Background introduction: education and globalization

A healthy diet is a diet that helps to maintain or improve overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients, micronutrients, and adequate calories.

The requirements for a healthy diet can be met from a variety of plant-based and animal-based foods, although a non-animal source of vitamin B12 is needed for those following a vegan diet. A healthy diet supports energy needs and provides for human nutrition without exposure to toxicity or excessive weight gain from consuming more calories than the body requires. A healthy diet, in addition to exercise, may lower disease risks, such as obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cancer.

Various nutrition guides are published by medical and governmental institutions to educate individuals on what they should be eating to promote health. Nutrition facts labels are also mandatory in some countries to allow consumers to choose between foods based on the components relevant to health.

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typical: of the qualities or characteristics that identify a group or kind or category;

diet: The usual food and drink of a person or animal as in the typical North American diet. It can also mean “a regulated selection of foods for medical reasons”. The phrase go/be on a diet means having a limited amount of food because you want to get thinner.

consist: Be composed of; be made up of, usually used together with the preposition “of”.

hot dogs: A cooked sausage that consists of a combination of beef and pork or all beef, which is cured, smoked, and cooked. Seasonings may include coriander, garlic, ground mustard, nutmeg, salt, sugar, and white pepper. They are fully cooked but are usually served hot. Sizes range from big dinner frankfurters to tiny cocktail size. Hot dogs are among America's favorite foods. Every year, Americans consume on average 60 hot dogs! Hot dogs are primarily regarded as a fun, summertime food, and most are eaten between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

french fries: strips of potato fried in deep fat, also french-fried potatoes.

pizza: Italian open pie made of thin bread dough spread with a spiced mixture of e.g. tomato sauce and cheese

this description is not totally inaccurate: This sentence is not a usual double negative. It means that the description is partially correct. Without the word totally, the sentence this description is not inaccurate means that this description is accurate, which is a normal double negative emphasizing the positive opinion.

fat: 脂肪

cholesterol：胆固醇

Now answer the following questions in your own words.

Q: What is North American diet?

Most Americans and Canadians would like to eat some fast food—hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, pizza, fried chicken, and so on. Besides, they usually eat some junk food without much nutrition value. To be more specific, the typical North American diet consists of much sugar, salt, fat, and cholesterol.

 

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red meat：Meats are often classified by the type of animal from which they are taken.Red meat refers to the meat taken from mammals and usually they are red in color; white meat refers to the meat taken from fowl; seafood refers to the meat taken from fish and shellfish; and gamerefers to meat taken from animals that are not commonly domesticated. In addition, most commonly consumed meats are specifically identified by the live animal from which they come. >Beef refers to the meat from cattle, veal from calves, pork from hogs, lamb from young sheep, and mutton from sheep older than two years.

concern: a feeing of worry, especially about something such as a social problem, someone’s health, etc. It is usually followed by prepositions about, over or for.

Japan:日本Tokyo is the capital.

Korea: 韩国Seoul is the capital .

Thailand：泰国 Bangkok is the capital.

India：印度 New Delhi is the capital.

broiled or roasted (instead of fried)chicken: Broiled chicken are cooked under direct heat or over a flame on a barbeque. Roasted chicken are cooked by dry heat in the oven. Compared with deep fried chicken with fat, broied and roasted chicken are less greasy and much lower in fat.

salad bars: a bar where diners can assemble a salad to their own taste. 

Q1: What are the changes of people’s eating habits?
Now, people are more concerned with nutrition which is an important part of health. North Americans are eating less red meat and fewer eggs, and they are eating more chicken and fish, which contain less fat than meat and eggs. Many people are also buying more fresh vegetables in order to keep the vitamins.

Q2: What are the changes of restaurants?

More ethnic restaurants are opening in big cities including food from many different countries. Foods from China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, India, and the Middle East are very popular. Restaurant menus are also paying more attention to the absorption of nutrition.

 

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Q: How are we going to eat in the future?

In the future, our diet will probably be even more interesting and healthful than it is now. Because we now know about the importance of nutrition, we will probably continue to eat more fish and vegetables and less meat.

probably: used to saying that “something is likely to happen, likely to be true or the speaker approves it or hopes it will happen”.

 

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dish: In the passage, it means “the food served in a dish”; any particular kind of food; as, a cold dish; a warm dish; a delicious dish. As a noun, it can also mean “a vessel (容器), as a plate, a bowl, used for serving up food at the table”.

diet plans: A plan to balance or control what one eats in order to keep fit, keep a slim figure or for some medical reasons.

argument: A discussion in which disagreement is expressed; a debate, a quarrel or a dispute.

high-fiber & low-fat: These are two compound words, each consisting of an adjective and a noun hyphenated in-between. This is one of the many compounding methods of word formation in English. Words like large-scale and high-class belong to the same type. They function as adjectives. High-fiber food contains a lot of fiber while low-fat food is relatively low in fat.

relaxation: the noun of relax meaning a way of resting and enjoying yourself.

caffeine: a bitter stimulating ingredient found in coffee and tea.

harmful: causing or likely to cause harm. The suffix -ful is added to nouns or verbs to mean “full of, filled with”. Other examples are colorful, meaningful, joyful, delightful.

*antomym: harmless. The suffix -less means “lack of, without”. E.g. powerless, tasteless, nameless, endless.

yellow vegetables: vegetables that are yellow in color such as soybeans. Vitamin A is the major ingredient of these vegetables.

prevent: To keep something from happening or keep someone from doing something.

avoid: stay clear from; keep away from; keep out of the way of  someone or something.

balance: a state of equilibrium. Literally, the phrase keep your balance means you “keep the state in which your weight is evenly spread so that you do not fall”. The opposite is lose your balance.

*antomym:imbalance

quantity: It means “an amount of something that can be counted or measured” while the word quality means “the degree to which something is good or bad”.

Q: How can we balance nutrition?
We can choose foods from a variety of sources, control the quantities that we eat, limit fats, and exercise.