IELTS writing – ielts-class.net

The following essay is written by Ms Quynh – IELTS tutor.

In some countries, it is now possible for people to buy a wide variety of foods transported from all over the world. To what extent do the benefits of this development outweigh the drawbacks?

The rapid development of new technology and global trade has made it increasingly easy to buy imported foods no matter where we are. Imported food consumption is, in fact, growing in popularity and it is claimed to be a positive trend. In this essay, however, I will argue that it causes more threats than benefits to the global market.

There may indeed be good arguments for encouraging importing foods from other countries as consumers would have a wide variety of food choice. It could also be argued that improving global food trade will boost the economies of developing countries. Some African countries’ economies, for example, rely heavily on exporting food to the European market.

However, local cuisine is an important aspect of local culture. Hence, protecting the competitive advantage of local foods is preserving traditional culture. It has been observed that Western food is becoming popular in Asian countries and young consumers are using more and more ingredients imported from the West in their recipes. It might come to a point where people use more imported foods and the local cuisine gradually disappear.

Moreover, as foods imported from Western countries have been engineered with new technologies, it may taste better than the local ones, therefore, become more favored on the market. If local foods from the developing countries lose the battle in their home market, local manufacturers and farmers are unlikely to have enough resources to continue their innovation efforts and export to other countries. This is probably why Asian countries, such as Vietnam, encourage local consumers to use domestic foods.

So in the end, if the goal is to ensure sustainable development all over the world, we must first focus on providing high quality foods to local markets and ensuring its advantages there. Only then would global food trade bring benefits to all parties.

(310 words)

The following essay is extracted from Achieve IELTS 2 (Student’s Book). Read the essay and then try to summarise the points for and against vegetarianism. By summarising what you read, you can develop your paraphrasing skill, which is extremely important in IELTS and studying at international university.

Why, according to the author, some people choose to become vegetarian or vegans?
Why, according to the author, not everyone should turn to vegetarian diet?

Today many people are vegetarian of some sort of description, from people who eat mainly vegetables, along with dairy products such as milk, cheese and eggs, to vegans who do not eat animals or any animal products at all. In this essay I am briefly going to look at the argument for and against eating animals from moral, health and environmental perspectives.

The first and foremost reason is that eating meat is murder. Some people think it is wrong to take the life of another creature for pleasure, and as we can get the same proteins and nutrients from other food sources that can get from eating meat, the only reason to eat meat is for pleasure. Alternatively, it could be argued that what we eat is a matter of personal choice according to how we feel and what suits our bodies best. Some people enjoy life more and feel healthier when they eat meat.

This brings me on to the second point: health issue. It is said that we can get all the nutrients from plants that we can get from meat. In other words, we can obtain the same proteins and nutrients from other food sources that we can get from eating meat: proteins from pulses like lentils and beans; calcium, protein and other vitamins from dairy products; vitamins, minerals and fibers from vegetables. However, plants on the whole are very poor sources of protein, especially protein containing amino acids. These are available in some plants, but not in great quantities. Conversely, there are plenty of proteins containing amino acids in milk, eggs and fish which is why many vegetarians still eat animal products.

Now let’s look at the environmental issues. Perhaps the most serious reason for becoming vegetarian is ethical. People go hungry because a lot of land is used to grow food for animals rather than people. For example, in the US, 157 million tons of food per year – all suitable for human consumption – is fed to animals. This produces just 28 million tons of animals protein in the form of meat. Then again, if we look at this more closely, it is clear that millions of animals on farms are bred for food. To put it simply, if people became vegetarian, there would be no need for these animals and we would have to kill them all. Rather than saving these animals, it would result in killing them instead of looking after them responsibly and killing them for a good purpose at the end of their natural life cycle.

In conclusion, I believe that is it everyone’s right to eat what they want. However, cutting down on the amount of meat we eat has benefits for our health and our environment and is fairer to other animals.