The Food Safety
and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the United
States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is
responsible for ensuring that meat, poultry and
egg products are safe, wholesome, and
accurately labeled. FSIS enforces the Federal
Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products
Inspection Act, and the Egg Products Inspection
Act, which require the federal inspection of
meat and poultry products prepared for
distribution in commerce for use as human
food.
The Labeling and Consumer
Protection office of FSIS develops policies and
inspection methods and administers programs to
protect consumers from misbranded and
economically adulterated meat, poultry, and egg
products. The purpose of the office's
activities is to ensure that all labels are
truthful and not misleading. Labeling includes
all forms of product identification, claims,
net weight, species identification and
nutrition related to meat, poultry and egg
products.
An important label for meat
safety is the safe handling label. This label
was created to educate consumer on proper
handling of meat and poultry products. It
highlights the steps of refrigeration,
separating raw meat and poultry products from
other foods and cleaning thoroughly and cooking
thoroughly and keeping them at the correct
temperature(s).

Another important
label is the date label. Although there is no
uniform or universally accepted system used for
food dating in the United States, a label could
contain information such as cooking
instructions, calendar dates and/or
weight.
Dating, however is not
required by Federal regulations. For more
information, click
here.

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