Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 574, Shopping for Produce.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 574.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
You can go there to learn the secret of life.
You can also download a learning guide for this episode that contains information, including a complete transcript, to help you improve your English even faster.
This episode is called Shopping for Produce.
Produce includes fruits and vegetables.
Let's get started.
My doctor has been telling me to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, so I finally decided to follow her advice.
I resolved to eat better so I could feel better.
I made a beeline for the produce department.
First I looked at some bananas.
Since they ripen off the vine, I picked out some that were already ripe and others that were still green.
Next I looked for some tomatoes.
They looked picked over, but then I saw some organic tomatoes and decided to give those a try.
Then I went to look for the spinach.
I found it, but it didn't look fresh at all.
The leaves were brown and wilted.
I decided to pass on the spinach and check out the mushrooms.
The mushrooms didn't look any better.
In fact, some were beginning to rot.
I picked up some lettuce instead and headed for the checkout stand.
I was feeling pretty good about my new decision to eat better.
But then I passed the cookie aisle.
My resolve weakened.
I spotted my favorite type of cookies.
Before I knew what I was doing, I put a bag of those cookies in my cart.
I know I should be able to resist impulse buys, especially of things I'm likely to eat all in one sitting.
But don't forget I'm eating more fruits and vegetables.
With my new healthy diet, aren't I allowed to fall off the wagon now and then?
Our story begins with me coming home from work.
I decide to stop at the supermarket, which is a large store that sells many types of food.
A supermarket is just a big market.
My doctor, I say, has been telling me to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables.
Fresh is, in this case, an adjective that means recently picked, recently taken from the trees or the fields where they were grown.
These are fruits and vegetables that are ready to be eaten or to be cooked.
In other words, they're not in a can.
They're the actual vegetable right from the farm.
I say that I was going to eat more fruits and vegetables because my doctor recommended that to me.
To resolve here means to make a firm decision to change something in your behavior usually to change something in your life.
The noun is resolution.
It's very common for people to make New Year's resolutions when the first of January comes up.
Every year.
They say OK, this year I'm going to stop smoking, or this year I'm going to stop eating a pound of chocolate every day.
Something like that.
That's a resolution.
The verb is to resolve.
To resolve can also mean to solve a problem or a conflict, an argument, something like that.
I say next that I made a beeline for the produce department.
The expression to make a beeline B-E-E-L-I-N-E one word for something means to go directly to a particular place or or to a particular person, without stopping to look at or to talk to anyone else.
You go directly to that person.
When children go to the library, Some of them make a beeline for the comic books.
They walk in the door and they run over to the comic books.
They don't stop and look at anything else.
Some men, when they walk into a bar, make a beeline for the beautiful women, of course.
I did not make a beeline for any women.
I made a beeline for the produce department.
Produce means fresh fruits and vegetables.
It's a general term.
First, I looked at some bananas.
Those are yellow pieces of fruit that are long and they grow on trees, I think.
I pick some that were already ripe.
To ripen off the vine.
V-I-N-E means that they continue to mature and become ripe or ready to eat, and after they are removed from the plant.
So there are some fruits, for example, that you can take it off of the tree like a banana, and you wait a couple of days and it will turn from green to yellow, indicating it is now ready to eat.
There are some fruits that do not ripen off the vine, meaning you have to wait until they are ready, until they are ripe, before you remove it from the tree or the plant.
A vine technically, is a plant that grows certain kinds of fruit grapes, for example and tomatoes grow on what we call vines.
To ripen off.
The vine however, is a general term referring to fruit that matures after it has been picked or removed from the plant or tree where it was growing.
So because bananas ripen off the vine, you can pick those bananas that are still green.
A green banana indicates it is not yet ripe.
Next, I looked for some tomatoes.
They looked picked over.
When we say something is picked over, we mean that other customers have come and taken the best ones.
So the ones that are left are not very good.
That's what it means to be picked over.
Before I forget, the word green has other meanings in English, and those are in the learning guide.
I say that the tomatoes were picked over, but then I saw some organic tomatoes.
Organic is a very popular adjective describing food nowadays.
Usually it means that it is grown naturally without any chemicals, anything that might damage your health organic food is supposed to be more healthy because it doesn't have these different chemicals that are normally used when we are farming and by we i mean other people not me Then I look for some spinach after I get my organic tomatoes.
I found the spinach, but unfortunately it didn't look fresh at all.
It was old.
It was not recently arrived from the farm.
The leaves on the spinach, the part of the spinach that is flat and large, were brown and wilted.
