Answer

Nutrition

The primary purpose of nutritional recommendations is to offer the necessary advice to the people on healthy eating behaviors in terms of what to drink or eat and in what portions. Nutritional recommendations help to prevent chronic illnesses associated with nutrition such as diabetes and cardiovascular illnesses as well as some conditions like obesity. The function of nutritional guidelines is to ensure that individuals consume foods and drinks that give energy, control chemical processes while contributing to overall body structure (National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2021). Some of problems associated with dietary guidelines include Vitamin A deficiency, maternal nutritional anemia, lactation failure and addiction to milk consumption among others.

Interpretation of a nutrition facts label starts with understanding the serving size and the total calories. Next, one must understand the daily value percentages and nutritional terms. It is important to focus on low fat saturated foods, extra sodium and sugars. MyPlate Planner is a system that shows nutritional food targets that should appear in a plate for healthy eating behavior. The purpose of MyPlate Planner is to indicate the kind of food and the calorie allowance for consumption. The function of the planner is to personalize food plans based on one’s age, weight, height, sex and physical activity level. The problem with Myplate Planner is its silence on fat.

            Consumption of contaminated drinks and foods is the cause of foodborne illness. There are various disease-causing pathogens and microbes that contaminate drinks and foods. As such, there are different types of foodborne illness including bacteria-caused foodborne illness, virus-caused illness, foodborne illness caused by parasites (CDC, 2021). Some of the foodborne illness include Campylobacteriosis, Cryptosporidiosis, Giardiasis and Norovirus infection.

            Food irradiation is a technologically advanced process of applying ionizing radiation to foods. The purpose of food irradiation is to improve food safety as well as shelf life of different foods by eliminating or reducing insects and microorganisms that contaminate foods. Food irradiation process involves exposing foods to radiation or certain portions of ionizing energy to kill potentially harmful bacteria, moulds, microorganisms and insects. The main risk of food irradiation is that the process may reduce the level of nutrients in food. For instance, it can reduce up to 25% of vitamin E in foods with this vitamin.

            Food and Drugs Administration recommends various techniques that consumers can implement to avoid foodborne illness. These techniques include checking for cleanliness of the fruits in supermarkets and grocery stores before purchase, separating certain foods such as raw meat, seafood and poultry in the buying carts. Consumers must carefully inspect jars and cans to ensure they are not damaged. It is also important to inspect packaging for frozen foods to ensure that they are not damaged. One must check on the labels to make sure that the foods on the shelf are not expired.