From like 1904-1906 Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to show how the happily non-regulated meat market was running behind the scenes. The result was America saw a huge decline in red meat consumption. There's a moral standing at f not letting other humans be treated that way, but more to the point, people got a peek on how their meat was processed and packaged in terms of sanitation and food safety. The contents of the novel were confirmed by a third party investigation. It led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug act in 1906, which laid the groundwork for the FDA a couple decades later.

So yes. The government absolutely should be involved in food. We've had them involved for the past, oh, century or so and it's why you can buy ground beef with the basic assumption that it won't make you sick.