Most Americans take food for granted. Even the poorest fifth of households in the United States spend only 16 percent of their budget on food. In many other countries, it is less of a given. Nigerian families spend 73 percent of their budgets to eat, Vietnamese 65 percent, Indonesians half. They are in trouble.
Last year, the food import bill of developing countries rose by 25 percent as food prices rose to levels not seen in a generation. Corn doubled in price over the last two years. Wheat reached its highest price in 28 years. The increases are already sparking unrest from Haiti to Egypt. Many countries have imposed price controls on food or taxes on agricultural exports.
Last week, the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, warned that 33 nations are at risk of social unrest because of the rising prices of food. For countries where food comprises from half to three-quarters of consumption, there is no margin for survival, he said.
Prices are unlikely to drop soon. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says world cereal stocks this year will be the lowest since 1982.
The United States and other developed countries need to step up to the plate. The rise in food prices is partly because of uncontrollable forces including rising energy costs and the growth of the middle class in China and India. This has increased demand for animal protein, which requires large amounts of grain.
But the rich world is exacerbating these effects by supporting the production of biofuels. The International Monetary Fund estimates that corn ethanol production in the United States accounted for at least half the rise in world corn demand in each of the past three years. This elevated corn prices. Feed prices rose. So did prices of other crops mainly soybeans as farmers switched their fields to corn, according to the Agriculture Department.
Washington provides a subsidy of 51 cents a gallon to ethanol blenders and slaps a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on imports. In the European Union, most countries exempt biofuels from some gas taxes and slap an average tariff equal to more than 70 cents a gallon of imported ethanol. There are several reasons to put an end to these interventions. At best, corn ethanol delivers only a small reduction in greenhouse gases compared with gasoline. And it could make things far worse if it leads to more farming in forests and grasslands. Rising food prices provide an urgent argument to nix ethanols supports.Over the long term, agricultural productivity must increase in the developing world.
Mr. Zoellick suggested rich countries could help finance a green revolution to increase farm productivity and raise crop yields in Africa. But the rise in food prices calls for developed nations to provide more immediate assistance. Last month, the World Food Program said rising grain costs blew a hole of more than $500 million in its budget for helping millions of victims of hunger around the world.Industrial nations are not generous, unfortunately. Overseas aid by rich countries fell 8.4 percent last year from 2006. Developed nations would have to increase their aid budgets by 35 percent over the next three years just to meet the commitments they made in 2005.
They must not let this target slip. Continued growth of the middle class in China and India, the push for renewable fuels and anticipated damage to agricultural production caused by global warming mean that food prices are likely to stay high. Millions of people, mainly in developing countries, could need aid to avoid malnutrition. Rich countries energy policies helped create the problem. Now those countries should help solve it.
Nowadays, wherever we turn our gaze, we can see different types of food that are easier to prepare. For instance, we can buy frozen foods in a supermarket and just prepare it in a couple of minutes, whereas before it could have taken us maybe hours to prepare this kind of meals. I would accept that this so-called improvement has changed our lives, but I believe that there are some drawbacks as well.
It is true that these kinds of food do not involve hard work to prepare, but food that is easy to prepare generally has some artificial ingredients mixed in it that makes it easy-to-cook. If we take time to read the ingredients, we would definitely come across words like preservatives防腐剂 or artificial flavorings. It was just a couple of days ago that I came across a newspaper article which stated that someone was poisoned because he ate this type of food. He was hospitalized for almost a month.
Not having to cook has also taken the fun out of cooking. Cooking is an art, but in todays world, this is no more true. People are so busy with their work that they just rely on this simple foods. The invention and production of this foods have made people lazy not only for cooking but also for a well family get-together. It was not like former times when families would sit together and eat freshly baked food. Instead, they are getting these artificial things with minimal nutrients in them.
Cooking in the yesteryears was much better than todays. People would spend more time in the kitchen, preparing the food in the way that they liked it. This brought families closer together and also contributed to the high quality and nutrition of the food. Granted, people are busier nowadays and do not have as much time as they did in the past, but I believe that people have forgotten the importance of healthy, fresh food and of the time a family spends together preparing the food. So, I would say that having food that is easy to prepare has had many disadvantages.
People in different parts of our country have very different ideas about what is good to eat. In our country, for example, people from the south like to eat rice whereas people living in the north prefer bread or noodles. The natives of Hunan or Sichuan enjoy hot food while those of Shanghai or Suzhou will choose sweet dish.
But even if people live in the same part of the country, their tastes vary greatly. Old people and young ones have different tastes; men and women also have their different preferences. In a restaurant, some customers order soups that is thick and heavy, while others drink soup that is thin and clear. A few people only eat vegetables. They de noteat fish or chicken.
Therefore, it is not easy for restaurants to satisfy the needs of all the customers. To increase their business, the restaurants in the cities try their best to prepare foods of different kinds and different styles. They constantly add new names of dishes to their menus to eater for customers with different tastes.
