Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1179, Reading Food Labels.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1179.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, Thank you.
Thank you.
When you do, you can download the 8-10 page learning guide that comes with this episode.
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This episode is a dialogue between Amy and Giorgio about understanding what is in the food you buy from a store.
Let's get started.
Put a big bag of those potato chips in the basket.
Have you read the nutritional label on these chips?
No, but look.
This doesn't have very much saturated fat, trans fat, or sodium.
Look at the serving size.
It's three potato chips.
How often do you stop at three chips?
Okay, no potato chips.
I'll get this package of cookies.
There aren't many calories or carbohydrates in these or much cholesterol or sugar either.
The serving size is one cookie.
There are 40 cookies in each container.
Not everything has to be healthy and good for me.
No, but you have to get your protein and fiber from somewhere.
If you look at the percent daily value on the things you're eating, you're not getting the nutrients, vitamins and minerals your body needs.
Like pizza, hamburgers and fries?
I might not have the best diet, but I'm healthy as a horse.
Maybe a horse ready to be put out to pasture.
Amy begins our dialogue by saying to Giorgio...
Put a big bag of those potato chips in the basket.
Potato chips are made, of course, from potatoes.
They usually have salt on them.
They're very thin and are typically fried.
A basket here refers to a shopping basket.
It's a container that you put things into when you are shopping at a grocery store, at a store where you buy food.
Giorgio says, have you read the nutritional label on these chips?
Nutrition N-U-T-R-I-T-I-O-N refers to the kind of food you eat and, in particular, the quality of the food or the ingredients of the food.
What's in the food?
Nutritional labels L-A-B-E-L-S are found on most foods that you buy in a grocery store or another store in the US.
The government requires that the makers of the food put a label that is a small piece of paper or something that is on the outside of the food package, what the food comes in.
That indicates what is in the food, in particular certain categories of ingredients or certain categories of nutrition.
We'll talk about those categories in a minute.
Amy says no, she has not looked or read the nutritional label.
But look, she says, this doesn't have very much saturated fat, trans fat, or sodium.
Amy is now looking at the label and telling Giorgio that these potato chips that she wants to buy...
Don't have very much saturated fat.
Saturated fat, without going into a technical scientific explanation, is usually fat that comes from animal products.
The word saturated refers to its chemical composition, how it is actually formed chemically.
There are saturated fats, monosaturated fats, polysaturated fats, and trans fats.
If you want a definition for all of those things, it's best to look online.
But a saturated fat is a fat that is solid or would be solid at room temperature.
There are some people who think saturated fats are bad for you, other people who say it doesn't really matter.
We're not going to go into those arguments here, but many Americans have been told for many years that saturated fats are bad for them.
That's why Amy says, look, it doesn't have any or very much saturated fat.
She says it doesn't have very much trans, T-R-A-N-S, fat.
A trans fat is made usually from some sort of chemical process.
And again, there are many people who think trans fat is very bad for your health.
The third item Amy mentions is sodium, S-O-D-I-U-M.
Sodium is basically salt.
Giorgio says, however, look at the serving size.
The serving S-E-R-V-I-N-G size is the amount of food that the people who make the food say would be typical for one person to eat.
If you make the serving size very small, then it will look as though that the amount of say, sodium or trans fat is not very high.
But oftentimes the serving size on a package of food is not very realistic.
But the company makes it really small so that when you look at the nutritional label it doesn't look as though there is a lot of say, trans fat or sodium in it.
Giorgio says the serving size for these potato chips is three potato chips.
How often do you stop at three chips?
Meaning, how often do you only eat three chips and not continue to eat more?
There was a famous advertisement for a potato chip company and the ad said no one could eat just one.
Meaning, if you ate one potato chip, you would want to eat more.
Which, of course, is true for...
A lot of food, such as potato chips.
Amy says, okay, no potato chips, meaning she won't buy any potato chips.
She says, I'll get this package of cookies.
There aren't many calories or carbohydrates in these or much cholesterol or sugar either.
Amy mentions a couple of other categories that are typically found on a nutritional label.
The one that you will almost always find is calories, C-A-L-O-R-I-E-S.
A calorie is technically a unit of heat energy, but most people think of a calorie as how much energy you could get out of this particular kind of food.
Most men eat around 2,000 to 3,000 calories in the United States per day.
The average American woman eats around 1,800 calories per day.
Carbohydrates are one of the three major kinds of nutrients we call them.
There are carbohydrates, fat, and protein.
Carbohydrates are basically foods or nutrients that are turned into sugar and used for energy.
A lot of the foods we eat have a combination of carbohydrates, protein, and fat in them.
Amy also mentions cholesterol, C-H-O-L-E-S-T-E-R-O-L.
Cholesterol is something that your body needs in order to function.
Cholesterol can in certain cases be bad for you, at least too much of a certain kind of cholesterol in your body.
