As is well known, convenience foods are common food resources throughout the world in current society, being highly depended on, and in the UK, the percentage of British households regularly eating convenience foods is approximately 60% (The Food Standards Agency, Consumer Attitudes Survey, 2005). Therefore, convenience foods have played a vital role in people's lives, especially in British life. Due to advances in food preparation technology, a variety of foods now not only have a longer shelf-life but also a more attractive appearance. In addition, prepared foods have a tendency to satisfy a consumer's need about the speed up cooking and support clients who have little cooking experience and time as well. However, convenience foods can be a significant cause of health and lifestyle issues if related measures are not taken to resolve them. For example, eating convenience foods for a long time can lead to many serious diseases, such as high blood pressure, heart attack and so on, and partly this is likely to change traditional family lifestyles. Hence it is necessary to point out that more attention should be paid to how to handle convenience foods more healthily and effectively.
According to previous research, some attention has been paid to the impact of convenience foods and many related measures have been taken to handle it in recent years. However, they are not effective enough to deal with this severe problem. The problems of convenience foods, which relates to people's health as well as the standard of living, are as a result of the process of food manufacturing, ingredients, preserving and consumption.
The main purpose of this project is to discuss firstly the definition of convenience foods as well as describe the classification of convenience foods. Then, the second section shows the role of convenience foods, both positive and negative effects on health care system and lifestyles factors. Moreover, the third part shows the arguments and solutions for handling the negative effects of convenience foods from consumers, food enterprises and governments. With these recommendations, the disadvantages of using convenience foods may decrease the present ill - effects of convenience foods.
1. Convenience Foods in Food Industry:
1.1 Definition of Convenience Foods:
Processed foods, which contain a considerable amount of cooking preparation, are considered as convenience foods so as to help make daily cooking easier and more convenient for consumers. These products are often prepared food stuffs that can be sold as hot, ready-to-eat dishes, as room temperature, shelf-stable products, or as refrigerated or frozen products requiring minimal preparation such as the practice of peeling raw materials to even just heating and consuming immediately.
1.2 Classification of Convenience Foods:
In order to meet demand of consumers, convenience foods appear a variety of forms. There are two major ways to classify convenience foods as follows:
As Kioko, M. and Mugambi, R. (2005) suggests, according to the methods of preservation, convenience foods can be categorized into the following three groups: the first one is the group of dehydrated foods which remove moisture from material with the primary objective of reducing microbial activities and product deteriorations. There are three types of products manufactured from this technique including powdered, dried and dehydrated foods. The second group is frozen foods that can increase the shelf - life for foods through conditions of low temperature in order to inhibit the oxidative, enzymatic and microbial changes. The last one is canned or tinned foods. These food products are sealed in an airtight container to prevent microorganisms from entering and proliferating inside.
According to The Swiss Association for Nutrition (SAN), depending on the level of preparation necessary, convenience foods can be classified into the following five categories. The types of convenience foods, which are most frequently available are summarized by SAN in Table 1.1.
Table 1
Most Frequent Classification of Convenience Foods
Categories
Example: potatoes
Fresh raw product
Unprocessed product without any preparation
Unpeeled potatoes
Category 1: Basic product
The product requires some preparatory steps before cooking.
Peeled raw potatoes
Category 2: Ready-to-cook product
The product requires no further preparatory steps before cooking.
Peeled raw potatoes, sliced and frozen, oven fries
Category 3: Ready-to-use product
The product must be prepared and perhaps warmed up.
Dehydrated potato puree (in flakes)
Category 4: Precooked product
This is often a complete dish or menu. It only needs to be warmed up before consumption.
Frozen cooked potatoes (croquettes); Bagged potato pancakes
Category 5: Table-ready product
The product can be consumed immediately.
Chips; potato salad; complete meal (potatoes, broccoli, meat)
Source: SAN (2009)
2. Advantages and disadvantages of convenience foods:
2.1 Advantages of convenience foods:
In recent years, convenience foods have played an important role in the food industry which brings advantages for consumers by minimizing time, space, making the products more hygienic and extending shelf-life.
Above all, convenience foods could be considered as a method to address the troubles in relation to time and space. Warde (1999) indicated that, "No one would deny the drudgery, the time-wasting, the monotony, that has been removed by convenience foods''. With these foodstuffs, the amount of toil that is required in the field of food and the accomplishment of daily household tasks might be simpler. As a consequence, each individual constantly reschedules an optimum personal time to make their lifestyles more comfortable by using time spent on preparing foods for other activities, such as work appointments, doing physical exercise, travelling around the shops, transporting children, participating in leisure services and visiting friends.
