Lesson: White Bread = Death!

Conversation

Answer the following questions. You might be asked to write them down or answer them out-loud.

1. What is healthy food?
2. Do you pay much attention to what you eat?
3. Do you think it is more important for you to eat healthy or tasty food?
4. Is there any food that you know isn't healthy but can't stop eating?
5. Are you one of those 'bread lovers'?
6. What about candies in general, do you eat them? How often?
7. Why do we eat as much junk food as we do?
8. What are some things people can do to stay healthy?
9. What are your favorite foods that contain white bread?
10. Do you believe that people live longer depending on what they eat?

Vocabulary

Look at the vocabulary below. Take time to explore the links for their definitions in English and their translations to Portuguese. When you are done, make a sentence with each word. Ask your teacher if you should write them down or say them out loud.

DT   whenever

DT   carbohydrate

DT   bagel

DT   loaf

DT   chunk

DT   crumbled

DT   bloodstream

DT   slightly

DT   camouflage

DT   index

DT   wheat

DT   absorb

DT   ought

DT   treat

DT   advice

DT   stick

DT   dough

Video

Watch the following video but DON'T read the transcript yet.

After watching the video do this listening exercise.

Reading practice

Read the following transcript then do the associated reading comprehension exercise.

ExpandTranscript:

Whenever we talk about the foods we eat, the conversation eventually turns to bread, or good carbs and bad carbs. So we sat down to talk with nutrition speaker and writer, J. Stanton. So J., what is bread ?

J.: When you're looking at a bagel or a loaf of bread, what you're really looking at is a little chunk of gluey indigestible, and nutritionally incomplete protein, some crumbled up pieces of a multi-vitamin pin, and a giant ball of sugar. That's not necessarily a bad thing because we have to have a certain amount of sugar in our bloodstream at all times or our brain cells die, but the flip-side of that is we don’t want too much sugar in our bloodstream either because that's toxic in the long term.

Right. We all know too much sugar is bad but bread is still pretty healthy, right? I mean, don’t our bodies know that bread is healthier than, say, candy?

J.: Absolutely not, they don’t. By the time we digest it, it's all the same. It's all sugar. What you're doing is, you're substituting one form of sugar for a slightly better, camouflaged version of sugar. There's this number called the glycemic index which tells you essentially, “How fast is the sugar in this food absorbed?” And what you find out when you look it up, is that Skittles and white bread and even whole wheat bread all have about the same glycemic index. You're absorbing the sugar in the bread just as fast as you're absorbing sugar in the candy.

So then, what should we be eating instead of processed foods, like bread?

J.: We should be eating whole foods and my rule of thumb for that is food does not have ingredients – food is an ingredient. You know, meat, ingredients, meat. Spinach, ingredients, spinach. If it comes in a box, it's probably not food. If the bacteria won't eat it, ummm, maybe you ought not to. Bread is like the Casual Friday of food. It's not healthy, but it's not a treat either. My advice? Stick to real food and real treats.

J., this has been pretty eye opening. I know, I am never gonna look at bread the same way again. If you want to learn more about J.’s thoughts on nutrition, just visit gnolls.org. Hey guys! Thanks for watching our video! We hope you liked it! We asked you, “ If eating white bread and sugar are exactly the same thing, which one would you rather eat?”

Writing practice

Write a couple of paragraphs answering the last question from the video: “If eating white bread and sugar are exactly the same thing, which one would you rather eat?” And why? Would you be able to stop eating bread completely? Make sure to use words you learned from the text and try to make it as long as you can.

{{#widget:DISQUS |id=jointhegrove |uniqid=White Bread = Death! |url=http://thegrove.com.br/metodo/index.php/White_Bread_%3D_Death! }}