ENGLISH UNIT OF JOHOR MATRICULATION COLLEGE

WRITING ASSESSMENT, SEMESTER 1, 2021/2022

WRITING TASK

NO NAME MATRIC NO.

1 SALEENA SAFEEIA BINTI SEZALI MA2116118598

2 AMAL FATIHAH IMANI BINTI ZULKIFLI MS 2116116827

3 NUR SUHAILA BINTI ISHAK MS2116117097

4 NURUL IZZANI BINTI MUHAMMAD ROSDI MS2116175389

TOPIC: THE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FAST FOOD AND HOME-
COOKED FOOD

TUTORIAL: K1AP4

SUBMITTED TO: MDM NORAINA BINTI ISHAK

SUBMISSION DATE: 14TH APRIL 2021

 The similarities and differences between fast food and home-cooked food

“.....Staying at home is the best method to stop the current Covid-19 wave that is affecting the
country.” (Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah)

This is the verse that was the starting point of a new era, a new life in Malaysia. Thus, the
government has produced an order in which all residents have to face the same thing and
situation: quarantine and isolation. Going through this pandemic makes us go through tough
times, even for everyone. Some of us lead a healthy lifestyle and some don’t. That is why the
governments strictly advise us to take care of our safety and health. Eventually, the same goes to
the topic of foods. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a major impact on various industries in
Malaysia and the major one is the food industry. Since people stayed at home, fast foods are one
of the main picks for people to enjoy and feast on. But,is it worth all the money? One thing that
people tend to set aside is the goodness of home-cooked meals. Fast food sector continues to be
hugely popular and the big companies related to it bring in large amounts of revenue. People
have revived the debate on whether fast food is a good consumption on a daily basis. But, is it
true? Isn’t home-cooked food better? The controversy of whether fast food is superior to home-
cooked food has been long in question. So, we will elaborate on the similarities and
dissimilarities of these aforementioned types of food in this essay.

Firstly, the major difference between fast food and home-cooked food is the speed of
production. Fast food can be cooked in a short time. Due to the fact that fast food is much faster
than home-cooked food because it is only 10 minutes needed to cook as it is prepared by a lot of
staff at the same time. Fast food is suitable for workers or travelers who often did not have the
time to sit down and wait for their meal. In particular, on a short lunch break the workers still can
eat their lunch without having to wait for their food to be cooked on-the-spot as is expected from
a traditional ‘sit down’ restaurant. However, home-cooked food needs a long time to prepare as
we need about half an hour to prepare our ingredients because home-cooked food is mostly
prepared by one person only and the dishes that are usually home-cooked are more complicated
and complex. Furthermore,generally home cooked food is a more detailed method of preparation
to obtain the optimum result. That is why home cooked food takes a long time to be prepared
because it is handled with care. As a consequence of that, it can be shown when we prepare
dishes at home with great care, detailed and definitely much tastier, healthier and better quality
than fast food especially in this pandemic where we have more time to prepare home cooked
food rather than buy fast food.

Other than that, the difference between fast food and home-cooked food is related to health.
Home-cooked food is greatly healthier. This is because home-cooked food has a lot of vitamins.
We can get a lot of vitamins if we cook. This is because we can choose to cook the food in a
healthy way or not. For example, we can choose how much oil we want to use while frying and
how many vegetables we want in our food. We can also cook according to the food pyramid so
that our body can get enough energy and vitamins. While if we eat fast food, we do not know
how many times the oil is used by the restaurant for frying. Using cooking oil repeatedly can
have a detrimental effect. This is because cooking oil heated to high temperatures will undergo a
series of chemical reactions that will produce various types of products that physically alter and
affect the quality of the oil. So, because of that we can see the change in color and taste of the oil
after using it several times. Fast food also contains high levels of sugar and salt. The general
public is aware that fast food has a very high salt content.The combination of salt and high sugar
is not only bad for health but can cause various diseases including diabetes and high blood
pressure. During this pandemic, it is very dangerous for us to get out of the house. We are safer
by just cooking food at home. We would go out of the house just to find kitchen ingredients and
appliances. We can also see that many people everywhere no longer comply with the Standard
Operating Procedures (SOP) set by the government. If we buy food from food panda or grab
food, we still cannot be sure that the food is safe from this virus. This is because the food has
already exchanged hands with many people. The most important ingredient in cooking is love.
We can only taste the food when eating home-cooked food only. This is because we can spend
time with family. Cooking activities can also be fun when also helped by the husband and
children. Indirectly, you can teach your kids about new recipes. So, we can see that home-cooked
food is healthier than junk food.

Although there are alot of differences between fast food and home-cooked food, there are
also some similarities. The similarity between fast food and home-cooked food is, we have to
spend our money to get it. But, to get fast food, we have to spend our money at a higher cost than
home-cooked food. This is because, if we want to eat fast food, we have to spend our money on
the cost of transportation like, Mc donald (Mcd) and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). In this
pandemic of covid-19, we can not go out to buy fast food like KFC. So, we should use the
Foodpanda and Grabfood service to deliver our food. Because of that, we have to spend some
money for the cost of delivery. While home-cooked food, we still have to spend our money just
to buy the groceries and some ingredients for cooking at home. So, if we want to use money
effectively in this pandemic of covid-19, home-cooked food is the best choice for us. Besides, the
similarities between fast food and home-cooked food is, both foods can give us nutritions and
energy. But, for fast food, we have to make the right choice, like we can just look for the
healthier options. This is because there are a lot of fast foods that can make us to be obesity like
burgers, pizza and fries. Next, the similarity between fast food and home-cooked food, is fast
food and home-cooked food were cooked at the time when we want to eat and we can choose
what we want to eat at any time. As a final observation, we can know that fast food and home-
cooked food are similar in some ways and different in others.

In conclusion, both of them have their own advantages and disadvantages. While there are
some similarities , such as how the food gives us nutritions and energy, there are some significant
differences chiefly in preparation of food time and how the food affects our health. As an
intellectual and smart consumer, we should prioritize our health more by choosing wisely what
we eat. It’s okay to have fast food but not so frequently because it is bad for our health.

Source;

1. Kerr, G. (2018, December 29). Homecooked Meals Vs. Fast Food Meals.

LIVESTRONG.COM. https://www.livestrong.com/article/517636-homecooked-meals-

vs-fast-food-meals/
2. star2.com. (2019, August 8). The benefits of home cooking. The Star.

https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/health/2019/08/08/contra-enterprise-vitagen-home-

cooking