Home-cooked Foods are better than Fast Foods
Instructions:-
Conduct an internal and external environmental analysis, and a supply chain analysis for your proposed new division and its business model.
Create a SWOT table summarizing your findings. Your environmental analysis should consider, at a minimum, the following factors. For each factor, identify the one primary strength, weakness, opportunity, threat, and trend, and include it in your table.
External forces and trends considerations:
Legal and regulatory
Global
Economic
Technological
Innovation
Social
Environmental
Competitive analysis
Internal forces and trends considerations:
Strategy
Structures
Processes and systems
Resources
Goals
Strategic capabilities
Culture
Technologies
Innovations
Intellectual property
Leadership
Write a synopsis of no more than 1,050 words in which you analyze relevant forces and trends from the list above. Your analysis must include the following:
Identify economic, legal, and regulatory forces and trends.
Critique how well the organization adapts to change.
Analyze and explain the supply chain of the new division of the existing business. Share your plans to develop and leverage core competencies and resources within the supply chain in an effort to make a positive impact on the business model and the various stakeholders.
Identify issues and/or opportunities:
Identify the major issues and/or opportunities that the company faces based on your analysis.
Generate a hypothesis surrounding each issue and research questions to use for conducting analysis.
Identify the circumstances surrounding each issue; classify the circumstances; attribute the importance of each classification; and test the accuracy of the importance for each classification.
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.
Solution
Home-cooked Foods are better than Fast Foods
Introduction
Home-cooked food is food cooked at home, served and consumed together as a family. This has been the most common trend in most parts of the world, until the emergence of fast foods companies such as the famous McDonalds, which has seen a rapid increase in the number of customers. There are quite a number of reasons why most people are shifting from the traditional way of cooking food at home, and embracing the modern trend of consuming fast foods. First, fast foods relieve them of time and effort that could be wasted in the kitchen preparing their meals, hence giving them time to do other things. Second, fast foods are quite appealing hence, most people easily fall for them due to their attractiveness and perceived deliciousness. However, there has been a growing concern over consumption of fast foods. In the United States, for instance, a research conducted by (Guthrie et al, 143) illustrates that more than 70% of the American population consumes fast foods. In as much as they have a few advantages, the associated disadvantages render them not fit for consumption in relation to home cooked food. Generally, while fast foods are less nutritious, relatively unsafe due to unknown cooking processes and persons, and less-socially engaging, home-cooked foods are healthy and nutritious due to choice of desired foods as well as ingredients, relatively safe due to a well-known process of cooking and persons, and socially engaging due to their collective consumption as a family. Therefore, this paper argues that a collective shift to home-cooked food will offer significant social, safety, and health advantages as far as eating is concerned.
First, the main reason why home-cooked food is better than fast food is that home-cooked food is healthy due to a relatively less number of calories, sugars, proteins, carbohydrates etc. This is because; cooking food at home allows an individual to regulate the ingredients they wish to include in the meal such as fats, sugars, and spices. While proper regulation of ingredients included in cooking specific meals might be everyone’s priority, people who are health-conscious will benefit more from the ability to regulate these ingredients, hence maintain better and healthy lives. There is increasing sensitization on better nutritional habits by medical professionals. Therefore, even those people who might not be health-conscious might get an opportunity to regulate the kind of meals they consume as well as the quality of included ingredients. This prevents people from contracting health complexities such as obesity and cardiovascular diseases. On the other hand, consumption of fast foods gives no room for such nutritional regulation. The worst bit of it is that fast foods generally contain too much calories, too much fats, too much sugars (Jaworowska et al, 310) etc., which create an appealing image to most people. This gives consumers of fast foods a little chance to alter the kind of ingredients they want included in or excluded from their meals, as well as the type of meals they would wish to consume. Health conscious people who have been initiated in the habit of consuming fast foods will have no option but consume whatever is offered by restaurants. Consumption of fast foods has been the reason behind the rapid increase in obesity cases among Americans. A research conducted by (Duffey et al, 201) illustrates a positive correlation between the rate of fast foods consumption and BMI, whereby the more a person consumes fast foods, the higher the chances of their BMI increasing, and an increase in BMI beyond the threshold value of 26 illustrates obesity (Jaworowska et al, 316). In addition, the research suggested that most school-going children at the age of seven years who consume fast foods are likely to develop obesity at the age of ten years. Most school-going children in America are obese, a medical situation which correlates directly with the fast food consumption behavior. Since obesity is the basis of much more complicated medical situations such as high blood pressure, it is necessary to uproot the root-cause of the increasing cases of obesity through proper nutrition, and proper nutrition could only be achieved through consumption of home-cooked food where an individual has the capability to choose what to eat and the ingredients to include in their meal.
Second, while consumption of home-cooked food guarantees the consumers of the meal’s safety, consumption of fast foods does not offer a guarantee that the meal is safe. Since an individual at home or persons close to the individual at home make a home-cooked meal, the cooking processes, environment, and containers in which the meal is stored/served, are well known to the individual. In case of any food poisoning situation, the owner will take necessary precautions to dispose the meal. In addition, an individual preparing their own meal at home implies that they will be very careful in cooking their meals. Knowing that they or their close friends and family members are going to consume the meal, they will follow clear guidelines in meal preparation to ensure that the meal is safe and uncontaminated with elements that would render it poisonous or detestable. On the other hand, fast foods are relatively unsafe due to unknown production mechanisms, factors surrounding the production environment, as well as the health assurance of the producing persons. Furthermore, since the preparers of fast foods are not going to consume the meals they prepare, they are likely to loosen up on their carefulness while preparing these meals, an issue, which might cause inclusion of unwanted elements in the meals. A combination of these factors renders fast foods unsafe for consumption. However, due to their external attractiveness and perceived deliciousness attached to their sweet aroma, consumers do not normally consider a second thought regarding the credibility of production of these meals. This increases their chances of developing health complications later in life. Illnesses related with under-cooked or bacteria laden foods often claim lives. Therefore, in order to assure ourselves of safe foods which are free from toxic elements that might endanger our health and lives, it is better to consider consuming home-cooked food rather than fast foods.
