Designs of convenience food has helped people keep up with the speed of the modern lifestyle. What are the advantages of this trend ? do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

Pre-packed food products have gained popularity among masses in recent years. Therefore, several people have been benefited from this trend in coping up with today’s fast-paced lifestyle. The two major benefits of this trend for an individual are reduced stress and time and energy conservation. Despite these advantages, this essay argues that this new approach has more drawbacks than advantages, because convenience foods contain numerous harmful chemical preservatives and its plastic packaging has negative effects on the environment, as well as on a person’s health. Firstly, the ready-to-eat foods can aid in saving the precious time and energy since they generally require minimum cooking/heating time before consumption. In other words, a person can cook and eat a meal in a few minutes, which in turn will help in fuel conservation required during conventional cooking. Secondly, fewer preparation time means that the person can have more free hours to spend with his/her loved ones or to indulge in some physical activities, and this will eventually be helpful in decreasing the stress level among people. However, pre-processed foodstuffs are loaded with various additives such as flavouring and colouring agents to maintain the quality of the products. Moreover, these additives can be toxic for an individual's body. For instance, a recent survey revealed that the excess consumption of chemical preservatives made lead to serious disorders, namely cancer. What is more, these convenient foods are packed in plastic packaging which is responsible for creating pollution, and heating food in these packaging can cause the release of toxic carcinogenic compounds into the foods. Hence, there are more disadvantages of consuming pre-processed foods than the benefits. To conclude, the partially cooked food products are helpful in conserving valuable time and fuel, however, they have a negative impact on human health due to the artificial additives present in them. Moreover, the plastic used in their packaging is hazardous for the health and the environment.