Comment on the following quotes on food and cooking

 

1. Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live. (Socrates)

2. Today men don’t ask their wives, "What’s cooking?" They ask, "What’s thawing?" (Unknown source)

3. I went on a fourteen-day diet, but all I lost was two weeks. (Unknown source)

4. Dieting is a way of starving to death so you can live longer. (Unknown source)

5. Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us. (Peter de Vries)

6. Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else. (Samuel Johnson)

7. Few among those who go to restaurants realize the man who first opened one must have been a man of genius and a profound observer. (Anthelme Brillat-Savarin)

8. A full belly is the mother of all evil. (Unknown source)

9. An empty belly hears nobody. (Unknown source)

10. Moderation is an ostentatious proof of our strength of character. (La Rochefoucauld)

 

Listening Module

 

Food: How to spot a fad diet

Mia Nacamulli (4:33 мин.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V15Z-yyiVg

 

You are going to watch an animated video created by Mia Nacamulli giving the facts on fad (popular for a short time) diets.

 

Before you listen:

1. Think about the famous diets you know and discuss them in small groups of two or three. Why do you think people keep falling for fad diets? What is it about them that makes them so appealing?

2. Explain the meaning of the following words and expressions if you know them or look them up in a dictionary:

● fad (adjective / noun)

● health regimen

● vinegar

● arsenic

● tapeworms

● craze (noun)

● carbohydrate

● fluid

● protein

● allure (noun / verb)

● açaí

● nutritionist

● tipoff

 

Now watch the video and make a list of the diets mentioned. Explain what they consist in.

 

Watch again and answer the following questions:

1. What does marketing of fad diets take advantage of?

2. Where do diet fads come from?

3. How do fad diets, e.g. low-carbohydrate diets and high-protein diets, work? What happens if a diet is abandoned?

4. What characteristics of a diet let us know that it is a fad diet?

5. What other claims apart from weight loss do fad diets make? Are these claims well-founded and why? Why might marketers emphasize the association between superfoods and ancient cultures?

6. Whose advice should you follow if you want to go on a diet and why?

 

Over to you

Has the video changed your attitude to diets? If yes, in what way? What advice would you give to those who want to lose weight?

 

Match the following words and expressions with their Russian equivalents, then fill in the gaps in the sentences below with the expressions:

to come about	приводить в равновесие
to rally behind	появляться
to balance out	останавливать выбор на чем-то
to cut back	сплотиться вокруг
to cut out	снижать, уменьшать
to opt for	способствовать
to get ahead	исключать
to assist with	добиваться успеха, преуспевать, процветать
to shed pounds	превосходить преимущества
to tout weight loss	снижать вес
to jumpstart weight loss	расхваливать, рекламировать снижение веса
to detox the body	выдержать проверку временем
to outweight the benefits	быстро привести к обратному эффекту
to be inherently wrong	запустить, начать снижение веса
to adjust to the shift	сбрасывать килограммы
to result in a quick reversal	очищать организм
to withstand history	приспособиться к изменению
to abandon a diet	быть по сути неверным
to drop / lose weight	отказаться от диеты
in the big picture	умеренно
in earnest	быстро, сразу, вскоре
in moderation	в наличии, имеющийся
in question	по большому счету
in place	основательно, серьезно
early on	о котором идет речь
red flag	общепринятое представление, бытующее мнение
calorie intake	впечатляющие результаты
a quick-fix solution	простые рекомендации
conventional wisdom	калорийность, потребление колорий
dramatic results	сиюминутное, быстрое решение
simple guidelines	сигнал опасности

 

1. ________________________________ about diets, including government health recommendations, seems to change all the time.

2. And yet, ads routinely________________________________ claimingto have the answer about what we should eat.

3. Marketing takes advantage of the desire ________________________________ fast, and be stronger, slimmer, and brighter.

4. And ________________________________, diet plans promising________________________________, known as fad diets, are just what they seem: too good to be true.

5. While the Ancient Greeks and Romans ________________________________ large-scale health regimens centuries earlier, this phenomenon began________________________________ in the Victorian Era with crazes like the vinegar diet and the Banting Diet.

6. If the idea of diet crazes has ________________________________, could this mean that they work?

7. Sodium is lost until the body can __________________ itself _____, and temporary fluid weight loss may occur.

8. With other high-protein diets, you might lose weight at first since by restricting your food choices, you are dropping your overall________________________________.

9. But your body then lowers its metabolic rate to ________________________________, lessening the diet's effect over time and ________________________________ if ________________________________.

10. So while these diets may be alluring ________________________________, they don't guarantee long-term benefits for your health and weight.

11. A few ________________________________, though, can help differentiate between a diet that is beneficial in maintaining long-term health, and one that only offers temporary weight changes.

12. Here's the first tipoff: If a diet focuses on intensely________________________________ calories or on ________________________________ entire food groups, like fat, sugar, or carbohydrates, chances are it's a fad diet.

13. And another ________________________________ is ritual, when the diet________________________________ instructs you to only eat specific foods, prescribed combinations, or to ________________________________ particular food substitutes, like drinks, bars, or powders.

14. The truth is ________________________________ in the long run simply doesn't have ________________________________.

15. Not all diet crazes ________________________________. What about claims of superfoods, cleanses, and other body-boosting solutions?

16. They are healthy additions to a balanced diet, yet often, they're marketed as part of sugary drinks or cereals, in which case the negative properties________________________________.

17. Cleanses, too, may be great________________________________ since they can ________________________________ ________________________________ and can increase the number of fresh fruits and vegetables consumed daily.

18. Scientifically speaking, though, they've not yet been shown to have either a long-term benefit or ________________________________ any better than the natural mechanisms already ________________________________.

19. Everywhere we look, we're offered solutions to how we can look better, feel fitter, and generally ________________________________.

20. Diets and food fads _______not____________________. Circumstantially, they might even be right, just not for everyone all of the time.

 

 

 

Active Vocabulary List

Reading 1

Topical Vocabulary	General Vocabulary
a gourmet /a foodie	to deteriorate
foodieness	to justify
generic /ethnic food	recognition
mouthwatering	stupendous
luscious	discordant
a food-related programme	ambivalent
an elaborate dish	to single out
a plastic-packaged ready-meal	obsession
a novel ingredient	pretentious
indigenous cuisine	to flaunt one’s passion
inedible	ironic detachment
a publican	lavishly
a restaurateur	discerning
a dainty taste	daft
	irreverent
	to translate into
	avidly
	painstakingly
	upmarket
	equate
	inhibition
	to be amiss
	oblique
	disguise
	obnoxious
	work oneself into
	health-conscious
	accoutrement
	impunity
Reading 3 General Vocabulary	Topical Vocabulary
courtesy of smb glee rebuttal runny in its wake to be gussied up commensurate to be elaborate abstemious to tide smb over low-key to be kitschy	to be done to perfection scrambled (eggs) to garnish with smth to be stuffed with smth to be coated with smth lavish (tastes) mock (cutlets) thin (soup)