The FDA is a United States government body that decides whether food, medicines, medical devices, and some other products are safe enough to sell there. It says which chemicals may go into food, which new drugs may be sold, and what must be written on the packet or bottle. It does not cook the food or invent the medicine; it checks, licenses, and can force a company to take something off the shelves. The letters stand for Food and Drug Administration — and “administration” here means a government agency, not “giving someone a pill.” Though actually its power is American: a snack that is fine in Taiwan is not automatically legal in the US, and the other way round. People stretch the name a lot, saying “FDA-approved” as if it meant “safe everywhere,” even for things the FDA never looked at. You see the letters on US labels, in news about drugs, and in science class; it is formal and almost always written as FDA, not said in full.