2.5 Perspective Speech

P1 Outline issue

39% of people born onwards from 1990 can’t identify staple veggies, such as leeks or zucchinis. The loss of cooking skills is rapidly decreasing throughout Generation Z, a label given to everyone born from 1990. The way this issue of lack of cooking skills in the youth is heading for a future where nutrition will be determined by the fast and connivence food industries. There are no cooking skills being passed down from parents to children anymore due to, lack of time, availability of connivence foods and lacking nutritional knowledge. I personally dont want to leave my nutrition up to money hungry businesses who cram cheap fillers into foods.

P2 perspective 1 – Lacking time 

In the UK only a third of parents will leave their workplace on time everyday. The modern family is time poor, often with both parents working long hours. Their work commitments overflow into their home time, that then interferes with family time. The traditional model of the family unit where one parent works while the other stays home ( usually the mother) is a thing of the past. With both parents working their is a lack of time for home cooked meals. Instead families are filling their diets with fast and connivence foods. Our lives are increasingly getting busier. In New Zealand prices are rising meaning the only way for your average family to afford their mortgage and other living expenses is for both parents to work full time. Did you know that more than 50% of kiwis think takeaways are the cheaper option. But the truth is its not about saving money but instead saving time. Fast food and takeaways are often collectively more expensive than if you were to budget your weekly supermarket shop. Not only does that impact on the quality of food and nutrition that the modern family are consuming, but additionally, important cooking skills are not being passed down from generation to generation. All of a sudden we’ll be left here not knowing how to make a meal and what goes into our food is left up to the big food corporations. If you think they care about your health and nutrition more than money, you might want to think again?

P3 perspective 2 – Availability of convenience foods 

Mass produced food has a higher energy density than we should be consuming, even the general manager of KFC, Pizza Hut, Carls Jr. and Starbucks believe “their food was meant to be eaten as an occasional treat rather than everyday.” Fast food corporations have make takeaways so accessible that you dont even have to leave your house! So why would you, when with a click of a button food can magically appear. We all need a reality check. These food corporations are making food not for you or me, but for profit. Sodium has increased by 12% in the last 4 years. This proves that fast food restaurants are using things like fat sugar and salt as cheap filers to bulk up their products. Leaving us with the nasty health problems we face. Within the next 20 years 2 million New Zealanders will be classified as obese. This obesity epidemic means that nearly half our population will be clinically obese. Obesity leads to high blood pressure, heart attacks, diabetes and even cancer. The majority of these issues is caused by what we put in our mouths. You are what you eat and this is why we need to get back to basics and re learn the nutritional knowledge we have so easily let go. 

P5 Conclusion 

Guys, home cooking is not putting chicken nuggets into the oven and turning them over after 7 minutes . Its also not as hard as you think to home cook a nutritious meal. In fact it can be fun rewarding and a challenging experience that can be shared with friends and family. I think it’s important to have at least a basic knowledge of cooking skills, as this knowledge comes hand in hand with a good diet. The loss of cooking skills not only causes a lack of good nutrition, its also seriously impacting our health, our budgets and even our sociability. As sadly 10% of generation Z eat alone in their bedrooms.  Its our responsibility to individually take back control of what we are putting into our bodies. Why should the mass produced food giants control our health and wellbeing.  

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