Unhealthy/harmful/noxious [Food and Drinks]

[trunghq]

Exactly, I want to paraphrase this phrase: Unhealthy Food and Drinks.

I got stuck right at the beginning as it is not easy to use another word to replace Unhealthy.

Some words like harmful to health, damaging, etc are, I think, are too strong compared to unhealthy.

Which adjectives do you suggest me to use?


I have another question about Food and Drinks. I want to use fast food and soft drinks, snacks and sweetened drinks, etc but these phrases would refer to some direct kinds of foods and drinks. Therefore, they might be not appropriate to the case that I mention. I am wondering how should I paraphrase the term, which is in an IELTS test (the lastest one in Vietnam).

Some people think that shops should not be allowed to sell food or drinks that are scientifically proven to be bad for people's health. Do you agree or disagree?

 

[velisarius]

What do you mean by "unhealthy" if you don't mean "harmful to health"?

I suggest you check a dictionary for synonyms for "unhealthy". http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unhealthy We don't provide lists of words, but if you find one we can tell you whether it works in your context. We will need a complete sentence to show us how you are going to use the phrase.

Are you perhaps looking for the term "junk food - see "Fast food v/s Junk food "Junk food" is not necessarily bad for the health but it isn't considered as providing a balanced diet.

(The other question seems to need a new thread, but if you do open a new thread please clarify which term puzzles you.)

 

[trunghq]

What do you mean by "unhealthy" if you don't mean "harmful to health"?

I suggest you check a dictionary for synonyms for "unhealthy". http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unhealthy We don't provide lists of words, but if you find one we can tell you whether it works in your context. We will need a complete sentence to show us how you are going to use the phrase.

Are you perhaps looking for the term "junk food - see "Fast food v/s Junk food "Junk food" is not necessarily bad for the health but it isn't considered as providing a balanced diet.

(The other question seems to need a new thread, but if you do open a new thread please clarify which term puzzles you.)

I meant this phrase "harmful to health" is quite long and cannot be used appropriately for the exact phrase "unhealthy food and drinks". If I use this, I have to change the order of words into, some food and drinks that are harmful to health, which might be used for my two arguments later.

I want an exact phrase that equals to the original version so I can use it for my Introduction and Conclusion.

 

[trunghq]

What do you mean by "unhealthy" if you don't mean "harmful to health"?

I suggest you check a dictionary for synonyms for "unhealthy". http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unhealthy We don't provide lists of words, but if you find one we can tell you whether it works in your context. We will need a complete sentence to show us how you are going to use the phrase.

Are you perhaps looking for the term "junk food - see "Fast food v/s Junk food "Junk food" is not necessarily bad for the health but it isn't considered as providing a balanced diet.

(The other question seems to need a new thread, but if you do open a new thread please clarify which term puzzles you.)

Actually, my teacher paraphrased the phrase into "unhealthy food and beverages".

I really want to use fast food/ junk food that are harmful to health, however, I think these kinds of food make up for some proportion of unhealthy food, am I wrong?

 

[trunghq]

What do you mean by "unhealthy" if you don't mean "harmful to health"?

I suggest you check a dictionary for synonyms for "unhealthy". http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unhealthy We don't provide lists of words, but if you find one we can tell you whether it works in your context. We will need a complete sentence to show us how you are going to use the phrase.

Are you perhaps looking for the term "junk food - see "Fast food v/s Junk food "Junk food" is not necessarily bad for the health but it isn't considered as providing a balanced diet.

(The other question seems to need a new thread, but if you do open a new thread please clarify which term puzzles you.)

The online dictionary that you provided works greatly. It has a wide array of Synonyms.

I guess I could use:

unhealthful (I never hardly use this word and somehow I forgot it)

unwholesome (meaning not good for health but I cannot find it in Cambridge Dictionary)

insalubrious (not healthy, however I searched Google and saw only 1 result for "insalubrious food and drinks" and a number of nearly 2,000 for "insalubrious food")

noxious (= harmful, can be use with "food or drink")
​

I wonder should I use the third word in my essay?

 

[Cagey]

You could use 'unwholesome'. It is a milder word than 'noxious', which we don't often use to describe food. 'Noxious' would mean something closer to 'poisonous', and this is probably not what you have in mind anyway. We don't use 'insalubrious' in regard to food very often. I wouldn't use it; it risks sound odd or humorous.

Don't worry about the fact that Cambridge doesn't use have a separate entry for 'unwholesome'. Dictionaries often omit words formed by adding the prefix un- to as word they have defined elsewhere. They expect you to understand that the prefix un- forms the negative of the word 'wholesome.'

(The online Oxford Dictionaries and our own Random House Learner's Dictionary and Collins Concise English Dictionary have separate entries for unwholesome.)