Improve Your English Vocabulary: 5 terms for a healthy life

I know what you mean; that does look good. Oh, hi. James from engVid. E and I

were just discussing: "That looks pretty healthy." And today, I'm going to talk

about collocations for health or a healthy diet. Let me explain quickly

what that means so we can go to the board. Collocation — "c-o" means "with"

or "together", and "location" — come together — "location" is a place. So,

"collocation" means words that are usually situated together; they come

together. Right? So, if you see one, you will probably see the other word. So,

I'm going to give you five collocations about a healthy diet.

Let us not confuse "diet". A lot of people think "diet", like the keto diet,

or the vegetarian diet. "Diet" originally means — and I mean it here —

it is a... the regular foods that you eat; that is your diet. It's not cutting

down calories, so I'm not talking about not eating to get nice, and skinny, and

slim. I'm just saying: "What do you usually eat?" For instance, cats have a

"carnivore diet" — they eat mostly meat; that's their diet. They're not trying to

get skinny for summer season. Right? So, that's what I'm talking about a "healthy

diet": What do you usually eat? So, let's go to the board and take a look at

this healthy diet.

Look at this. Interesting. Very interesting. Let's start off with: What

does it mean to have a healthy diet? Well, I think a "healthy diet" is a

"balanced diet". And what does that mean? Generally put, without — and I

don't mean any insult — extremes, if you're a "carnivore diet", it means

mostly meat all the time; and if you are a "vegan", it means no animal products

whatsoever. Right? Those are, I would say, on the ends of it. The "balanced

diet" would be in between, where for the average person, because let's face it,

I'm in North America — you may be in Saudi Arabia, you may be in Asia, you

may be in Russia — the foods that are available to you are going to be

different than when they are available everywhere else.

So, a "balanced diet" is keeping fruits; vegetables; carbohydrates, like potatoes

and rice; and balanced with protein, whatever that may be — cheese, it could

be fish or meat. Okay? So, a "balanced diet" is having a healthy balance that's

not too much of one, so not too many fruits and vegetables only. And that

would be, like, "vegan" for most people. Right? Or having only meat, and that

would be for a "carnivore diet" for other people. So, we're saying keeping a

healthy balance; making sure you have a bit of everything, because our bodies

require certain nutrients — right? — and we can get them most efficiently and

easily from different sources. Okay, so now I've said that. That's what your

"balanced diet" is.

And what E and I noticed is that we have "protein" in the form of fish, and we

have "carbohydrates" — because, yes, vegetables have carbohydrates, or

commonly called in North America "carbs". You will not see many people

talk about the "carbohydrates" in these foods; they talk about "carbs". That is

your energy. Actually, "protein" and "carbs" can both be used for energy in

different ways, but "carbs", they mean not meat sources. Okay? So, keep in mind

that "carbs" can be vegetables, but they can also be starches, which would be

rice and potatoes. I don't have rice or potatoes here, but it is balanced. Half

the plate is protein; half the plate is carbs. And the collocation here is: a

"balanced diet". So, if you say: "I have a balanced diet", people know you have

equal carbs, equal protein.

Now, let's talk about... Well, we know animals live all year long. You know?

Humans don't live from — some humans seem to — May; and then in November,

they disappear. It's like: "Where did the humans go?" They all died, but they

come back in May. Animals tend to live all year long, so we don't talk about

"seasonal animals". You're not going to hear someone go: "The seasonal animal,

this" — no. Bears may sleep, but they still live. Bees go to sleep; some go to

sleep, but they still live. But some of our fruits and vegetables, they die. In

the winter in Canada and United States, it's too cold for apples to be on trees;

they just die, and they come back in May. But depending on where you live in

the world, at different seasons, different foods are naturally available

to you. So, this collocation list I'm giving you is not about just being

healthy for yourself, but you might say it's also healthy for your environment.

Many scientists and people noticed that seasonal fruits actually are better for

you because they're ready to eat now; they're not frozen, and they don't add

salt and make them wait, you know, so you can eat them six months later. So,

getting them in the season means they have maximum nutrition, which is good

for you. So, "seasonal fruits and vegetables" are good things to have.

Okay?

What's the best way of doing that? So, this is one collocation: "seasonal

fruit" or "seasonal vegetable". The best way to get "seasonal fruits" or

"seasonal vegetables" is... Guess what? They have to be "locally sourced".

