Healthy eating.
It's something that can be hard for us to do, because there's a lot of information out there about how to eat healthy.
Hi, I'm Oliver and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
And as you've heard, today's episode is about healthy eating.
So we are going to talk about and practice vocabulary around food, eating, diet, that type of thing.
If you're new here, Easy English is the best place to practice your English listening skills.
And while doing that, improve your vocabulary and your speaking too from being able to replicate and copy this English speech.
So if you are new, a very warm welcome to Easy English.
And if you've been listening for a while, thank you for joining me again today.
As an English teacher, of course, I've spent years now explaining English ideas.
But as a person, I've learned that one of life's most essential skills is also one of the simplest, and that is learning to listen to your body around food.
Today, we aren't going to talk about any crazy diets or strange eating habits.
We are going to look at something very simple, a balanced plate, a balanced diet.
And in doing so we will learn about different food groups and some of the words associated or linked to those groups.
So by the end of this episode you will have, I hope, the words to describe what your body needs and a clearer picture of what it means to eat well in English, of course.
Before we get started, I like to have our key vocabulary spotlight at the beginning of the episode.
In this, I'm going to read you five key pieces of vocabulary that I want you to listen for in this episode.
And most of the time they are very important for the topic.
Don't worry if you know some of them already, that's absolutely fine.
Just try to practice that active listening.
But first, before we look at those, I want to remind you that if you are not following subscribed or I guess yeah, subscribed or following this podcast, what are you doing?
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OK, let's look at our vocabulary.
First, we have healthy, healthy.
And this adjective means good for your body.
We can simply say it like good for your body.
When something's healthy, it's good for us.
When we talk about healthy food, it is food that is good for our body.
Think of a fresh salad or a walk outside.
These are healthy things.
The next word we have is balanced. balanced.
And this is a very important word.
A balanced meal or diet has all the different parts in the correct amounts.
So it's about harmony.
It's about things being in the right amount, not about having too little of one thing or too much of the other.
When something is balanced, it is the perfect amount of everything, or both.
If we're comparing two things.
Next is nutrients.
Nutrients.
This is essential substances in the food that your body needs to grow and do.
They are essentially your body's fuel, like fuel, the fuel that we put in a car, but the good stuff, the good things that your body needs from food.
Finally, we have food group and portion.
A food group is a category of food that shares similar properties, like fruits or vegetables, and a portion is simply the amount that you eat.
So you can have a portion of a food group, an amount of that food group.
You can have a portion of a dish or a meal and again that is what you eat from that meal or dish.
Okay, so those are our words.
Listen out for them in today's episode.
You will hear them in context.
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So let what does a truly balanced meal look like?
We're going to look at the art of a balanced plate, having a balanced meal, everything in the right portion.
But it's not so easy for centuries.
That means hundreds of years.
Chefs and nutritionists have been trying to answer this question.
What is the perfect balance?
But the simplest and most effective way to think about it is to imagine your plate as a canvas, a visual guide for every meal.
Your plate should be like a work of art with a little something from each of the main food groups.
Well, this is in theory.
Of course, this is for today's episode, where we can visualize and look at each food group to learn about them.
So if we picture this plate and lots of different parts, for example, of course many people will not eat meat or certain foods.
And that is fine.
Your diet is your choice.
But the purpose of today's episode is to learn each food group.
So let's explore each one and understand its unique part individually in fueling your body and keeping you going.
The first is probably the most important in terms of healthy food, in terms of nutrients, and that is fruits and vegetables.
These are the cornerstone, so the very important part of a healthy diet.
Think of fruits and vegetables as those vibrant colors on your canvas, on your plate, like a work of art, right.
And they should take up about half of your plate.
They're packed with vitamins, minerals and fiber too.
And all these little superheroes.
They give your body nutrients to try and help it to fight illness and stay strong.
These nutrients are very important and they're what your body needs.
Our next group is the carbohydrates.
And these are your body's main source of energy, your fuel.
Think of them as a foundation of your plate.
They take up about one quarter of the space on your plate.
They give you the power to work, to think and play.
So if you're choosing complex carbohydrates, so let's say more complicated ones, like whole grain bread, brown rice or sweet potatoes.
These can give you lots of energy for the rest of your day.
The energy lasts for a long time.
If you think about when we have junk food or a lot of sugar, we have a very quick burst of energy, a quick spike, we could say, and then it decreases very fast afterwards.
But when we have those carbohydrates, those complex ones, and protein too, which we will look at next, the energy can last for a long time.
And that leads us to our next group.
Protein.
Protein can be described as the engine of the body.
It's responsible for building and repairing your muscles.
And this should be a smaller portion of your meal.
It shouldn't be the biggest part.
About one quarter of your plate.
And that protein can be from plants.
It can be from eggs milk, beans.
Dairy products in general will have protein too.
And of course, meat, especially lean meat with less fat.
Protein is also very important for your skin as well.
OK, our final group that we're going to look at is dairy and alternatives to dairy.
