Convenience food will become increasingly prevalent and eventually replace traditional foods and traditional methods of food preparation. To what degree do you agree or disagree ?

Nowadays, 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 reach 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

Suggestion

value

. 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 three days before

Tet festival

Suggestion

the Tet festival

and eaten on New Year’s Eve to wish a good luck for the coming year. It is an indispensable

specialty

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Specialty

speciality

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

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food

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.