TOPIC: Convenience foods will become increasingly prevalent and eventually replace traditional foods and traditional methods of food preparation? To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
With the development of modern lifestyle, convenience foods have become very popular with people. Some people believe that the increasing prevalence of such foods will pose a threat to the availability of traditional cuisine and methods of cooking in the future. Personally, I completely disagree with this view.
The first reason lies in the concern about health. In order to improve convenience foods’ taste and palatability, food manufacturers often add artificial preservatives and other unhealthy ingredients. In addition, processed foods are laden with saturated fat, sugar, and sodium without providing much nutritional value. If consumed too regularly, such foods can quickly lead to serious health problems, for instance, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancers, and strokes. In fact, a pre-packed food meal contains 300 to 400kcal, even up to 1000kcal, while the figure for children’s needs reached just around 100kcal. A survey in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in 2015 indicated that the number of primary children getting overweight has increased four times over the period of seven years.
Moreover, the reason for traditional cooking method’s survival is that traditional dishes represent a nation’s lifelong cultural values. Special occasions such as weddings, Christmas and New Year Festivals are marked by conventional foods. Take Vietnamese Chung cake as an example. Chung cake is the traditional dish prepared before Tet festival for about 3 days and eaten on New Year’s Eve to wish a good luck for the coming year. It is an indispensable dish in every household on Tet holiday. Without this food, the festival’s traditional features might fade away over time.
In conclusion, my view is that traditionally prepared foods play a vital part in human life and it is unlikely that convenience foods will replace conventional methods of food production and preparation in the future.
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