2017-05-17 04:00:58 来源：北外网课


In some countries, it is possible for people to have a variety of food that has been transported from all over the world.

Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?





Sample Writing:

Today food products are made and sold all over the world, on the benefit of global economy. With the importation of food, some countries can improve the variety of their offerings. However, there is a growing debate over the beneficial and detrimental aspects of it.

globalization 全球化

importation 进口

offerings 供应品

beneficial and detrimental 有利的和不利的

The drawbacks of eating a variety of food transported from other countries lies in its environmental influences. Compared with eating local produced food, the thousands of miles’ food shipping from another hemisphere adds to its carbon footprint. If exotic foods, such as a bunch of banana is flown half way round the globe, the great waste of fuel certainly leads to negative environmental impact which can be averted by consuming local food. Also, regional farm land helps to maintain the green space, which is another reason for reducing importing and supporting local agriculture. Additionally, food safety should also be taken into consideration - the fewer steps there are between your food's source and your table, the less chance there is of contamination.

carbon footprint 碳足迹，碳排放量

exotic 异国的，外来的

avert 防止，避免

contamination 污染

However, the food miles argument has a few flaws in the reasoning, since recent studies show that in reality, it’s only 4 to 15% of the total energy used to produce the food. That is to say fossil fuel use in the food business is not mainly from transportation.  (本句数据描述来源 http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/blog/?p=1830) Reversely, the benefits of enjoying variaties of fruits and vegetables from foreign gardens are especially evident. Local plants have their certain growth cycle, which result in incontinuous supplying. With a wider range of global supply, the restriction of it can be broken. Not to say the enriched tastings as well as nutrition supplements. If we only rely on raw ingredients from local market, the taste of meals would have no variety. At economic level, imported food entices consumers to spend more, especially the urban class who are always interested in novelty, they regards cooking foreign food as a fashionable style of life. Thus, trading is enhanced both domestically and globally. Even, in some countries like China, the skeptical consumers are becoming more and more careful about the source of milk, sea food, fruit and vegetables, and they consider foreign brand as safer ones.

food miles 食品里程（通常用于指代食品运输过程中的carbon emission）

flaw 瑕疵

fossil fuel 化石燃料

growth cycle 生长周期

raw ingredients 未经加工的食材

entice 引诱

novelty 新奇的事物

skeptical 怀疑的；持怀疑态度的

Although many environmentally aware people are against imported food, with more environmental friendly way of transporting and thoroughly checking for safety, people can virtually benefit more from the increased variety of food in terms of individual table supply and global economic development.

environmentally aware people 具有环保意识的人

thoroughly 彻底的，完全的