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Hello everyone and welcome back to EnglishPod. My name is Marco

and my name is Catherine and we’ve got a special announcement to make today.

That’s right. This is lesson number 200. So, good job EnglishPod. We have over 200 lessons already in our library so that’s like enough for like six months of continuous learning I think.

But the lessons keep coming, and they keep getting better. So of course you should continue to listen to us. We just thought we would mention it today. It’s the special number 200.

Exactly. And because of this special number, we’re gonna talk about a very laid-back topic but very interesting nonetheless. We’re talking about junk food.

You might argue that it’s actually too laid-back and is the cause of many problems in America and other places in the world. Junk food is unhealthy food. So let’s take a listen to today’s dialogue and we’ll be back in a moment to talk about what’s going on

A: I’m hungry, let’s go grab a bite to eat.

B: Sure! How about we go home and prepare a couple of sandwiches?

A: Nah! Let’s go get a burger and fries.

B: All you ever do is have unhealthy fast food, Pizza, fries, burgers and hot dogs! You have to start eating better!

A: What are you talking about? I have salads sometimes.

B: Yeah right! I’m serious! You should also cut down on your sugar intake as well. You drink carbonated drinks that are high in fructose syrup! It’s really not healthy!

A: Fine! I’ll start drinking and having home cooked meals that are low in fat. Are you happy now?

B: It’s a start, but I’ll be happy when I see you stick to your promise!

All right, we’re back. So, let’s take a look at some of the great words and phrases all about junk food now in language take away.

Language take away

My favorite, this stuff makes me hungry, but it’s not very good for you.

It’s not. It’s terrible. And especially his favorite food was burger and fries.

I had it for dinner last night.

Really? You had burger and fries?

Yeah, maybe. Well, it’s not very healthy and there is a great way to describe this. The word is unhealthy.

All right. So yes, as you say it’s very unhealthy. Well, yeah because you get fat. They’re very high in calory, so it’s unhealthy. So, that means is not good for you.

That’s right. So, just a reminder, in English when we hear the word unhealthy or unhappy, this means not healthy.

That’s right

not happy. UN is a prefix that means not.

Okay. And talking about unhealthy food, in general, what are we talking about? We’re talking about fast food.

Okay. So, this might require a story. What is the meaning behind fast food as opposed to slow food? Because there is no slow food, right?

I think now they have it in like France or something like that. They talk about slow food. But anyways, fast food is food as prepared very quickly. So, you go, you order, in two or three minutes, you have your entire order ready to go.

Okay. So, maybe this is the food that I could get at McDonald’s or Burger King where they make it very very quickly and I can go home or I can go to the office with my food ready.

Exactly. So, fast food very popular among countries, very popular nowadays among busy people who have no time to sit down at a restaurant and eat or sit down and have a proper lunch.

fast food. And one of the important drinks at a fast food restaurant is a carbonated drink. So, this carbonated, what does this mean?

This is actually the fancy word for soda or for fizzy drink.

Fizzy, okay. So, something that’s carbonated has bubbles.

Yeah, has bubbles.

For example, a lot of Europeans drink carbonated water that means water with bubbles in it.

That’s right. So, actually the bubbles are caused because the drink has a high concentration of a certain gas such as carbon, so that’s why it has all these bubbles and its fizzy like Coca-Cola for example.

Right. Coca-Cola or Sprite, these are carbonated drinks.

Very good

So, you have carbonated water and you have carbonated soda. What is the thing that makes soda different? What is it that makes soda taste so good?

It’s sweet and the ingredient that makes it sweet is called fructose syrup.

Fructose syrup is essentially sugar.

Yeah, and it comes from corn I believe, right?

That’s right so you can also hear the name corn syrup and this is sweet syrup that comes from corn that makes drinks like Sprite and Coca-Cola taste so good. It’s also very unhealthy for you.

Yes, because it has a lot of calories. So, that is one of the main ingredients in soda. Now you know you have fructose syrup.

All right. So, that’s all we’ve got for language take away. Let’s take another listen to today’s dialogue. We’ll be back in a second.

A: I’m hungry, let’s go grab a bite to eat.

B: Sure! How about we go home and prepare a couple of sandwiches?

A: Nah! Let’s go get a burger and fries.

B: All you ever do is have unhealthy fast food, Pizza, fries, burgers and hot dogs! You have to start eating better!

A: What are you talking about? I have salads sometimes.

B: Yeah right! I’m serious! You should also cut down on your sugar intake as well. You drink carbonated drinks that are high in fructose syrup! It’s really not healthy!

A: Fine! I’ll start drinking and having home cooked meals that are low in fat. Are you happy now?

B: It’s a start, but I’ll be happy when I see you stick to your promise!

All right, we’re back. So now, we have a couple of great phrases that we heard along the dialogue. So, let’s take a look at those now in fluency builder.

