What’s in your food? It’s lunchtime. You’re hungry so you buy yourself a chicken burger and a strawberry milkshake. Yum! But have you got any idea what exactly is inside the food you’re eating? Of course, in the chicken burger, there’s some cheese, and there’s even some healthy salad with it. But there are also some extra ingredients in the chicken. For example, there are at least seven or eight chemical additives. They include salt and sugar, to give extra flavour to the meat. But they also include preservatives (to stop the food going bad) and antioxidants (to protect the food from oxygen in the air). The people who make burgers can also choose to add chemical flavours – there are over 4,500 different possibilities! And before they cook the chicken, some already contain chemical hormones. These hormones help to make the chickens get big quickly. And, finally, don’t forget the water! Chicken burgers are 45% water. They add extra water to make the chicken look big. So, now you’re thirsty. It’s time to drink some strawberry milkshake. But what’s inside that? It’s just strawberries and milk, right? Wrong. There’s some milk and sugar, but there aren’t usually any real strawberries in strawberry milkshakes. Strawberries are expensive and they go bad. Also, modern consumers find that the flavour of real strawberries isn’t very strong or very sweet. The solution scientists create special flavours in laboratories and they add their secret ingredients. That means that in the end, a typical strawberry milkshake can contain 60 chemicals and not one real strawberry. You’ve got ₤129, cinnamyl valerate, benzyl isobutyrate, amyl valerate… , delicious! So, as you can see, a simple snack isn’t that simple. That explains why we all typically consume between five and seven kilos of food additives a year! Our advice? See if there’s a list of ingredients and look at it carefully before you start eating! Task: Are these sentences true (T) or false (F)? 1. Chicken burgers and milkshakes have got very simple ingredients. 2. There is no chicken in a chicken burger. 3. Antioxidants stop food from going bad because of the air. 4. Burger companies use a total of 4,500 extra ingredients in each burger. 5. They don’t use strawberries in strawberry milkshakes. 6. There is just one problem with real strawberries – they cost a lot of money. 7. The chemicals that scientists create are very important for making milkshakes.

АльтЛанд    1   11.09.2020 22:23    2