Food Control Laws
Austria has very strict laws regulating its food and drink industry. Every single piece of meat is quality-controlled and registered even when it is hunted game. The same strict rules are in place for milk and cheese. The Ministry for Agriculture and the Gesundheitsamt (Department of Health) regulate industry and farmers to make ensure the high quality level of food products, including assuring the quality of the international "made in Austria" brand.
Austrian consumers are typically suspicious of meat of foreign origin in particular, following the scare over BSE. Organically produced goods are also in high demand, and the Austrian government has introduced additional quality standards with stricter rules, such as BIO or AMA-Gütesiegel. A new standard is "Genfrei" or "Gentechnikfrei" meaning the food is free of Genetically Modified ingredients (GMO).
Following a 1985 scandal in which it was revealed that some Austrian wine had been adulterated (sweetened) with diethylene glycol (a type of antifreeze), the government introduced strict quality controls and now Austrian wine is renowned for its quality.
Read more about this topic: Austrian Cuisine
Famous quotes containing the words food, control and/or laws:
“Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 3:11.
John the Baptist.
“We human beings do have some genuine freedom of choice and therefore some effective control over our own destinies. I am not a determinist. But I also believe that the decisive choice is seldom the latest choice in the series. More often than not, it will turn out to be some choice made relatively far back in the past.”
—A.J. (Arnold Joseph)
“We agree fully that the mother and unborn child demand special consideration. But so does the soldier and the man maimed in industry. Industrial conditions that are suitable for a stalwart, young, unmarried woman are certainly not equally suitable to the pregnant woman or the mother of young children. Yet “welfare” laws apply to all women alike. Such blanket legislation is as absurd as fixing industrial conditions for men on a basis of their all being wounded soldiers would be.”
—National Woman’s Party, quoted in Everyone Was Brave. As, ch. 8, by William L. O’Neill (1969)