So these are important supporting players to our diet as well, and they're very good for strong bones and teeth.
You only really need a small portion of these compared to the rest of your diet, perhaps like a glass of milk, some cheese extra.
And don't worry if you don't really eat dairy.
There are a lot of alternatives to milk and dairy as well that can provide what you need those vitamins and nutrients.
Okay, so in general, the secret to healthy eating isn't about just knowing these food groups and these categories.
It's about the balance and portion sizes, how big our portions are of each thing and our meals in general.
A healthy diet really isn't about avoiding certain foods or your favourite foods.
It's about making smart choices most of the time, during our day, during our meals and as we eat.
You can still have that slice of cake or a burger or a bit of fast food, but as long as you're balancing this with plenty of vegetables and healthy food as well.
If unhealthy food makes up most of your diet, of course you're going to have issues and probably not be so healthy.
You have to listen to your body.
It has a voice and it will tell you when it's hungry and it's full and ultimately that can be the best guide to getting portions correct.
But of course, from what i've read, that's not always the easiest because lots of foods and chemicals and things in our lives can affect our body's ability.
So how our body can tell us if we are full or hungry.
So I don't fully agree on that point.
Okay, let's go to our listener spotlight for today.
And we're going to take a look at a question that I asked, and I just have one answer to read today.
And that is about, let me see here, favorite tastes, favorite tastes and flavors.
So in one of the previous episodes called describing tastes and smells, we looked at some sensory vocabulary.
If you haven't checked out that episode, you should go back and listen to it now.
And in that episode, we learned how to describe different tastes and smells.
So I asked, what is your favorite taste or smell?
And Brenda wrote a great answer that I wanted to read today.
She said, hi, teacher.
Thank you for another great episode.
I really enjoyed it.
I learned some new vocabulary.
And today's question, my favorite flavor is bitter.
Most of the time, people don't understand this pleasure and question my choice.
Honestly, in the beginning I didn't enjoy it at all, but I'm growing and becoming more conscious about my health.
I think of that as a good practice to take care of myself.
Enjoying black coffee and dark chocolate.
Bitterness has really grown on me.
That's an excellent comment, Brenda.
I especially love the use of that phrase grown on me.
So she said bitterness has really grown on me.
That means that Brenda has started to enjoy and like bitterness more over time.
Excellent, excellent comment with some great phrases.
So for one of our next episodes, I want you to answer in the comments below on this episode, a question today about diet.
I want you to tell me, do you try to eat healthy?
If you do, what do you do?
Tell me a little bit about how you try to be healthy in your diet.
And I will read out some of those comments in one of the future episodes of the Easy English podcast.
And, of course, it's great writing practice for you, to practice commenting and answering to these questions.
So do, do give it a try.
We usually have every episode only about four or five people that actually try to write, but we have thousands of listeners.
So if you're listening, don't just listen.
When you're able to go on and leave a comment on the YouTube page under the video or on Spotify or wherever you're listening and try to answer the question.
Okay, back to our final part about healthy eating.
So really remember, with healthy eating, it's really a journey.
It's not a destination.
It's having that progress in our diets, with foods, and not only trying to have perfection.
I hope that this episode has given you some vocabulary and ability to talk about different food groups and diet, especially using words like healthy protein, carbohydrates or learning a little bit about what each of these are.
For me.
I guess this topic came up because recently, probably the last year, I've been trying to eat a little bit healthier.
In the past, I have found it quite hard.
My previous job required me to travel a lot.
So I was driving lots of time and I was stopping at lots of service stations garages, we call them in the UK.
And in these places, it was very hard to find healthy food.
A lot of the food was fast food. burgers, prepackaged sandwiches, that type of thing.
And over time, I started to feel more tired, worse.
I didn't have issues like weight gain, but I definitely felt not so good.
So I have been trying over the last year, and especially now starting my new job, to be healthier with the choices that I'm making, to make healthy choices with my food, to eat more fruit and vegetables during the day and to drink more water as well.
For me, the attitude is the most important.
It's trying to be better and trying to improve.
We're definitely not going to get it perfect all the time.
I still love pizza and fast food and different junk food.
And I know that I probably always will.
But I do try to have a balanced diet as much as I can.
Some areas that I can work on are definitely probably still eating less fast food.
And eating less processed food as well.
I alter a processed food.
I do eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, which I think is good.
But I do still probably eat too much meat.
But we'll see.
We'll see how that develops in the future.
I'm curious to hear about your diets, what foods you like.
Do answer that question and let me know in the comments below.
So we have an episode on friday or on thursday coming out and then i actually go on holiday for a week.
But i still will have episodes scheduled for this time.
But i may be slower the next few weeks at answering your comments and questions, so don't worry if i'm quiet.
I will try and answer everyone when i return from my holiday.
Thank you so much for listening to this podcast.
Remember the links to patreon, to my book and everything you need is in the description of this episode below.
You can find that on the description, on whatever platform you're watching or listening to this podcast.
Thank you so much for supporting and i will see you in the next episode goodbye.
