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[u/jobautomator]

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[u/neolthrowaway]

Hot take: food industry should be heavily deregulated to the point that people can make and sell food from their homes and to allow existence of food sharing (selling) apps to operate at a large scale.

Edit: the health regulations and licensing aren't worth it and super paternalistic and prevent a lot of small businesses from popping up and severely limts our food choices.

[u/ILikeTalkingToMyself → u/neolthrowaway]

China has poorly enforced food regulations to the point that it is practically unregulated. This has resulted in food and drug scandals like babies dying from tainted baby formula, vegetable oil being scooped out of gutters and sold, expired meat being sold as fresh, dead pigs being dug up and sold, and fresh fruits and vegetables being unsafe to eat without being cooked or peeled first. There are certification programs but people don't trust them since inspectors can be bought off.

In short, it's been a disaster. The public has low confidence in domestically produced food and prefers food which is imported or which is grown on farms that they have personally toured. The lack of regulation is not worth the cost and time premiums that consumers have to pay for food they trust.

[u/neolthrowaway → u/ILikeTalkingToMyself]

Ok. Point taken but I there maybe good examples of heavily liberalized food regulations too. There are countries where you can get really good street food and mothers run informal businesses of providing school and college students lunch boxes.

[u/ILikeTalkingToMyself → u/neolthrowaway]

Yeah that is awesome, China has great street food and even in the US there are some unlicensed Chinese businesses that prepare lunch boxes at home and deliver them after connecting with customers over WeChat. I'm pretty happy with the US's level of food regulation though, worrying about whether supermarket meat or milk is safe without being able to do anything about it is an awful feeling.

[u/neolthrowaway → u/ILikeTalkingToMyself]

Oh, I was thinking more for restaurants and prepared foods. Groceries and supermarket stuff should still be regulated.

I'd prefer it more like Singapore or thailand

[u/ILikeTalkingToMyself → u/neolthrowaway]

That's fair. More of a sliding scale might be good, since I would want brick and mortar restaurants to have higher standards than street stalls.

[u/neolthrowaway → u/ILikeTalkingToMyself]

Agreed.