With respect to the products lasting longer and being more hygenic, consumers seem to obtain a lot of significant benefits. Assembly - line production has not merely enabled mass production but maintained standardization as well. Due to strict regulation, the process of manufacturing, storing, preserving and selling is usually supervised strictly. As a result, properly stored ready-to-use products are bacteriologically safer than fresh goods and the shelf - life can be extended through additives. Moreover, high - tech processes employed in manufacturing and methods of preservation minimize the nutritional loss of precooked products, so vitamins or minerals are lost than in the home kitchen. In a study by National Food Processors Association (1974) in the practice of analyzing the feature of bacterial contamination presumed that "the foods were as safe to eat as they had been when canned more than 100 years earlier".
2.2 Disadvantages of Convenience Foods:
Although convenience foods seem to offer a large number of benefits for consumers, they are capable of influencing not only health issues but also social and economic aspects. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization, these products produced by some of the most reputable and profitable companies have contributed to rises globally in population weight, the current epidemic of adolescent obesity and lifestyle factors
To begin with, it is self - evident that convenience foods contain several dietary ingredients that are known to cause weight gain and even lead to obesity. Virtually all convenience foods are often large portion sizes, high energy density, palatability with primordial taste ingredients from fats, salt and additives (artificial preservatives, color additives, taste enhancers), high content of saturated and trans fats, and low fiber content, which adversely endanger customers' health. According to a statistic in Southern California, An American eats three hamburgers and four orders of French fries every week on average and approximately $110 billion are spent on fast food in the U.S (2001). In this regard, the evidence seems to indicate that the convenience food industry has primarily contributed to the increase in American caloric intake. As a consequence, obesity, which has been associated with an increase in the incidence of food - bone infections, workplace injuries, and other diseases relating to the cardiovascular system might be likely because of the effects of the consumption of excess calories and lack of physical exertion. A study of University of Madrid's School of Medicine found that
"… up to 400,000 deaths each year in the EU are directly linked to excess weight and around 12 per cent of heart disease deaths in Britain were due to being overweight, and 5.7 per cent of total deaths from cancer were also directly caused by being overweight or obese".
(Chapman,J., "Britain's Obesity Death Rate", 2010)
In addition to the health impact, the ubiquity of convenience foods establishments has had significant implications for economic and cultural aspects. Consumers can easily purchase these products everywhere, particularly in sidewalk cafes, hole - in the wall outlets, bistros or even in schools. According to Scholosser (2001) the values, the culture, and the industrial arrangements of fast food America are now being exported to the rest of the world. Fast food has joined Hollywood movies, blue jeans, and pop music as one of America's most prominent cultural exports. With the appearance of convenience foods, traditional meals have been likely to reduce considerably and time spent on communicating with family members tends to decrease, which definitely leads to negative impacts on the quality of households. Furthermore, the enormous success of these products has conveyed economic factors. In order to best maximize their profits, franchise systems have been building up. Pizza Hut, for instance, is the world's largest pizza chain, in terms of units with over 7,500 stores in the US alone and Mc Donald's Corporation, which is the nation's largest purchaser of beef and potatoes, operates 30,000 restaurants (DeMaria, 2003). These systems create a large number of jobs available for unskilled workers, especially local people with appalling conditions - low wages, few benefits and long hours.
Figure 1. Educational attainment of fast food employees with different grade level
Source: fast food jobs
Figure 2. Educational attainment of fast food employees with different degree level
source: fast food job
3. Argument and Solutions for Convenience Foods
Schlosser (2001) notes that the ubiquity of convenience foods has become a considerable issue, and has been a threat to individuals' health and lives. Increasing attention is paid to the measures. Some countries has taken many related methods and made a number of strict laws. In this project, nutritionists, convenience food entrepreneurs and governments, will give several arguments and solutions about methods to deal with the negative effects of the foodstuffs in recent years as follows.
3.1 Arguments and Solutions from Users
Convenience foods can cause a number of health problems, especially obesity. In this subsection, ways of handling will be taken as examples to explain the attitude of food experts to the measures of coping with these problems. Prepared foods as well as fast foods contain, high energy density, low fiber content, high content of saturated and a large amount of trans fats which, in their words, may exert detrimental effects on diet quality. In addition, more than half of British adults of the effect of overweight can be attributed to severe consequences in people's health, which may generate mainly in coronary diseases in relation to cardiovascular systems and high blood pressure, or even deaths. Approximately 400,000 deaths per year in England, which are believed to derive primarily from excess weight (Chapman 2003).
When arguing the solution of dealing with obesity caused by eating convenience foods without physical exercises, nutritionists prefer to the measures which have positive effect on protecting consumers' health. It is clear that the products need to be healthier, more hygienic. According to the Cleveland Clinic nowadays virtually all convenience foods on the market contain a large amount of sodium, sugar, saturated fats without the value of nutrition. Therefore, nutritionists suggest that it is encouraged to replace these ingredients by healthy alternatives. Most of nutritional experts claim that more measures should be taken to protect people's health in today's societies.
