IELTS Writing Sample: Food

Nowadays, food has become easier to prepare. Has this change improved the way people live? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

Food 

People’s life today is more dynamic than even 50 years ago: with the quick development of science and technology, all the processes began to flow much faster. The same concerns the cooking as well: food has become simpler, quicker and easier to prepare.

Now there is an opportunity to buy half-finished products or fast food, which you only need to warm up in a microwave or even to buy ready meals in supermarkets. People can get any products – meat, eggs, milk, fruit and vegetables (regardless of the season) in shops near their homes – so there is no necessity to grow livestock or plants and wait for a long time for the harvest. Kitchen household appliances and devices help to prepare these products faster and easier.

To my mind, it is obvious, that this change has altered the people’s life a lot: nowadays they have more free time for other things, such as leisure, hobbies, entertainments. What’s more, people can use their free time for study, doing sports and other worthwhile activities instead of spending a lot of time near the oven.

However, unfortunately not only the people’s way of living is changing, but also their state of health is. Convenience food and fast food may contain a lot of dangerous and harmful compounds, additives, the large amount of salt and fat. At the same time, products and foods on shop shelves, especially non-seasonal produce, may be of doubtful quality, fruit and vegetables may contain nitrates and pesticides. The long storage of foods often implies the use of preserving agents and synthetic additives. All these may cause illnesses, nervous disorders, food intoxications. Frequent consumption of fast food may result in overweight or even obesity, heart and vessel diseases.

Thus, the fact that cooking has begun to take less time and efforts, significantly affects people’s lives. On the one hand, there is big improvement – possibility to spend more time doing something worthy or interesting instead of the longer preparing of food, but on the other hand – there is the impairment of health, which, however, can be avoided by means of the more careful choice of products.

Band: 8.5