There's your fourth collocation. "Locally sourced" means it grows in the

area that you live. I am very, very lucky and fortunate. And I know this,

because I live in North America, and I can get a pineapple in December. I can

get watermelon in December. I can have starfish or starfruit in December. In

the countries these places come from, they have them that season, and no more.

But we have everything brought to us; we don't have everything locally sourced.

So, if you're very lucky, and you can have grapes, milk, chicken, and pears,

and apples and they're all grown around you — that's the best way to get your

food. See on my fish? My fish comes from Lake Ontario. If you see the eyes —

yeah, that water is poisonous. I don't think this is a good fish to eat, but

it's locally sourced. I found it in Lake Ontario, and it's dead for sure. So, as

we're going through, we want to have a balanced diet. Okay? We want it made up

of seasonal fruits and vegetables. We really want it locally sourced; in your

area. So, if you're at Italy, eat Italian grapes, get Italian cheese. Oh,

God, Italian food; I'm so hungry now. Anyway, I'm sorry, back to the work.

Yes, so... now, what do we call these green things? Because the tomatoes,

which are interesting — they're a fruit not a vegetable. Please, please go on

the internet right now because I know some of you are like: "He doesn't know

what he's talking about." Please check it out. "Seed-bearing fruit". Tomatoes

have seeds. Told you. So, a cucumber is... "What!?" I'm blowing your mind.

Extra information. So, anyway, "leafy greens" are like spinach — I love

arugula — arugula. Everybody's like: "James is very snobby; he likes arugula,

not lettuce." Love arugula. Spinach, arugula, collard greens, heads of

lettuce, just normal lettuce — these are called "leafy greens". We usually use

them as salads, on your hamburgers. Hmm? Yeah, on your hamburgers, too. Okay.

These are "leafy greens" — they are good for helping with digestion. Okay? So,

you want to have those with your salads or whatever you want to cook it with,

because collard greens are pretty good by themselves.

And another thing about a healthy diet is you want it "freshly prepared".

McDonald's says it's freshly prepared, but what they mean is: "Made six months

ago, brought to the McDonald's close to you. Cooked — put in the microwave for

another three minutes", and it's freshly given to you. "Freshly prepared" means

literally you go out, cut that tomato down. Well, not exactly, but close

enough. Cut it down, cut it up, put it on your plate — "freshly prepared". Or

when you're cooking... I don't cook until you come. You come to my house,

you sit down, and say: "I'm hungry." I go: "Okay, now I cook." I make it there

when you're there. I don't go in the freezer, defrost it, and microwave it.

Cool?

So, now I've given you five collocations for a very healthy lifestyle, and it

will show your depth of English knowledge when you say... God, if you

came to, with this... Here's my fake world accent: "So, I would like to have

some food. Yeah. And it must be freshly prepared. You know? I like

freshly-prepared foods, yes. Locally sourced. I hear Ontario has very good

food. Yeah?" They'd be like: -"Bravo. That's absolutely brilliant. Yes,

locally sourced. And you know that Ontario has great seasonal fruits and

vegetables. Don't try the fish, of course." They'd be impressed, even if

you have a strong accent because that is a very excellent use of the English

language. It's very specific, and it shows you understand; not just in your

own language, but in ours. We usually call that "intelligence". So, I've gone

through my collocations for you. Why don't we go through a test to see if

you've learned them? And see if you can master the language and sound like an

expert traveller English. (snaps)

Okay, so I'm about to ask you something very important. Something I've never

asked you to do before, and that's to make a promise. But I'm not going to say

"promise"; that's not strong enough. I need a vow. A "vow" is a very strong

promise. If you vow to do something, you must do it. Imagine you had a sword and

there was a village behind you, and you're the only one with a sword and the

dragon's coming — and you vow to protect them. That means to every little girl

and boy crying, behind you, like: "I vow to protect you!" It's: "I will die

before I break this promise". In the modern age, a vow is so strong that we

make people get married to it. You vow to stay with this person till death. And

if you don't, they take half your stuff. That's serious. Forget the sword. Half

your stuff.