Once again, there is a relationship between the cholesterol you eat and the cholesterol in your body, but it's not the same thing.
People sometimes confuse the two.
Your body needs cholesterol.
Cholesterol is a good thing.
But there are debates about how much eating cholesterol may affect your body's or blood's cholesterol levels.
Sugar, S-U-G-A-R, you're probably familiar with.
It's the kind of thing that makes food sweet.
Giorgio says, look again.
The serving size is one cookie.
There are 40 cookies in each container, that is, in each package.
Once again, Giorgio is pointing out that, even though the nutritional label indicates there aren't very many calories in this package of cookies, the serving size is only one.
Not everything has to be healthy and good for me.
Amy responds, Giorgio says no, but you have to get your protein and fiber from somewhere.
Protein P-R-O-T-E-I-N we've already pointed out, is one of the three major types of nutrients, things that your body needs.
Your body needs protein for all sorts of things, including building muscles.
Fiber, F-I-B-E-R, is actually a kind of carbohydrate.
It's the part of typically a plant that is eaten, but is difficult for your body to digest.
We won't go into all the technical definitions of the different kinds of fiber soluble fiber, insoluble fiber and so forth.
But fiber basically doesn't get absorbed into your body.
You eat it and then it ends up eventually going out of your body in a way that I think you probably can guess.
If you look at the percent daily value on the things you're eating, Giorgio continues, you're not getting the nutrients, vitamins and minerals your body needs.
The US government has decided, or has recommended, that everyone get a certain amount of these different kinds of nutrients and other food elements every day.
And so when you look on a nutritional label in the United States, you will see something called the percent daily value.
That indicates how much of the recommended daily amount of that particular thing this food provides.
So if a food says it provides 10 of the fiber that you need, you would know then that you still have 90 to go with the other food in order to get what the US government thinks is the amount of fiber you need every day.
These percent daily values are Not all that useful for many people, since some people need more of things than other people.
Our bodies are different, but the government wants to give you some idea of what you need every day from your food.
Giorgio says you're not getting the nutrients, N-U-T-R-I-E-N-T-S, your body needs.
Nutrients refers to carbohydrates, protein, and fat, as well as vitamins and minerals.
Vitamins V-I-T-A-M-I-N-S refers to a substance that is required for growth or survival, but that is usually only needed in a small amount.
Once again, that's not a very technical definition of a vitamin.
Minerals M-I-N-E-R-A-L-S are what we call inorganic substances, non-living things that are required but, once again, are only needed in very small amounts.
Vitamins in English are typically given letters.
There's vitamin A, there's vitamin B, There might even be different types of different vitamin letters vitamin B1, vitamin B12 and so forth.
Minerals are things like calcium, sodium, potassium, magnesium that the body also uses.
Amy says, this isn't all I eat.
I eat other things too.
Giorgio says, like pizza, hamburgers, and fries.
Here the word fries refers to French fries, potatoes that are cut up and put into oil.
Amy says, I might not have the best diet, but I'm healthy as a horse.
This expression, healthy as a horse, is an old one meaning very healthy.
Although I have to be honest, I've never used it myself.
Giorgio says, maybe a horse ready to be put out to pasture.
Giorgio then makes a joke about this expression.
When a horse is old and can no longer be used for riding or racing, we may put that horse out to pasture.
P-A-S-T-U-R-E is land that cattle or horses eat off of.
It's an area on a farm where you can put the animals, because they can eat what is growing out of the ground.
To put a horse out to pasture means to retire the horse, to no longer use the horse, to let the horse live the rest of its days, live the rest of its life, just eating food and not doing anything.
It's another expression for retiring someone.
Giorgio is making a joke here, saying that Amy isn't healthy as a horse, unless she means an old horse, a sick horse, a horse that is no longer healthy anymore really.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Put a big bag of those potato chips in the basket.
Have you read the nutritional label on these chips?
No, but look.
This doesn't have very much saturated fat, trans fat, or sodium.
Look at the serving size.
It's three potato chips.
How often do you stop at three chips?
Okay, no potato chips.
I'll get this package of cookies.
There aren't many calories or carbohydrates in these, or much cholesterol or sugar either.
Look again.
The serving size is one cookie.
There are 40 cookies in each container.
Not everything has to be healthy and good for me.
No, but you have to get your protein and fiber from somewhere.
If you look at the percent daily value on the things you're eating, you're not getting the nutrients, vitamins and minerals your body needs.
This isn't all I eat.
I eat other things too.
Like pizza, hamburgers, and fries?
I might not have the best diet, but I'm healthy as a horse.
Maybe a horse ready to be put out to pasture.
Dr. Lucy Say feeds your brain with wonderful English in each of her wonderful scripts.
The perfect food for your English.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan feeling hungry.
I think I'm going to go eat.
Come back and listen to us again, won't you?
Right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2015 by the Center for Educational Development.
