Regulation Benefits<\/strong>: Food is safer, healthier, better-quality.<\/p>\n Regulation Negatives<\/strong>: limit choices, restrict freedoms, and ultimately drive up costs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Consumers don’t trust food companies to self-regulate, but also don’t trust government to act in best\u00a0interest. Only 1 in 4 of consumers surveyed by SHS trust the government\u00a0to act in their best interest, and 45 percent said\u00a0they cannot trust food manufacturers to self-regulate.<\/p>\n Seventy-three percent of consumers agree with the statement, “I\u00a0should take the initiative to learn about my food rather than trusting food manufacturers and government\u00a0agencies.”<\/p>\n The people surveyed by SHS were fairly evenly split on their thoughts about the current amount of food regulation by the government.<\/p>\n Organic consumers and Millennials<\/a><\/strong> are more likely to\u00a0support more government regulation. Bad cooks and those\u00a0living in urban communities are more likely to feel the\u00a0current amount of government regulation is enough.\u00a0Gen-Xers and those living in small cities or rural areas are more likely to feel the government already\u00a0has too many restrictions on food.<\/p>\n Seventy-five percent of consumers surveyed said they strongly approved of\u00a0requiring nutritional information on food packaging,\u00a0and 66 percent said they would support adding\u00a0nutritional information to restaurant menus.<\/p>\n Sixty-five percent of consumers think food packaging should\u00a0include labels for GMOs, and 64 percent of consumers feel school lunch healthiness should be regulated.<\/p>\n Only 47 percent of consumers support banning trans\u00a0fats<\/a><\/strong>, and a quarter or less of consumers support taxing high-fat foods, restricting restaurant soda size or restricting restaurant portion size.<\/p>\n Sixty percent of consumers feel government regulation\u00a0makes food products safer, while 29 percent feel it\u00a0makes food products more affordable<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Forty-one percent of consumers agree with the statement, “If a\u00a0company is allowed to sell a food product, I assume\u00a0it’s safe to eat.”<\/p>\n Ultimately, it seems that consumers are asking the government to give some guidance to the food industry, as long as the guidance doesn’t eliminate consumers’ ability to make their own choices about what they eat.<\/p>\n Also Read:<\/strong><\/p>\n Why Do (or Don’t) We Eat Healthy Food?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n What Do Americans Eat? Kale, Gluten-Free, and Organics Top 2026 Food Trends<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Highly Evolved: The New Grocery Shopper is Savvy, Cavalier and Frugal<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Images from Sullivan Higdon & Sink, Regulation Nation<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The question of whether or not the government should\u00a0regulate the food industry seems like a simple one, but\u00a0it’s really an incredibly complex topic. Variables like\u00a0price, availability, variety of offerings, and quality of products are all involved. Also, there’s the issue … Continue reading ![\"regulation](\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/regulation-pros-and-cons.jpg\")
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