Okay, so I want you to make a vow — now you're like: "No, James! No!" —about

leading a healthy lifestyle. But before you do, I just want to tell you I made a

mistake. I made a mistake. I'm sorry. I am for real. I forgot to say: "lean

meat". "Lean meat". What is "lean meat"? "Lean meat" is food, or actually it's

animal meat that doesn't have a lot of fat. The example I can give you is

chicken. A chicken breast, which is the breast of the chicken, is usually called

"white meat" and it has very little fat on it. In fact, it's... doesn't cook as

well because there's not enough fat to absorb the flavour. It's good for you,

but it's not as flavourful as a leg or a thigh, which has more fat to absorb

seasoning. That's why in a lot of indigenous foods, or a lot of native

foods through certain areas, they will use leg meat more than breast meat

because it gets more flavour. Okay? But flavour comes fat. So, to be healthy,

you want to eat leaner meat.

Now, you'll see I have: "fish" and a question mark. Well, remember I said:

"chicken"? What? So, "lean meat" is usually considered parts of meat that

doesn't have a lot of fat; and they usually talk about chicken, beef, and

pork. I am going to raise the argument that fish is a lean meat. Why? Well,

it's an animal like the other ones and it bleeds like the other ones; and just

like the other ones, when it's alive it's an animal, when it's dead it's...

you say: "fish". And I go: "It's a type of meat", just like we're meat when we

die. Believe it or not, you're just meat. So, my idea: Fish is lean meat.

Now, because you will run into people who are native speakers and they'll hear

you say: "Fish is lean meat", some of them will go: "No, it's fish. Fish is

fish; meat is meat." They can make that distinction. In your head, you can go:

"Yeah, stupid. Yes, you're correct. But I know the truth." So, fish can be

considered a type of lean meat in my little definition, but go by the strict

one when you talk to native speakers and whatnot. Okay?

Now, let's go to the board and continue with our vow. So, now you're going to

make a vow for not only learning English with me or learning English, but to lead

a healthy lifestyle. So, here I want you to put your name. So: "I", let's say:

"I, Bobby", "I, Anna", "I", whatever, "will lead a healthy lifestyle to keep

both myself and the planet healthy". Because you are a good person and you

want to do what's right. So, that, you're going to do that. Let's look at

the collocations we learned and how they can best fit into the rest of our vow,

so we can keep our promise. We have to know what the promise is.

So, next sentence is: "Therefore, I will only eat __________ food." That's: "food

close to me". Now, that doesn't mean: Go in your refrigerator and grab a beer,

and some chicken wings. That's close to you, but that's not what we mean. What

do I mean? That's right, local food. "Locally-sourced". So, go to your local

farmer and ask them: "Do they have eggs? Cheeses? Lean meat?" and they probably

won't have fish, but that's okay. But you can get lean chicken. All right?

"Locally-sourced foods" — things you can find close to you. In Italy, they have

some of the best grapes, wines, cheeses, pastas — they don't need to go nowhere

else; it's paradise there. Great food. I love it there. Anyway.

Next. What's the next one? "I won't eat a lot of meat, but if I do, it will be

__________" — not having much fat on it. No, not Mr. E. Okay? You can't eat Mr.

E. He needs to come... he works for a living; he's got to be on the board.

What did I just say? "lean meat", right? Because it doesn't have a lot of fat, so

it's better for your heart. What about this one? "I will eat a lot of

__________ at lunch and dinner." Now, I've put "salad" to help you out. "leafy

vegetables". When we talk about leafy vegetables, we talk about spinach. Ah,

sorry. I'm jumping ahead of myself. I don't mean "leafy vegetables". You're

going to go: "No, James, that's not..." Shh. Don't tell anybody yet. "leafy

greens", because they are green — like spinach, romaine, romaine lettuce,

spinach, lettuce, or arugula, which I love. I'm looking and thinking about all

of these things, but "leafy greens". And those are usually in your salads. When

you have a Caesar salad, or a Mediterranean salad — they're leafy

greens.

Now, what about this one? "I will only eat __________" something. And this is

important for helping the planet because when you get things brought in at

different times of the year, when you shouldn't have them, we have to use

ships and airplanes, and that pollutes the planet, so... Oh my gosh, I sound

like a tree-hugger. I'm not. Trust me. But what do we do? We're going to eat

something in the season, so "seasonal fruits and vegetables". Right? So, in

Canada, we really shouldn't be having pineapple in January. We've got that

much snow. When I say: "that much" — I'm not the tallest guy in the world, I'm

not that tall, but the snow comes up to here. There is no room for pineapples.