Third, food allergies and food sensitivities are better accommodated in home-cooked food as compared to fast food. As stated earlier, cooking food at home allows one to have a complete control over the quality and type of food they wish to consume. They also have a complete control over the level of cleanliness and safety that they want their foods to have. Due to this control capability, one is able to accommodate any family members or guests with special nutritional needs. Some family members may be allergic to certain types of foods or foods prepared in a certain way of which if they consume such meals, their general health or even lives could be in danger. Peanut and shellfish allergies, for instance, could trigger medical emergencies if an individual who is allergic to shellfish and/or peanut consumes these meals (Jaworowska et al, 316). Also, most people find it difficult to digest gluten, the protein mainly found in barley or wheat. Consumption of these meals might cause an autoimmune response in some people, which could drive them ill for quite a number of days. Having foreknowledge and background to their medical situations, an individual can then prepare meals under specified conditions and with specified ingredients only. On the other hand, consumption of fast food gives an individual a limited capacity over the quality and type of food they wish to consume. This make hosting guests with certain food intolerances difficult with fast foods. In as much as there is a wide range of alternative foods that they could take, sometimes, getting the best food that they could consume with relish is quite challenging in the fast food context. The preparers of fast foods prepare food on a general basis using standardized food preparation methods. In situations where an allergic individual requires their food to be prepared only under certain specific conditions, fast foods consumption becomes a negative option. Preparation of such specific meals can only be achieved at home and not in the restaurant, hence, home-cooked food is better as compared to fast food due to the ability to cook specific meals under specific conditions so as to cater for certain food intolerances.
In the social circle, cooking food at home is socially fulfilling as compared to eating foods from a restaurant (O’Kane, 271). First, cooking meals at home allows for shared responsibility among family members, which creates a social bond among them. Apart from sharing responsibility, eating meals together creates a social bond among family members as they enjoy a meal they prepared according to their collective desires. It is also more logical for a family to gather in one dining room at home where privacy is guaranteed. On the other hand, consumption of fast foods does not allow for social cohesion among family members. For instance, it is quite embarrassing and unrealistic for parents and children to gather in a restaurant on a daily basis for their meals. Children will benefit greatly from the culture of eating meals at home together. Involving children in preparation of meals also allows parents to teach their children best nutritional habits. Since meals create social cohesion, they give parents a chance to nurture their children and instill good habits in them, what could not be achieved if meals are consumed in restaurants due to privacy concerns. This helps children to avoid falling in social nuisances such as drug abuse and alcohol consumption.
Lastly, home-cooked food is cheaper and allows one to save more on food costs as compared to fast foods. Generally, restaurants will charge higher amounts for the fast foods they offer to make profits. In most cases, the amount paid for a meal prepared in a restaurant is typically twice as compared to the total cost of preparing the same meal at home (Tiwari et al, 610). Furthermore, the meal prepared at the restaurant could be of a much lower or similar quality to that prepared at home, yet it costs higher than the one prepared at home. This therefore makes fast foods irrelevant when one has the capability of cooking their own meals at home. Perhaps fast foods could be well applicable to travelers who do not have the capability to cook their own meals at that particular moment. An individual could save as much as half of what they consume on food if they just shifted their habits from consuming fast foods to cooking their own meals at home.
Conclusion
Generally, there has been a rise in the consumption of fast foods, especially in the US. This can be attributed to the emergence of the highly informal millennial generation, as well as the need to avoid preparation of home food, which is time consuming and effort consuming. However, the advantages of consuming home-cooked food are more than the advantages of consuming fats foods. First, home-cooked meals are healthy in the sense that they allow for an individual to choose the type and quality of food. This allows health-conscious people to monitor their health better. On the other hand, fast foods are composed of too much fats, calories, and sugars, yet there is no chance for consumers to alter these levels. Second, home-cooked meals guarantee the consumers safe meals whereas fast foods are generally unsafe due to unknown methods and processes of preparation. Third, cooking of own food at home allows for accommodation of people with food intolerances such as allergies, whereas fast foods do not give room for such due to standardized food preparation methods. Fourth, home-cooked food allows for social cohesion among family members. On the other hand, fast foods, which are mainly consumed at restaurants, do not offer a chance for social blending that requires some level of home privacy. Lastly, home-cooked food is cheaper as compared to fast foods, hence cooking own food at home saves costs as compared to consuming restaurant food. Therefore, home-cooked food is better than fast food.
Works Cited
Duffey, Kiyah J., et al. “Differential associations of fast food and restaurant food consumption with 3-y change in body mass index: the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study.” The American journal of clinical nutrition 85.1 (2007): 201-208.
Guthrie, Joanne F., Biing-Hwan Lin, and Elizabeth Frazao. “Role of food prepared away from home in the American diet, 1977-78 versus 1994-96: changes and consequences.” Journal of nutrition education and behavior 34.3 (2002): 140-150.
Jaworowska, Agnieszka, et al. “Nutritional challenges and health implications of takeaway and fast food.” Nutrition reviews 71.5 (2013): 310-318.
O’Kane, Gabrielle. “What is the real cost of our food? Implications for the environment, society and public health nutrition.” Public Health Nutrition 15.02 (2012): 268-276.
Tiwari, Arpita, et al. “Cooking at Home: A Strategy to Comply With US Dietary Guidelines at No Extra Cost.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 52.5 (2017): 616-624.