3.2 Arguments and Solutions from Convenience Food Enterprises
As can be seen, convenience food franchises become increasingly significant in current society, which can be attributed to the dramatic rise of the demand of food. Nevertheless, with a considerable amount of the food products, some severe effects are also raised. The development of economy partly depends on convenience food producer, now and in the future. That is to say, the economic contribution of the food industry can be perceived to be crucial and predicted that by 2014 the money spent on fresh convenience foods up to $29 billion. (Rockville, 2010)
"The big question of course is, can growth be sustained? although the bruising recession that began in 2008 is technically over, its fallout seems certain to affect the economy for some time into the future,"
(Rockville, M. D., 25 July 2010)
There can be little doubt that convenience foods have played an important role in food industry. In order to tackle the problems of these products, the enterprises contribute many possible solutions to improve nutritious value as well as working conditions for employees. First, one possibility could be the practice of substituting more healthful meals to improve diet quality. In particular, ingredients including salt, sugar, fat and additives might be replaced by healthy alternatives. McDonald's Corporation (2008) announced that canola - based oil and soy, corn oils, which contain no trans fats will use in manufacturing almost products, especially French fries instead of normal cooking oil in two countries including the U.S. and Canada in May 22, 2008. Due to this, the adverse effects on consumers' health can be reduced significantly since trans fats are regards as a fat which cause a lot of problems for cardiovascular diseases. Moreover, Morhan Spurlock (2004) notes that McDonald's food reduces massive portion sizes, and serves costumers with a meal specifically marketed for adolescents called happy meal. Another significant factor should be recognized is that assembly - line production is developed so as to not only ensure standardisation but also enable to make the working environment for workers safer and more efficient. Schlosser (2001) reports that convenience food producers tend to improve sanitary conditions at workplaces and establish training courses to support for workers to enhance their horizons, skills about nutrition and effective working methods.
Overall, convenience food enterprises prefer to make their products healthier to meet the demand of consumers and create safe working environment for employees.
3.3 Solutions from Governments
The majority of convenience foods can result in sedentary lifestyle and partly influence traditional diets. Due to their convenient factors, they seem to become common foods for households in developed countries, especially in the UK and USA. Moreover, The prevalence of convenience food chains has triggered a large number of considerable economic effects. In fact, these corporations often create a lot of job opportunities for unskilled workers, so it weakens economy by causing people to accept low-wage jobs with little room for advancement.
Governments play a significant role in current society, and are the main decision-maker. To prohibit the fundamentally negative effect of convenience foods, governments could implement several solutions as follow.
With respect to advertisement, the authorities can limit ubiquitous advertisings which appeals to consumers, especially children about content and suggest the manufacturers have to provide explicit nutrition information about their products, such as calorie, fat, and sugar content on packages or wrappers Nestle (2007:367). In addition, It is self - evident that strict laws and fine should be imposed for the food enterprises which break laws. The Department for Consumer Protection reports that McDonald's Corporation was fined $8,000 because it employed the young people with no permission from their parents and forced them to work outside restricted hours. For health protection, it is recommended that governments should execute two points as follows. On the one hand, governments can make policies to improve the awareness of the role of individuals' health, and encourage individuals to limit fast food, prepared food. On the other hand, it is recommended that governments can follow some good suggestions from both environmentalists and oil producers and balance the economic development and environmental protection by making the related measures. For example, the investment in developing the technology of processing food pollution and inventing new cleaner replacement of oil should be improved by the governments.
Conclusion
As can be seen, convenience foods have become a significant food resource in developed countries nowadays, being highly depended on. It must be noted, however, that these products can also be a significant cause of health problems and social, economic issues if related measures are not taken to resolve it. Hence it is crucial to point out that more attention should be paid to how to handle the detrimental effects of these foods effectively.
According to the analysis of the arguments of both nutritionists and food producers, it can be seen that though the focuses of food experts and convenience food enterprises may be virtually opposite, which are healthy protection and food revenue respectively, they have the agreement that both sides pay increasing attention to people's health, developing food processing technology and inventing new healthy food alternatives. All of them are significant solutions to reduce the negative impact of convenience foods. From this analysis, it can be perceived that to deal with the problems of tertiary processed food needs the supports of both of nutritionists and food enterprises as well as the governments. For nutritionists, it can be recommended that they can focus on developing the food processing technology and foods that has nutritious value. It can be recommended that food enterprises should adjust the value of food nutrition, use market rule to balance the supply and demand and providing precise information about the products for costumers. For the governments, first, they can make policies to improve the awareness of healthy protection of individuals, and encourage households to prepare traditional foods instead of convenience foods. Secondly, the governments can try to follow some practical suggestions from both nutritionists and food manufacturers so as to balance the economic development and health protection and apply the related measures. The investment in, for instance, developing the technology of processing food pollution and strict laws should be improved by the governments. With these recommendations, the troubles of convenience foods may decrease dramatically.
