Lectura Nro. 1: Healthy Eating Habits

A.  Pre-reading activities

1.    Read the following article about Healthy Eating Habits:

The healthy eating habits, in essence, improve the probability of living a longer, healthier and happier life. Quality food consumption becomes especially important in the present world of high stress and pollution. Good health is the most important thing in life - because it gives freedom. Freedom to seek for dreams and do all the things that poor health won't permit. Any health problem, chronic or acute, will bring your life balance out of order.  Find some healthy ideas below.

 

Avoid or minimize excess sugar and processed foods. Avoid all junk, sweets, processed, canned and convenience foods - including all foods with excess sugar: juices, and soft drinks. All these are often very high in calories and harmful artificial substances, low in nutrients and high in simple sugars. Consumption of such foods has been linked with a variety of diseases including obesity, diabetes, immune system disorders, cardiovascular diseases, malnutrition and cancer.

Ensure balanced and adequate nutritional intake. Essential nutrients are nutrients that are required for healthy body function and can not be manufactured by the human body. They can only be obtained from a dietary source, and currently include: essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals.  

The more natural and less processed the food, the better its health promoting value. Some nutrient loss always occurs during food processing. Such foods are rich in a variety of high quality nutrients like vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, enzymes, flavonoids, fats, carbohydrates, proteins and others. Replace white rice with brown rice; white bread with whole grain bread; sugar with small amounts of honey or dry fruit; pasta with whole grain pasta; canned foods with fresh; candy and other sweets with dry or sweet fruit, etc. Always choose fresh over frozen, dried or canned foods. Fresh foods taste better, have more nutrients in them, have no added salt, sugar or unhealthy additives.

Variety and moderation in diet is important. By consuming a variety of healthy foods in moderation you get a more balanced intake of a wide spectrum of nutrients and lower the risk of getting too much, or too little, of any food or nutrient. Moderation and variety helps prevent allergies, malnutrition and overdose.

Buy organic foods whenever possible. Until about the early 1900s all food was organic. It was the norm since the beginning of life on this planet. Modern agriculture industry practices have changed that. As a result, mineral-deficient soils are commonly used for plant cultivation. Organic foods do not contain the harmful pesticides, hormones or antibiotics which are frequently found in conventional foods.  

At least half of the diet, by volume, should consist of raw foods. Most of those raw foods should be vegetables, salads and low sugar fruits. They should be consumed on a daily basis and preferably with every meal.  

Ensure adequate fiber intake. There are several types of fiber and they all have different properties that are essential for good digestion and health. Adequate fiber intake help prevent cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, cancer and gastrointestinal disorders. Fiber is also effective at eliminating toxins, parasites, and is the best remedy for constipation. The usual sources are vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts and seeds.

Always properly wash fruits and vegetables before consumption. This lowers the exposure to agricultural chemicals used to cultivate plants, and harmful microorganisms.

Steam vegetables that need to be cooked. Steaming preserves more nutrients. Do not overcook. Vitamin loss, especially vitamin C, increases when they are exposed to higher temperatures.  

Chew food well and eat at a comfortable pace. A very simple but highly effective and safe way of improving digestion. By simply chewing food longer, or more thoroughly, you can significantly enhance digestion in a matter of days.

Ancestral diet. Consider the diet (and lifestyle) your ancestors had for thousands of years. You will most likely do very well on such a diet (with modifications based on modern nutrition) due to the long period of adaptation. For example, the traditional Chinese diet is high in carbohydrates and low in fat and protein.

Enjoy simple meals. Generally, the simpler the food preparation, the more nutrients are preserved and the easier it is to digest. Simple meals are easy and quick to prepare and use fewer resources like electricity and water - thus are more environmentally friendly and cost less.

Eat juicy fruit by itself. Juicy or watery fruits are usually best eaten alone as a snack between meals - unless you can find a combination of foods that works well. To improve digestion only eat one type of fruit at a time.

Adapted from: http://www.art.eonworks.com/articles/healthy_eating_habits.html (January 2011)

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Activities

 

B.    GRAMMAR COMPREHENSION

1.    Find an example of Imperative from the text.

2.    What’s the meaning of the following prefixes or suffixes?  What do they form?

Over: overdose; overcook:

Ly; especially, currently, commonly

Ful: harmful:

Un: unhealthy:

3.    Find an example of a parallel increase structure.

4.    Find two examples of superlative adjectives.

5.    Find examples of the following tenses and explain in Spanish why the author used such tenses:

	Example from the text	Use/Function in SPANISH
Simple present
Simple past
Simple future
Present perfect

6.    Find two modal verbs and state their functions.

7.    Find an example of Infinitive of Purpose.

3. READING COMPREHENSION

1. Find some transparent words:

2. Find some key words: