It is a very common practice in the modern society to order instant food rather than preparing the dish from the beginning. This essay will explain the reason for the change in food preparation along with the merits and demerits of such a trend.
One of the main reasons for procuring the ready-made food is because of the hectic schedule of most working professionals in urban areas who are unable to allocate time to prepare food. In addition to this, many of the bachelors who stay away from their family unfortunately do not know how to cook independently, thus forcing them to buy junk food or frozen food that requires minimal preparation and electricity consumption. Furthermore, food chains sell a variety of quick fix food packets that are available at a reasonable price and come in numerous mouth-watering flavours that urge people, especially the youngsters to procure them.
One of the major advantages of consuming instant food is the convenience associated with it as it requires only heating or adding water which may be useful for busy working individuals and unplanned social gatherings since there would be absolutely no time to buy the raw materials to prepare the food from the start and also clean the utensils used for making the dish. In spite of the above elaborated merits, packaged food is extremely bad for health when consumed regularly due to the presence of artificial colours, flavouring agents and few other harmful ingredients that may not even be mentioned on the label. Apart from the inclusion of harmful chemicals, most of the canned food products are made in bulk due to the high demand which may hence result in poor quality of the purchased produce. In addition to the poor quality and hazardous preservatives present, most of the products are sold in plastic tins that need to be heated for consumption that can put the consumer at risk for cancer as most plastic containers leech carcinogenic residues once they are heated.
In conclusion, people are tempted to order ready-made food as it is time efficient and quite economical for those who do not know how to cook or are unable to do so during sudden social parties due to their busy schedules. Although packaged food products have the advantage of being highly convenient and appetizing, it has its own demerits by causing harm to the body due to the unwanted preservatives and chemicals along with risks associated with heating the plastic cans.