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FDA Regulations

Defect action levels have been a part of the food industry for nearly a century. The first established defect action level was created in 1911 for mold in tomato pulp. However, limits for insect fragments and larvae were not added until the 1920s on various fruits and vegetables. In 1938, the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act was established to provide a more defined reference based on strict limitations and methods.

Major companies spend a large amount of money every year to aid in the prevention of food contamination. Most of these dollars are well-spent and do, in fact, prevent food from becoming contaminated on a large scale; however, many "defects" are found in consumers' meals on a daily basis. The Food and Drug Administration states, “it is economically impractical to grow, harvest, or process raw products that are totally free of nonhazardous, naturally occurring, unavoidable defects”.

The general public proposes that companies should use more chemicals or pesticides to control this “problem”, though the amount of pesticide and chemicals necessary to eradicate all insects from foodstuff would pose a threat to any human’s health, much more harmful than a controlled quantity of insect and rodent fragments. The food defect action levels, as proposed by the FDA, is a list of ordinances and guidelines by which manufacturers and industrial food agencies must abide to ensure the safe service of foodstuff. However, these detection levels are labeled with maximum limitations only. Due to the impossibility of preventing all unavoidable defects in foods, the FDA attempts to prevent these health hazards from reaching a harmful level. Therefore, it is understood and regarded that all manufactures are allowed to have low numbers of insect and rodent hairs present in food, as long as the product is still considered “safe” for human consumption.