Food & diet
topic-specific vocabulary
79
For reference, see the
Easier English Dictionary for Students
(978 0 7475 6624 3)
B. Match sentences 1-10 with a second sentence A-J. Use the key words in
bold
to help you.
1. A lot of people are
allergic
to nuts.
2. Many
people do not trust
genetically modified
foods.
3.
Organic
vegetables are more expensive but are better for you.
4. We refuse to eat
battery chickens
.
5. We prefer to eat
free range
meats.
6. The
harvest
has been very bad this year.
7. Following
the floods in Mozambique, there was a terrible
scarcity
of food.
8. There has been an outbreak of
salmonella, listeria
and other
food poisoning
in Perth.
9. Too many people don’t eat a
balanced diet.
10.
Fast food
is very popular.
A. This is because they are cultivated naturally, without using any chemical fertilisers or pesticides.
B. There wasn’t enough to feed everyone affected by the disaster.
C. They are not sure that altering the composition of cells to change certain characteristics is safe.
D. It’s good to know that the animals were given enough space to express their natural behaviour.
E. Terrible weather conditions have prevented the crops from ripening and reduced the yield.
F.
A lot of people are in hospital as a result.
G. Unfortunately, a diet of burgers, pizzas and fried chicken is not very healthy.
H. They physically react very badly.
I.
This is because they spend their life confined in a small cage.
J.
They don’t consume sufficient quantities of the different food groups.
C. Now complete this article with one of the words or expressions from Tasks A and B. In some
cases, more than one answer may be possible. You may need to change some of the word
forms.
Most children enjoy eating 1____________________ , but scientific tests have
shown us that burgers and
pizzas can lack essential 2____________________ and 3____________________ which are essential for health
and growth, while simultaneously containing large amounts of 4____________________ and
5____________________ which can result in obesity and heart problems. Many children end up suffering
from 6____________________ , since they eat too much of the wrong sort of food. In fact, in many areas of
the developed world, a lot of children show similar symptoms to those
in poorer developing countries,
where 7____________________ of food causes thousands of deaths from starvation, especially in the wake
of natural disasters which ruin crops and in some cases totally destroy the annual 8___________________ .
Dieticians tell us that we must eat a 9____________________ , as it is essential we consume sufficient
quantities of the different food groups. They tell us that we should all eat more 10___________________,
which cannot be digested by the body, and fewer foods which are high in 11____________________ , as this
can block the walls of arteries and lead to heart problems.
This is good advice, of course, but our lifestyles
often make this difficult. Many of the ready-prepared foods we buy from supermarkets are high in
12____________________ , giving us more energy than we actually need. 13____________________ foods are
appearing
on our supermarket shelves, even though nobody is really sure if altering the composition of
food cells is safe. We have the option, of course, of buying 14____________________ foods, but naturally-
cultivated fruits and vegetables are expensive.
And to make matters worse, we are continually hearing
about outbreaks of 15____________________ and 16____________________ which put us off eating certain
foods, as nobody wants to spend time in hospital suffering from 17____________________ .
A few things to watch out for next time you go shopping. If you have the time and the money, that is!