Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1074.
Becoming a Vegetarian.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1074.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Visit our website at eslpod.com.
This episode is a dialogue between Ashley and Paul about people who don't eat meat.
Let's get started.
Are you going to eat eggs and dairy?
If you're doing this for ethical reasons, you should really avoid anything made with animal products or animal byproducts.
Then you're going to be a vegan.
You won't be able to eat any milk, butter, cheese or yogurt.
Really?
I guess I'll have to be a vegan then.
You'll have to eat a varied diet so you don't have a vitamin deficiency.
Yes, I'll have to guard against that.
Are you going to avoid buying things that are animal-derived, too, like leather shoes and belts?
Are you having second thoughts?
Just be glad you didn't choose to become a fruitarian.
You don't want to know.
Our dialogue begins with Ashley saying to Paul, I'm thinking of becoming a vegetarian.
A vegetarian, V-E-G-E-T-A-R-I-A-N. is a person who doesn't eat meat, the meat of animals, such as cows or pigs or chickens.
A vegetarian might not eat meat for a variety of reasons.
In the case of Ashley in our story, it's because she thinks it is the ethical thing to do.
Ethical E-T-H-I-C-A-L refers to something that is good, the right or correct thing to do in a situation, the moral thing to do.
That's what Ashley thinks being a vegetarian is all about, being ethical.
Paul says, are you going to eat eggs and dairy?
Dairy D-A-I-R-Y is something that is related to milk, milk itself or other things that are made from milk.
Paul is asking Ashley if she is going to eat eggs and milk, since those things come from animals, even though they are not animals themselves.
Paul says, if you're doing this for ethical reasons, you should really avoid anything made with animal products or animal byproducts.
There are two terms here to explain.
The first is animal products.
A product is something that comes from something else, something that is produced.
Animal products would be anything that is made from one or more parts of an animal.
Animal byproducts, B-Y hyphen P-R-O-D-U-C-T-S, are things that are made from animal parts, usually created as a consequence of making something else.
For example, chicken farmers mainly try to get eggs from chickens or they kill the chicken in order to sell the meat of the chicken.
But one of the byproducts of having chickens is that chickens, like most of us, create a certain waste product.
They, well, to put it in the terms of a young child, they poop.
P-O-O-P.
Poop is what you do when you go to the bathroom.
Well, at least one of the things.
Anyway, I'm not sure how we got on this topic.
Oh yes, animal byproducts are things that animals produce or that you get from an animal that In the process of doing something else or making something else.
I think that would be the general idea.
So, in the case of chicken poop, it would be perhaps to make fertilizer something you would put on the ground so that you could grow food more easily.
Ashley says I guess you're right meaning that she agrees with Paul that she should probably not eat eggs or dairy.
Paul says, then you're going to be a vegan, V-E-G-A-N.
A vegan, if I understand correctly, is a person who doesn't eat any animal products.
That means that vegans not only don't eat meat, they don't eat eggs or use any dairy products.
Paul says you won't be able to eat any milk, butter, cheese, or yogurt.
Butter, you may know, is something that is made in part from cream and has typically a lot of fat in it.
Cheese is a solid food made from milk.
We use cheese in all sorts of cooking.
Lots of Italian pasta dishes, for example, have cheese in them.
Paul also talks about yogurt, Y-O-G-U-R-T.
Yogurt is also made from milk, often something that is sweetened with fruit or sugar, especially the kind of yogurt you buy at the store that has flavors like strawberry.
Ashley says, really?
Paul continues, he says, A diet refers to the kinds of food that you eat.
Varied means that you need to eat different kinds of things.
And the reason Paul is telling Ashley she needs to eat different kinds of food is to avoid a vitamin deficiency D-E-F-I-C-I-E-N-C-Y.
A deficiency is when you don't have enough of something.
So a vitamin deficiency is when you don't have enough vitamins.
Vitamins are usually classified by a letter.
Vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D.
There are various different kinds of vitamin B.
Vitamins are necessary for health.
And they can be found in many different kinds of foods, depending on the vitamin.
Ashley says, yes, I'll have to guard against that.
To guard G-U-A-R-D against something is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to prevent something from happening, to protect yourself from something dangerous that might happen.
You can guard against something physical, like someone trying to hit you, but more often than not, we use the expression to guard against when we're talking about things that we want to avoid doing, things that we want to prevent from happening.
Paul says, are you going to avoid buying things that are animal-derived to?
The word derived, D-E-R-I-V-E-D, comes from the verb to derive.
To derive means to get something from somewhere else.
We could talk about words in English that are derived from words in Latin or in French or in German.
Here the expression in the dialogue is animal-derived, which would mean that it comes from or is made from animals.
Paul says... like leather shoes and belts.
Leather, L-E-A-T-H-E-R, is a material made from the skin of an animal, usually a cow.
Paul is telling Ashley that she's going to have to stop buying leather shoes and belts.
A belt, B-E-L-T, is what goes around the top of your pants to keep them from falling down.
Ashley says, I hadn't thought of that.
I suppose I should, meaning I suppose I should avoid buying things that are animal-derived also.
Paul then asks, are you having second thoughts?
If someone asks you if you're having second thoughts about something, it means that they are asking you if you are doubting your decision, if you are thinking about changing your mind, because maybe now, when you think about it a little more, you think you might have made the wrong decision.
That's having second thoughts.
If you ask a young woman to marry you and she goes home and comes back and tells you that she's having second thoughts about actually getting married to you, That's usually not a good sign.
You probably want to find a new girlfriend.
Anyway, Ashley says no, meaning no, I'm not having second thoughts.
I'm not doubting my decision.
I just didn't know there would be so many restrictions.
Restrictions are limits on what you can do, rules or regulations that prevent you from doing certain things.
Paul then says, just be glad you didn't choose to become a fruitarian.
A fruitarian, F-R-U-I-T-A-R-I-A-N, is a person who eats mainly fruit.
Usually fruit that falls off from a plant or a tree and that can be taken without harming the plant or tree.
So it's not just fruit that you might find on a tree.
Usually fruitarians, if I understand correctly, will only eat fruit that has fallen off of a tree.
Naturally, if you will.
Are there really fruitarians in the world?
Well, Dr. Lucy Say thinks so because she put the word in our dialogue.
Ashley says, what's that?
She doesn't know what a fruitarian is.
Paul says, you don't want to know.
When you hear that expression you don't want to know, the person is indicating that this information is That you don't know might be information that you don't really want to know because it will confuse you or make you angry or perhaps make you sad.
When someone says you don't want to know, they're saying that the information that you are asking about is something that is going to hurt you or perhaps upset you.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Are you going to eat eggs and dairy?
If you're doing this for ethical reasons, you really should avoid anything made with animal products or animal byproducts.
I guess you're right.
Then you're going to be a vegan.
You won't be able to eat any milk, butter, cheese, or yogurt.
Really?
I guess I'll have to be a vegan then.
You'll have to eat a varied diet so you don't have a vitamin deficiency.
Yes, I'll have to guard against that.
Are you going to avoid buying things that are animal-derived too, like leather shoes and belts?
I hadn't thought of that.
I suppose I should.
Are you having second thoughts?
No, I just didn't know there would be so many restrictions.
Just be glad you didn't choose to become a fruitarian.
What's that?
You don't want to know.
Thanks to our wonderful scriptwriter, Dr. Lucy Say, who is not a fruitarian.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again 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.
