Is the FDA really looking out for our best interest?

Question

They approve food and drugs for human consumption but I think we would all be healthier if we would stop selling processed and chemically altered foods. If they didn't exist we wouldn't have any choice but to eat healthier whole foods. Does anyone else see my point?

Answer 1

One other interesting fact is that the bulk of the people working for the FDA retire and go to work for the drug companies, you know the saying "don't bite the hand that feeds you"

Answer 2

Of course not. The FDA is a government organization and as such is charged with protecting the well being of the country not necessarily, the individual citizens. Sometimes this means bowing to big business pressures. Sometimes it means banning a drug that is potentially helpful because of the extreme risk of adverse side effects. The intentions of the FDA are to help safeguard the citizens, but that's just not what any government organizations really does. They are all self serving and work to preserve the bureaucracy.

As for the food specific part of the question, it should never be the governments place to tell us what we can and can't eat unless it is intrinsically dangerous. The foods you speak of are not dangerous in moderation or when eaten in conjunction with an overall healthy lifestyle. Only when taken to extremes are they intrinsically dangerous...

Answer 3

The FDA mostly makes sure the food you eat won't make you sick and that it's not contaminated. The real problem is not the FDA, which is vastly overworked, but popular culture. People WANT to eat trash, because it's tasty and easy to fix. Certainly the FDA is not preventing you from making all your own meals with fresh ingredients. Most people won't. What do you see ads on tv for: real foods, or the "Real Thing, baby"? Have you noticed how advertising makes Coke "real", when it's a completely artificial concoction of chemicals and sugar?

Answer 4

There's a lot of corruption in the FDA right now. I work for a medical company that makes surgical equipment. They have set their limits though. They are very strict, and they make sure no one dies with our products. The FDA does pay a lot of attention of stuff that can kill people instantly, but the FDA curruption exists on drug companies. The FDA has given in to corruption, they've made it a trend on approving stuff that can really do harm to people in the long term.

Answer 5

i'd like to see them stop selling chemically altered/processed foods. i've thought about that. aside from free radicals, and the natural aging process, i think all of the chemicals in our foods cause our bodies to break down faster. imagine how much the rates of heart disease and other major killers would drop if we had natural foods. many cultures that still hunt their own foods or eat much less processed foods than we do have lower illness rates and not necessarily longer life spans, but a better quality life. good question.

Answer 6

The FDA is trying to make sure that drug companies don't sell medicines that can kill you outright, but I wouldn't say that they have our best intrests at heart. We should all eat less processed foods, more fruit and raw vegetables and no trans-fatty acids.