What’s on Your Plate: Food quality in the United States is becoming increasingly worse, and everyone should be concerned

My sister was sick for days.

No matter how much water she drank, medication she took or how many nutritious foods she ate, her stomach had been in excruciating pain.

After investigating what my sister had eaten prior to her illness, my parents and I suspected this sudden and mysterious stomach virus could’ve only come from one source — the Caesar salad she ate for dinner on Friday night a few hours before her stomach began to toss and turn.

Although this case of food poisoning sounds like any other, just a week before both my parents had dealt with nearly the same symptoms, which they felt after eating veggie rolls from our nearby grocery store.

Once I realized that all my family members had dealt with a gnarly case of food poisoning within a week of each other, my overpowering fear of getting food poisoning kicked in.

Since then, whether on the news, TikTok or Instagram, I’ve noticed the increasing number of food recalls that have affected the United States. Whether it’s listeria, E. coli, salmonella, or other dangers, food safety has declined in the past few years.

Although I don’t consider myself a health freak, I think everyone should be concerned about the quality of their food. It’s disgusting to think of the hundreds of thousands of pounds of produce, meat, poultry, dairy products and other foods that have been recalled.

According to FoodSaftey.gov, a food recall occurs when the government removes a food product from the market due to the possibility of contamination or mislabeling. Although most people think recalls mean deadly viruses in their food, they could also be due to a missing ingredient on the package or even the illegal importation of specific products.

In just the past few months, 24,870 pounds of frozen chicken and cheese taquito products were recalled because they contained metal, and a whopping 167,277 pounds of ground beef products were recalled due to potential E. coli contamination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

I still can’t comprehend why this happens and why the U.S. government hasn’t figured out how to prevent such extensive recalls.

Approximately one in six U.S. citizens suffer yearly from a foodborne illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means 48 million people in America will suffer from the lack of food safety in 2025, which will only get worse with less regulation and the food industry’s prioritization of quantity over quality.

For way too long, I thought food recalls were just something to ignore when, in fact, they point to a much larger problem — the United States food regulations.

According to the National Library of Medicine, not only are food safety laws not always up to date on new food science and ingredients, but no single federal organization oversees and helps manage food safety efforts.

This means that although several organizations oversee specific food group regulations, the United States doesn’t have a single particular entity to help ensure our food is safe and regulated.

Although regulations could be much better in the United States, we are taking some steps in the right direction.

Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned the use of red dye No. 3, which scientists have found causes cancer in animals. However, this should have happened much sooner. These links to cancer in animals were discovered years ago, so food bans are still extremely slow, even in 2025.

The United States needs to figure out how to help stop the constant recalls, which have only become more frequent. Instead of focusing on banning apps or on political drama, our government should invest in more food research, create an administration that can oversee all food regulations, or simply start banning foods known to cause health problems.

I would be lying if I said the lack of food safety would prevent me from eating fast food or a good Caesar salad. However, I’ll will be much more cautious about what I buy and how frequently I check the Food Recalls & Alerts, which begs the question:

How safe is the food we eat every day?