The punitive damages system of American food safety mainly points to the premise of subjective viciousness, the jury's discretion according to the actual loss and viciousness, and the setting of punitive damages ceiling. By observing and examining the punitive damages system for food safety in the United States, some issues in the current punitive damages system for Chinese food safety in China need to be urgently solved, such as neglecting subjective vicious evaluation, rigid calculation method of punitive damages, and excessive upper limit multiple of compensation. In this regard, we can optimize and construct the food safety punitive damages system in China from the following aspects, i.e., establishing a punitive damages subject determination system based on subjective viciousness, and elastic punitive damages amount calculation system based on the principle of loss compensation, and setting an upper limit of punitive damages amount.