Yes, I am not from US so yes for US in Europe is fair to have this kind of rules and taxes on things that are bad for health like cigarettes and alcohol
You think that allowing poor people to buy and eat expired and spoiled food is a good idea? You would get an epidemic and pay at least 10 times more and one person eating bad stuff could infect an entire village, so I disagree we should allow selling bad food, the companies would find ways to sell rotten flesh if it was legal and they would make some cool commercials and packaging for it.
The very fact that a company makes a cool commercial is a signal that they are willing to invest a lot of money to make their brand known. From there, people can infer that they won't just make their customers sick, change their name and ___location to escape the bad reputation, and do the same thing again somewhere else.
Poor people sell food to each other all the time without formal credentials, certifications, inspections and so on. Since they sell to each other, locally, to people who know them, they will only make each other sick on accident. And if someone has lots of accidents people will switch to a better cook. The amount of food poisoning will increase, but not to epidemic levels.