When we say something is wilted w-i-l-t-e-d, we mean that the leaves of the fruit or vegetable are not fresh.
They're weak.
They are bent.
For example, lettuce, if put in the oven, will very quickly wilt with the heat.
Things often wilt in the heat, and that means that they are no longer hard, crisp.
They are weak instead, and they start to look bad.
And that's what happened to the leaves of the spinach.
To pass on something here means to decide not to buy or not to use something.
If you're at a dinner and someone offers you some hot dogs and you don't really like hot dogs, although I can't understand why.
I love hot dogs.
But you decide, well, hot dogs, they're not very healthy.
So you say to the person, I think I will pass on the hot dogs, meaning I'm not going to have any.
To pass on has other, very different meanings, and those are in everyone together the learning guide.
So I pass on the spinach, and I decide to check out or go look at, investigate the mushrooms.
The mushrooms didn't look any better.
In fact, some of the mushrooms were beginning to rot.
To rot is when something that is living, like a plant or a vegetable or a body, begins to decay and decompose.
When something dies, it begins to fall apart, whether it's a body or a banana.
Usually, it begins to have a bad smell, and it begins to come apart physically.
So that is the meaning of to rot.
It's when something that was once living dies and begins to smell and look ugly.
The mushrooms, I say, didn't look any better because they were beginning to rot.
So I picked up some lettuce.
I took some lettuce and put it into my cart.
My cart is another word for a shopping cart, which is a large metal basket on wheels that you use in the store.
You push it.
I put picked up some lettuce and put it in my cart and I then headed for the checkout stand.
To head for means to go in the direction of.
The checkout stand is the part of the grocery store where you pay for your food.
I was feeling pretty good about my new decision to eat better, but then I passed.
I walked by the cookie aisle.
In a store, you have usually several aisles.
These are basically rows where you have food on both sides, usually on shelves.
So I pass by the cookie aisle, the aisle that had the cookies in it, and my resolve weakened.
Remember we mentioned resolve as being your decision to do something, to change something.
Here it's used as a noun.
My resolve weakened.
To weaken means to become less strong, to become weaker.
I spotted, I saw my favorite type of cookies.
Before I knew what I was doing, I'd put a bag of those cookies in my cart.
So I saw the cookies.
I could not resist them.
I needed the cookies, I thought.
So I got them and I put them in my cart.
Finally, I say I know I should be able to resist impulse buys.
An impulse I-M-P-U-L-S-E buy B-U-Y is something that you buy, that you were not planning on buying.
You did not have the idea before you got to the store, but you saw it and you decided to buy it.
I say I know I should be able to resist impulse buys, meaning not buy those things, especially of things I'm likely to eat all in one sitting.
All in one sitting means all at once, at one time.
If you give me a bag of potato chips, I will eat them all in one sitting.
But I say, don't forget I'm eating more fruits and vegetables.
With my new healthy diet, aren't I allowed to fall off the wagon now and then?
The expression to fall off the wagon means to resume a bad habit, to start doing something that you stopped doing, such as, for example, smoking.
If you say I'm going to stop smoking and then two months later you have a cigarette, you've fallen off the wagon.
This is often used for people who are alcoholic stop drinking, but then a few weeks or months or even years later, they start drinking again.
They fall off the wagon.
Now let's listen to the story, this time at a normal speed.
On my way home from work, I stopped at the supermarket.
My doctor has been telling me to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, so I finally decided to follow her advice.
I resolved to eat better so I could feel better.
I made a beeline for the produce department.
First, I looked for some bananas.
Since they ripen off the vine, I picked out some that were already ripe and others that were still green.
Next, I looked for some tomatoes.
They looked picked over, but then I saw some organic tomatoes and decided to give those a try.
Then, I went to look for the spinach.
I found it, but it didn't look fresh at all.
The leaves were brown and wilted.
I decided to pass on the spinach and checked out the mushrooms.
The mushrooms didn't look any better.
In fact, some were beginning to rot.
I picked up some lettuce instead and headed for the checkout stand.
I was feeling pretty good about my new decision to eat better.
But then, I passed the cookie aisle.
My resolve weakened.
I spotted my favorite type of cookies.
Before I knew what I was doing, I'd put a bag of those cookies in my cart.
I know I should be able to resist impulse buys, especially of things I'm likely to eat all in one sitting.
But don't forget, I'm eating more fruits and vegetables.
With my new healthy diet, aren't I allowed to fall off the wagon now and then?
You should never pass on a script written by our script writer, the wonderful Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
