Salmonella scares, tainted baby formula, the FDA says now it's more important then ever to know where your food comes from and thanks to a new federal regulation food manufactures and grocery stores will be required to put country of origin labels on some food products.

Until recently the only products that required a country of origin label, or cool for short, were wild and farm raised seafood and shell fish. Now the recently enacted farm bill of 2008 expands that list.

Beef, pork, lamb and goat meat now fall into that category. Also listed,
fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables . Some more items on the list; peanuts, pecans, ginseng and macadamia nuts and with the recent scare from salmonella tainted peppers from Mexico consumers are looking for ways to protect themselves.

Individually packaged items like these chicken thighs will have to have a label but here is where the confusion comes in, items that have things added to them are considered processed and don't require a label. For those items that are not labeled, grocery stores have six months to start labeling them or have their suppliers slap on the new sticker.

Small butcher shops, restaurants and school cafeterias are exempt from the new law.