Okay? You got to go to the Bahamas, man. Anyway, but we get it in January,

because that's where we live.

Now, finally: "I will eat a __________" something. And I told you when you have

something that's, you know, like weights — the scales of justice — they must be

balanced. A "balanced diet". And remember what I mean "diet" here, I

don't mean; You're going to try and lose 10 pounds before the prom to fit into

your nice dress, or you want to look good on the beach. I'm talking about

your regular foods. So, what you eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, all year long

for the last 10 years is your "natural diet". Hope you did well on the quiz.

You know, we have a better, bigger, badder, better one at engVid, but before

I get to that, let's give you your bonus.

We talked about the good; now we're going to talk about the bad and the

ugly. Because when you're not doing this and using these collocations to talk

about a healthy lifestyle, you may be using these other ones. Okay? Now,

"processed foods". This is a really interesting one, because people at

McDonald's might say their food's not that processed. I say they're lying. But

they might say: "No, no, it's actual 100% beef." Now, here's the key, because

this is from the Food and Drug Administration from the United States of

America, and what they say is this — this is paraphrased, but basically: "Any

food that has a process applied to change its natural state is called

'processed'." So, even if the beef is from a cow, that's not its natural

state.

Have you ever seen a cow burger? You know, it's got, like, ground beef. It

goes: "Woo." It doesn't go: "Moo", because it's cut up. "Woo". And you just

take pieces off and eat it? No. You have to take that meat, and then do something

with it. And sometimes you add a little salt, some pepper, some — "num, num,

num, num, num, num" — secret ingredients that we don't know. You know, things to

keep it stay longer and fresher. You know what I'm saying? So, that's not its

natural state anymore; that's called a "processed food". So, if you take an

apple, you might say: "Well, James, I'm smart. They wash the apples." Does it

look like it came off the tree? Yes. That's its natural state. That's not it.

Applesauce — processed food; apple juice — processed food. Apple that's been

cleaned — you lucky bastard; someone cleaned it for you. It's its natural

state. Okay? Now, that is anything that's packaged, usually packaged

because they cut it up and do something with it. That's not just its natural

state. So, think of hamburger versus steak, think of applesauces versus an

apple, and you can follow it from there. When they change it from... you can look

at it and say: "I know what this food was before I took it." Okay? If you

don't... if you can't recognize it, then it's a processed food.

Next: "fatty food". Do you remember we talked about "lean meat", and that's why

I had to talk about this one? "Fatty foods" aren't good for your heart,

because they contain a lot of extra fat that your body cannot process. So, if

you eat a lot of fattening foods — sausages... My heart's: "Bl, bl, th,

th". You know, lots of cheesy pizza. "Bl, bl, th, th". Come on, come on,

baby. Come on. Come on! Come on! That's not good for you. So, if you say: "My

diet is high in fatty foods and processed foods", you're probably going

to see the doctor and the undertaker — I'm not talking the wrestler — sooner

than you would like. All right? So, you want to eliminate those.

Now, for the homework. I got to separate this here. Okay. Homework is this. This

is for your own good. So, you're only going to get five points each. Yup. So,

when it's good, you get nothing. Okay? This one's a joke. So, in case you don't

know, I'm telling a joke here before you start telling people. But if you get it

that actually... If you get the joke and you put: "hahaha" because you get it —

you don't get five points; you get a million points. If you just write the

answer, and you don't find out why it's funny — stay with five because you got

no sense of humour.

So, the first one is: "The fish is __________; I stole it from my friend's

dinner plate." It's funny. You get it? It's right there. It's right there.

Whatever. Okay. Question number two: "I eat a __________ with a mix of lean meat

and seasonal vegetables." Cool? Well, that's what I got for you today. I hope

you keep your vow, because that means you will stay around longer so we can

work together, or I can keep my vow to help you learn English. Okay?

So, I'm going to get going. But before I go, please make sure you stop by www

"eng" as in English, "vid" as in video.com, to get the larger quiz to

this. And also, I've been saying it recently, and I think I'll keep saying

it, because I think it's true: If you're still listening to my voice now, you

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those people; hit the bell. Anyway, I gotta get going. You have a great day

and I will talk to you soon. Locally-sourcing my dinner tonight; I'm

going to order some pizza. (laughs) I'm so funny. No, you're not. No, you're

not.