Fluency builder

All right. So, starting off, this is a very interesting phrase because we saw it in the first sentence and it says, let’s go grab a bite to eat. Let’s grab a bite to eat.

So, to grab is to hold something with your hand, okay? To do it quickly. He grabbed my arm. So, to grab a bite to eat, a bite is a small taste, which going to have a quick meal. So, after work you want to go grab a bite to eat? That means let’s go have something to eat quickly.

Yeah. I’ll be there soon. Let me just grab a bite to eat.

So, bite is a little bit. It’s a small amount of food.

Now, for our next phrase, it’s very important because I’ve noticed that a lot of our English learners make the mistake of using this phrase. It’s how about

how about. So, in today’s dialogue the phrases, how about we go home and prepare a couple of sandwiches.

So, how about is used as a suggestion, is how do you feel or what you think of going home and preparing a couple of sandwiches.

So, another way to say this is, why don’t we go home and prepare something.

Exactly. But commonly English learners make the mistake of using how about as a way of saying how was it, or how is it. So, for example, how about your weekend? Wrong, okay?

So, how was your weekend?

Exactly.

So, how about is usually used when we make a suggestion. How about we go see a movie on Saturday?

Or how about we go to my parent’s house for Christmas this year?

Or finally, how about you get another job so that we can have more money to spend on going out to eat?

Very good.

So, how about, these are all suggestions. Why don’t you get another job? Why don’t we go to our parent’s house for Christmas? So, you can’t say, how about your weekend. You say, how was your weekend.

Yeah. So, there’s a big difference there.

Very good. So, make sure to stay away from that typical mistake using how about. Now, moving on, we were talking about fast food and how it’s bad for you and she said, you know what you should also cut down on your sugar intake. So, to cut down. That’s a phrasal verb.

That’s right. Cut down, so that means to decrease. I’m trying to cut down on the amount of soda that I drink.

Or I’m trying to cut down on how much I spend on the weekends.

Okay. So, to cut down means to decrease or to lessen.

Very good. And for our last phrase, the whole thing that we’re talking about and one of the favorite meals for everyone, burger and fries.

Okay. So, this is one of many combinations for meals. You can have burger and fries which is a hamburger and French fries. So, often times you say, hey let’s go grab a burger and fries.

Yeah

Another combination, especially in England is fish and chips.

Yeah, fish and chips.

Fish would be a fried fish sandwich and chips would be French fries as well.

That’s right. So, actually in England, they call French fries, they call them chips.

So, if you’re confused by the word chips or potato chips and French fries, these are different things in different places. But if ypu’re talking to an American, French fries, is the way to go.

Or for a while, they were called freedom fries.

Well, we don’t need to talk about that. We can talk about that in a later lesson, but for now the phrase is burger and fries.

All right. So, let’s listen to our dialogue for the very last time.

A: I’m hungry, let’s go grab a bite to eat.

B: Sure! How about we go home and prepare a couple of sandwiches?

A: Nah! Let’s go get a burger and fries.

B: All you ever do is have unhealthy fast food, Pizza, fries, burgers and hot dogs! You have to start eating better!

A: What are you talking about? I have salads sometimes.

B: Yeah right! I’m serious! You should also cut down on your sugar intake as well. You drink carbonated drinks that are high in fructose syrup! It’s really not healthy!

A: Fine! I’ll start drinking and having home cooked meals that are low in fat. Are you happy now?

B: It’s a start, but I’ll be happy when I see you stick to your promise!

We are back, Marco. You’re laughing. I know you like junk food. What’s your favorite junk food of all time?

Actually, I am a big fan of fried chicken. I love fried chicken.

Yummy.

It’s, I don’t know, I think it’s really greasy and oily and is very very bad. But I can’t help it. It is very good.

You can buy bags of it in America.

I know.

Like a pound bag of fried chicken.

You buy it by the pound in America, right?

Yeah. You pay for how much it weighs.

That’s amazing. I actually really enjoy it but places like Kentucky fried chicken, they’re too expensive for fried chicken.

Yeah. You don’t necessarily want to go there. There’s other places that are a lot more maybe traditional that are pretty good.

How about you? What is your favorite junk food?

Chicago style hot dog and French fries.

Yeah

Like, you know when you go to see a baseball game, you get a hot dog, but Chicago style is good. It’s not too much stuff on it. You have a poppy seed bun. So, it’s a bun, a piece of bread with some seeds on it. And a lot of

Ketchup

mustard and ketchup and onions.

I really enjoy hotdogs, but the one thing that I cannot have on the hot dog is mustard or relish.

Oh, my gosh. Those are the two best things. Okay, I can’t talk to you anymore. Well, tell us what your favorite junk food is and tell Marco that he’s crazy if he doesn’t like mustard. Our website is Englishpod.com. Ask us questions as well. We’re happy to answer them. Until next time. Bye.