Eating Habits

1ère séquence : Eating Habits

Notion: Notion Of Progress

→ Are the changes in people's eating habits synonymous with progress ?

Introduction:

I'm going to talk about the notion of progress. First of all, I would like to give a definition of progress. It's an improvement, a development, an evolution or a change. There are different forms of progress. Progress can be observed in different fields/sectors (technical, technological, scientific, social, medical, political, economic, cultural), which contributes to making the world a better place but it can also turn into something negative.

Now I'm going to talk about Eating Habits. It is the way a person or group eats, considered in terms of what types of food are eaten, in what quantities and when. The question i will try to answer is Are the changes in people's eating habits synonymous with progress ?

(→ What are the reasons why eating habits have changed /are still changing ?)

To illustrate the notion i've choosen two documents:

1- The British at table

I'ts a report on british diet. A woman show us a study made by the British government who reveals  their eating habits. It is said that the British doesn't have time to cook and they have never learn how to cook too. Most of the time they eat fast and at any time even in the night. Most of them eat all they find in their cupboards (snak,ready meals) and then they eat that in front of the television. They explain in the report that british people eat more than in the past. The women says that a British can eat around 200 grams of green vegetables per week. They eat more and more outside in restaurants or fast-food unlike in the past; they prepared just 14 dinners at table in family on Sunday a year.

Than this women compared british and french habits who eat between 12h an 13h30.

So, we can say that since 1974, the British's eating habits have changed.

In 1974, they consumed more green vegetables than now and they consumption of ready meals incresses regulary.For forty years the British have been eating differently.

2- Food In Britain

The scene takes place at Borough Market who is the oldest market in London. There, we find food or foods frol all over the world. There is a larg variety of foods noms in Great Britain because the immigrants arrive with their dishes and because the Britain food is not great. The result is that even if the British go on eating traditional food, their introduce new foods, new flavours into their recipes. Yet, they go on eating full english breakfast and fish and chips. Nowadays people waste food more and more. In the past, left overs were used to make new recipies whan now they are often thrown away. It's a strange phenomen and it is paradoxal. In rich countries people waste food whereas in poor countries they don't have enough food. And the question nowadays in “How can the world feed its population?”

Consequences:  Because of the arrival of immigrants and new foods, the British now have a wider range of produces and they have realized that other cookings, recipes are better, tastier than theirs.

Nowadays they don't respect their traditions. For exemple they eat what they feel like eating whatever the day of the week. Yet, there as been a negative evolution too in our eating  habits, that is to say th eintroduction of fast food in people's diets. This food is very unhealthy because it contrains too much sugar, salt and fat. As a result it is responsible of overweight and obesity. Now, eating has become a real concern because people are conscious that their is correlation between eating habits and health. That's the reason why for some time, there have been new eating habits. For exemple: more and more people go on diet,become vegetarian,turn to organic food and they think quality is more important than quality. There are more and more TV programmes that give recipes, advice to cook better etc... More and more people cook at home now.

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