Pasta - The World's Favorite Food
Pasta is the world’s favorite food. A survey taken in 17 countries confirmed that pasta is what people like to eat most. Not only is pasta the number one food in its home country Italy, but is also enjoyed in faraway places like the Philippines, Mexico and South Africa.
Pasta has become popular, for one thing, because it is cheap and easy to prepare. Just cook noodles or other forms of pasta, make a sauce to go with it and you’re finished. Many different types of meals can be created with pasta. It tastes good and fills your stomach. It produces energy in the form of carbohydrates, which is why athletes eat pasta regularly. Pasta can also be kept for a longer time. You don’t have to use it up at once.
Pasta has also become popular because it stands for the Italian way of life. People all over the world like it because it’s so simple. It has two basic ingredients, wheat and water, just like bread.
Before it became popular in Italy during the 19 th century, earlier civilizations also ate forms of pasta. The ancient Greeks and Romans created pasta-like foods that they baked in ovens. Legend has it that Marco Polo brought pasta back to Italy with him but this is not true. Arabs probably brought a noodle-like dish to Sicily in the 8th century. Farmers have been growing wheat, the main ingredient of pasta, there for ages.
Pasta first became popular in Naples in the 1700s where it was combined with tomato sauce. It was an ideal food to feed large parts of the population. When more and more Italians immigrated to America at the beginning of the 20 th century they took their eating habits with them. Pasta and pizza immediately became widespread and popular in America.
Although many people refer to spaghetti as the main form of pasta there are over 600 types with different forms and shapes. And each of them is cooked in a different way.
The worldwide sales of pasta have risen sharply over the past decade. $16b dollars worth of pasta were sold in 2010, compared to $13b dollars worth of the favorite food in 2003 $. Italy leads the pasta-eating community of the world. The Italians are the number one consumers (26 kg of pasta per head annually) followed by Venezuela and Tunisia.
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Words
- although = while
- annually = every year
- athlete = a person who does sports for a profession
- carbohydrate = chemical that is in food like bread, noodles or potatoes; it gives your body energy
- century = a hundred years
- combine = join, mix with
- community = people
- compare = to look at two things or put them side by side
- confirm = prove, to say that something is true
- consumer = a person who goes to a shop and buys something
- create = make, cook
- dish = meal
- enjoy = like
- immediately = at once, quickly
- immigrate = to leave your home country and move somewhere else in order to live or work there
- ingredient = element, part of
- population = all the people who live in a country
- refer = look at something as …
- Sicily = big island in the Mediterranean Sea that is a part of Italy
- survey = a number of questions that you ask people in order to find out what they think or what they like
- wheat = a plant that is used to make white bread
- widespread = popular
- worth = the value or price of something