Early history of food regulation in the United States

The history of early food regulation in the United States started with the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, when the United States federal government began to intervene in the food and drug businesses. When that bill proved ineffective, the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt revised it into the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1937. This has set the stage for further government intervention in the food, drug and agricultural markets.

Before the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, most food oversight was mandated to state laws, which were enacted during the colonial days and served mainly trade interests. They set standards of weight, and "provided for inspections of exports like salt meats, fish and flour". In 1848, the first national law concerned with regulating food come out of the Mexican–American War, and "banned the importation of adulterated drugs".Food inspection was largely thought to be the duty of the consumer, not the government.

With the advent of modern machinery, food production (especially grain) moved forward at an alarming pace. For example, the “canning line” increased the efficiency of canning foods in an industrial setting. An 1886 report by the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics claimed that “New machinery has displaced fully 50 percent of the muscular labor formerly required to do a given amount of work”. Because of these improvements to agriculture, packaged cereals and canned foods became popular. Synthetic medicines (made in labs instead of natural medicines) and chemicals that altered the growing and processing of food began to appear.

Processed food was more easily transported, thanks to improvements in transportation.Chemical additives were used to "heighten color, modify flavor, soften texture, deter spoilage, and even transform ... apple scraps, glucose, coal-tar dye, and timothy seed" into a "strawberry jam". However, for these new products, there was no regulation and manufacturers were able to put whatever ingredients they wanted in products like “tonics” without having to list them. Products were often labeled and packaged to appear larger than they were, or packaged to appear to have a higher concentration of food.

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