Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 719, Eating Unhealthy Foods.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 719.
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.
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When you do, you can download a learning guide for each episode.
This episode is called Eating Unhealthy Food, Food That Would Be Bad for Your Health.
We'll listen to a dialogue between Helen and Gabe about some unhealthy foods.
Let's get started.
So, what's for lunch?
Since you were nice enough to spend your Saturday morning helping me out, I'll make sandwiches for lunch.
I know it doesn't sound like much but I make a mean sandwich.
That sounds good but you're not going to use those cold cuts, are you?
Those are processed meats made with additives and a lot of sodium.
Definitely not what you'd want to put into your body.
I eat these kinds of cold cuts all the time.
You shouldn't if you don't want to eat a lot of saturated fat.
Okay, how about if I make us salads?
Not with those greens, unless they're organic.
They're full of pesticides and chemicals.
All right, how about if I make us healthy smoothies?
Only if you use only fresh fruit.
Bottled juices are full of high fructose corn syrup.
Yuck!
I've got a great idea.
What?
You pick the restaurant and I'll buy you lunch.
I don't want to put you to any trouble.
It's no trouble at all.
I'd do anything to get you out of my kitchen.
Helen begins our dialogue by asking Gabe, so what's for lunch?
Meaning, what are we going to eat for lunch?
Gabe says since you were nice enough to spend your Saturday morning helping me out, I'll make sandwiches for lunch.
To help someone out... means to help another person hear out.
Like in a lot of phrasal verbs, it has more of a meaning of emphasis.
To help someone and to help them out are really the same thing.
Often we use this when another person helps you do some job that you need to get done.
They don't have to, but they decide to help you.
They help you out.
Gabe is going to make sandwiches for lunch.
He says, I know it doesn't sound like much, but I make a mean sandwich.
The expression to not sound like much means to appear to be unimportant, not significant, no big deal.
Gabe says he makes a mean, M-E-A-N, sandwich.
Mean isn't a kind of meat or something you put in the sandwich.
It's an adjective which normally is negative.
To be mean means to be unkind, not nice.
But it has an informal use, which is that it is excellent.
It is great.
So when Gabe says he makes a mean sandwich, he means he makes a very good sandwich.
For some reason there are lots of words in English that have a negative meaning in the dictionary, in their normal meanings, but for some reason have become positive in informal English.
These change every year.
Many of them are part of slang, so I won't talk about them at length.
But mean is an example of one that has been around for many years.
Helen says, that sounds good, but you're not going to use those cold cuts, are you?
Cold cuts, C-U-T-S. are thin pieces of what we would call processed meat.
Things like bologna, pastrami, turkey, roast beef, ham.
All of these could be called cold cuts when you cut them in thin pieces and use them for a sandwich.
Gabe says, I was, meaning I was going to use the cold cuts.
Why?
Helen says, those are processed meats made with additives and a lot of sodium.
Processed meats are meats that are somehow changed.
It's not the same as when it came out of the animal.
They have done something to it, added, subtracted, changed it somehow.
Process has a couple of different meanings in English, however.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
Processed meats often have additives.
To add means to have more of something.
So an additive is something that is extra, something that is put in the food or some other substance in addition to what normally goes in there.
It could be a chemical.
It could be some other substance.
It could be just something to change the color of the food.
Sodium is another word for salt.
Technically, it would be sodium chloride.
In chemistry class, you learn it as NaCl.
There was a great line that my chemistry teacher in high school taught us.
Little Johnny took a drink.
But Little Johnny is no more because what he thought was H2O was really H2SO4.
This has nothing to do with sodium now that I realize it, but I love that little rhyme.
H2O is water, and H2SO4 is sulfuric acid, which would kill you.
That's why little Johnny, when he drank the H2SO4, is no more because he's dead.
For some reason, that's the only thing I remember from my high school chemistry class.
Anyway, Helen says that you definitely do not want to put these processed meats into your body, meaning eat them.
Gabe says, I eat those kinds of cold cuts all the time.
Helen says, you shouldn't if you don't want to eat a lot of saturated fat.
Saturated fat is a type of fat that is solid, not liquid, at room temperature, mostly found in animal products.
Saturated fat is thought to be bad for your heart, among other things.
Helen says, so if you don't want saturated fat, you should not eat cold cuts.
Gabe says, okay, how about if I make us salads?
Helen says, not with those greens.
Greens refer to vegetables, green vegetables, usually lettuce or spinach, perhaps kale.
These are greens that you use in a salad.
But Helen says not with those greens.
Unless they're organic, they're full of pesticides and chemicals.
Organic in general means grown without using any artificial or man-made chemicals.
It has more technical definitions depending on who you talk to.
Helen says that the greens are full of pesticides and chemicals.
Pesticide is a chemical used to kill bugs and insects and other living things that could hurt or damage plants, the vegetables or other food that you are growing.
We call food that you grow to eat crops CROPS, not to be confused with crap C-R-A-P, which is what you can buy at McDonald's.
Now, Pesticides are supposed to kill insects, but some people think they also harm, or can make humans sick.
Chemicals is a general word for any substance, in this case created in a laboratory by scientists for a particular purpose.
Again, it has a broader use, which we won't talk about here.
Gabe sighs.
He goes, to sigh is to breathe out through your mouth so that other people can hear you.
That's to sigh.
Gabe sighs and says, all right, how about if I make us healthy smoothies?
A smoothie is a thick, cold drink made with fruit ice, usually milk, some juice, some fruit juice, sometimes with frozen yogurt or ice cream.
It's a thick, fruity drink, you could call it.
Helen says, She says bottled juices are full of high fructose corn syrup.
Yuck.
High fructose corn syrup is a sweet liquid made from corn that is used many times instead of sugar in processed foods.
It can be found in many different kinds of food.
Some people think it's bad for you.
So that's why Helen says, yuck.
Yuck is a word we use to mean it doesn't taste very good.
It's not good for you to eat.
Gabe says, I've got an idea.
Helen says, what?
Gabe says, you pick the restaurant and I'll buy you lunch.
Helen says, I don't want to put you to any trouble.
When you say you don't want to put someone to any trouble, you mean you don't want to create problems for them.
You don't want to create extra work for them.
Of course, Helen doesn't want to eat anything that Gabe is preparing.
So Gabe says, okay, well, let's go to a restaurant.
And you pick the restaurant.
Helen is what we might call a pain in the butt.
Gabe says, it's no trouble at all.
But of course, it is a trouble.
And so he says under his breath To say something under your breath means to say it quietly to yourself, so that the other person can't hear you or can't hear exactly what you're saying.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
So, what's for lunch?
Since you were nice enough to spend your Saturday morning helping me out, I'll make sandwiches for lunch.
I know it doesn't sound like much, but I make a mean sandwich.
That sounds good, but you're not going to use those cold cuts, are you?
I was.
Why?
Those are processed meats made with additives and a lot of sodium.
Definitely not what you want to put into your body.
I eat those kinds of cold cuts all the time.
You shouldn't if you don't want to eat a lot of saturated fat.
Okay, how about if I make us some salads?
Not with those greens.
Unless they're organic, they're full of pesticides and chemicals.
All right, how about if I make us healthy smoothies?
Only if you use only fresh fruit.
Bottled juices are full of high fructose corn syrup.
Yuck.
I've got a great idea.
What?
You pick the restaurant, and I'll buy you lunch.
I don't want to put you into any trouble.
It's no trouble at all.
I'd do anything to get you out of my kitchen.
Our scriptwriter helps us out every episode.
That's why we want to thank Dr. Lucy Say for her wonderful work.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
