人人都听说过“甜食吃多了对健康有害”。研究发现食糖过量确实会引起一系列相关疾病。本集《随身英语》讲述过量食糖的隐患并讨论平衡饮食的重要性。

课文内容

Vocabulary: health 词汇: 健康

Sweet or savoury? What kind of tastes do you like? If like me, you have a sweet tooth, you probably can't resist eating cakes, biscuits or chocolate and will sweeten your tea or coffee with spoonfuls of sugar – delicious! But the taste makes it very easy to ignore the warnings that too much of the white stuff is bad for our health.

Consuming sugar is an addiction – the more we eat, the more we want. Today's processed food, like ready meals, is laced with the stuff and many fizzy drinks contain seven teaspoons of sugar in just one can. In the UK, statistics show that sugar consumption is at its highest level in history and the government is trying to get the food industry to cut the amount of sugar in popular products like chocolate bars by 20% by 2020.

Of course, sugary food tastes nice, it can help lift our mood, and the glucose in it can give us an energy boost. But there are dangers too: a high-sugar diet is linked to obesity, and being overweight can increase the risk of getting type 2 diabetes. With these warning signs, I have considered changing my diet by replacing sugary snacks with fruit and savoury biscuits – but that's boring, I need my sugar fix!

I'm not alone. BBC journalist Radhika Shanghani, has gone one step further. Encouraged by some celebrities and nutritionists promoting a 'zero tolerance' approach to sugar, she gave it up altogether, thinking it would make her healthier. Initially she says, "My first fortnight involves mood swings worse than puberty. I have agonising headaches and feel permanently hungover." These symptoms disappeared but she still found food shopping hard as she was stressing about buying the right things.

Her experiment wasn't a success. She eventually sought advice from Susan Jebb, professor of diet and population health at Oxford University who said: “Lots of people enjoy sugar and gain pleasure from it, so one has to find a balance between enjoyment and eating the right amount."

There are health benefits of cutting down sugar such as improving dental care and reducing weight gain, but there's no need to be obsessive about it. Eating some sugar as part of a balanced diet is fine and exercising will help burn it off. So rather than dealing with your sugar cravings by cutting it out of your diet altogether, why not work on your willpower and learn to say 'no' to a second serving of chocolate fudge cheesecake.

词汇表

savoury 咸的
sweet tooth 喜好甜食
addiction 上瘾
processed food 加工食品
lace（偷偷地）给（食物或饮品）掺
glucose 葡萄糖
obesity 肥胖（症）
overweight 肥胖的，超重的
Type 2 diabetes 二型糖尿病
fix 用量（幽默的说法）
nutritionist 营养学家
zero tolerance 零容忍政策
mood swings 情绪波动
puberty 青春期
hungover 宿醉的
symptom 症状
a balance 平衡
dental care 牙科护理
weight gain 体重增加
obsessive 过分的
craving 难以抑制的渴求
willpower 意志力

测验与练习

1. 阅读课文并回答问题 。

1. What target has the UK government set the food industry to achieve by 2020?

2. Why did BBC journalist Radhika Shanghani give up sugar altogether?

3. True or false? Susan Jebb, professor of diet and population health at Oxford University, says we should consume no more than seven teaspoons of sugar a day.

4. What could help you burn off the sugar you consume?

5. Which word used in the article means to get advantages from something?

2. 请在不参考课文的情况下完成下列练习。选择一个意思合适的单词填入句子的空格处。

1. I'm feeling sleepy, probably because I haven't had my caffeine ______ today.

addiction       laced       fix       cravings

2. The doctor says my ______ are not serious and I probably just have a cold.

mood swings       symptoms       sweet tooth       willpower

3. Brushing our teeth in the morning and at night, before bed, is all part of good ______.

dentist care       dentals care       sweet teeth       dental care

4. My mum told me that when you go to university, you need to find a ______ between working hard and having fun.

balance       zero tolerance       hangover       fix

5. I don't have much of a ______. I would rather eat crisps and other savoury things.

sweet toothed       sweeting tooth       sweet tooth       sugar tooth

答案

1. 阅读课文并回答问题。

1. What target has the UK government set the food industry to achieve by 2020?
The government is trying to get the food industry to cut the amount of sugar in popular products like chocolate bars by 20% by 2020.

2. Why did BBC journalist Radhika Shanghani give up sugar altogether?
To be more healthy.

3. True or false? Susan Jebb, professor of diet and population health at Oxford University, says we should consume no more than seven teaspoons of sugar a day.
False. She actually says "one has to find a balance between enjoyment and eating the right amount."

4. What could help you burn off the sugar you consume?
Doing exercise.

5. Which word used in the article means to get advantages from something?
Benefits (health benefits)

2.  请在不参考课文的情况下完成下列练习。选择一个意思合适的单词填入句子的空格处。

1. I'm feeling sleepy, probably because I haven't had my caffeine fix today.

2. The doctor says my symptoms are not serious and I probably just have a cold.

3. Brushing our teeth in the morning and at night, before bed, is all part of good dental care.

4. My mum told me that when you go to university, you need to find a balance between working hard and having fun.

5. I don't have much of a sweet tooth. I would rather eat crisps and other savoury things.