food contact surfaces. Effective cleaning removes soil and debris, scrubbing with hot soapy water. There should be sanitizing using high heat to reduce the number of microorganisms. Cleaning should be followed by separation to prevent cross-contamination (Lang & Heasman, 2015) . This is to avoid the transfer of harmful bacteria from uncooked food products, kitchen, and unclean people. Separation should be followed by thorough cooking of the food product. This should be ensured through the use of a thermometer to verify the correct temperature is reached for each food product. Lastly, there should be chill foods promptly as since cool temperatures slow the growth of harmful bacteria.
There are several United States government agencies that play a significant role in preventing food-borne illness. One of the agencies is the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) (Fortin, 2016) . This agency is an American body which is role is to transform the United States food safety systems. This is through shifting the focus from responding to food-borne illness to preventing it. As a result, FDA has set rules to implement the agency to enable it to ensure that safety of food supply is shared responsibly and its rules are to take actions to anybody violating the rules. The regulations became effective in December 2003.
Another government agency is the current good manufacturing practices (CGMPs). This is an agency that is responsible for safe food production in the United States. Through the CGMPs, food in the United States is produced using the prescribed procedure. This ensures that the food products meet the required standards and have good packaging and storage. Additionally, through the agency, food safety has been increased in the United States as a result of proper handling of food products since it avoids growth of pathogens and contaminations of the food products. CGMPs do that through clear inspection of production firms from raw materials to the finished food product.
Hazard analysis and the critical control point is another US government agency. HACCP is a management system which food safety is addressed through the analysis and control of biological, chemical and physical hazards. HACCP analyses food safety of raw materials, production, procurement, handling, manufacturing, distribution, and consumption of finished food products (Fortin, 2016) . The agency is broad and deals with dairy grade, juice, retail food services, seafood among others.
The United States of America is one of the most developed nations in the world. It has the stable economy and most people earn some good income. However, there are some serious issues in the United States of America which have affected its citizens. Food safety is one of the major challenges which the states have experienced for several decades. Due to unsafe food utilization in the United States, reliable sources say that the nation losses three thousand people every year and over forty-eight million people get sick as a result of unsafe food. Food-borne illness in the United States is influenced by demographic, economic and lifestyle, and food production. These are factors which catalyze the physical, chemical and biological causes of food-borne illness. As a result of increased cases of unsafe food deaths and diseases, the United States of America government has worked closely with the agency to ensure that the cases of food-borne illness are done away with. The steps are proper cleaning of food products, separation, thorough cooking and proper storage. Some of the agencies which play significant roles to prevent food-borne illness include Hazard analysis and critical control point HACCP, FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and current good manufacturing practices (CGMPs) (Fortin, 2016) .
References
Drew, C. A., & Clydesdale, F. M. (2015). New food safety law: effectiveness on the ground. Critical reviews in food science and nutrition , 55 (5), 689-700.
Fortin, N. D. (2016). Food regulation: law, science, policy, and practice : John Wiley & Sons.
Lang, T., & Heasman, M. (2015). Food wars: the global battle for mouths minds and markets : Routledge.
