【推荐2】With the fast pace of modern society, more and more people choose to eat processed foods without exactly knowing the harm. According to the following information, let’s know more about the processed foods.

What’s so bad about processed foods?

Processed foods like chips, soda and frozen pizzas are full of salt, sugar and fat.     1     Obesity is a condition involving too much body fat. It increases the risk of many health problems.

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The researchers says processed foods are made mostly of industrialized materials and additives.

Sodas, packaged cookies, instant noodles and chicken nuggets are some examples of highly processed foods. But products that can seem healthy, such as morning cereals, energy bars and some kinds of yogurt belongs to this kind, too.

What’s wrong with processed foods?

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health conducted a four-week study involving 20 people.     3     The researchers permitted the 20 participants to eat as much or as little as they wanted. They were taken to a medical center so their health and behavior could be observed.

In another study, researchers in France found people who ate more processed foods were more likely to have heart disease. A similar study in Spain linked eating more processed foods to a higher risk of death in general.

Why will you eat processed foods?

    4     Especially, people have limited time and money. Choosing processed food can save time and it is delicious with some additive things in it.

The scientists also found that people ate processed foods more quickly. Kevin Hall is one of the researchers who led the study. He told the AP that processed foods are usually “softer and easier to chew and swallow”.

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【推荐1】Too much salt — and not enough whole grains, fruits and vegetables-may be shaving years off our lives,   a new analysis suggests.

In a study published Wednesday in the Lancet, researchers looked at people's eating habits across 195 countries to estimate how much poor diets contribute to the number of deaths.     1    ? That 11 million people die each year around the world due, at least in part, to certain foods or lack of them, according to the study.

Lead author Ashkan Afshin, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington, said the researchers estimated    2    , including cigarette smoking, known to be one of the greatest threats to public health.

The problem, he said, is not only what people are eating;     3     The study estimated that globally, 3 million deaths were attributed to too much salt-but another 3 million deaths were attributed to too little whole grains and another 2 million deaths to too little fruit.     4    — a balanced diet is important for a long, healthy life.

    5    ? Nestle, a professor at New York University, suggested that it makes sense that dietary risks are higher because everyone eats— but not everyone smokes. So she said that “diet is a risk factor for everybody”.

【推荐2】Not long ago, people could only buy organic food in small shops. Today it is common in most major supermarkets. The reason for the increase is that more and more people are demanding food grown without chemicals. Since the 1990s, organic farm production has gone up continuously. This pattern is expected to continue around the globe.

Australia leads the world in land used for organic agriculture. It has four times as much land devoted to organic farming as all of Asia. However, most of the land is not very fertile, and it only produces a modest amount of food. Argentina is a distant second, followed by Brazil, the United States and China. In Africa, only a very small amount of land is registered for organic farming. That does not mean Africa relies on chemicals. In fact, many farmers do not use chemicals because they cannot afford them. Yet there are no programmes for these farmers to prove they do not use chemicals. Without these programmes, their food can never be approved organic.

India has had the most dramatic recent increase in organic farming. Like many other countries,India sees continual growth in organic food sales around the world. This, of course, leads to growth in profits. Sales of organic food were more than doubled from 2000 to 2005. Like India, many countries are trying to increase commercial organic farming to get a share of the sales. This has led to criticism.Some people believe that organic farming should not just be about making money. They think the goal is to help the environment. Others say organic farming will not continue if it is not profitable. They say that people should be able to make money while providing health y food for mankind.

【推荐3】The study led by Myrskyla,director of the Max Planck Institute in Germany was the first to analyze the accumulative effect of several key health behaviors on disability-free and total life expectancy.Previous studies have looked at single health behaviors.Myrskyla and colleagues instead examined several behaviors simultaneously（同时）,which allowed them to determine how long and healthy the lives of people who had avoided most of the well-known individual behavioral risk factors were.

The researchers noted that each of the three unhealthy behaviors—obesity,smoking,and unhealthy consumption of alcohol—was linked to a reduction in life expectancy and to an earlier occurrence of disabilities.However, smoking was found to be associated with an early death but not with an increase in the number of years with disability,while obesity led to a long period of time with disability.Excessive alcohol consumption was found to cause both decreased lifespan（寿命）and a reduced number of healthy years.However,the absence of all of these risky healthy behaviors was found to be associated with the greatest number of healthy years.

The most striking finding was the discovery of a large difference in average lifespan between the groups who were the most and the least at risk.Men who were not overweight,had never smoked,and drank properly were found to live an average of 11 years longer than men who were overweight,had smoked,and drank excessively.For women, the gap between these two groups was found to be even greater,at 12 years.

“Our results show how important it is to focus on prevention.Those who avoid risky health behaviors are achieving very long and healthy lives,”said Myrskyla.It's not without reason that we are told repeatedly to switch to a healthy lifestyle,which can prevent you from various illnesses as well as keep you young and active. "Improvements in medical technology are often thought to be the gatekeeper to healthier,longer life.But we showed that a healthy lifestyle,is enough to enable individuals to enjoy a very long and healthy life,"said Myrskyla."A healthy lifestyle is enough to get the benefits.Avoiding those behaviors is not an unrealistic goal."

【推荐3】China has been drinking tea since the time of Shennong, 5,000 years ago. Britain’s relationship with tea is much shorter, but tea enjoys pride of place as the UK’s national drink. According to the UK Tea Council, British people drink an average of three cups a day or a national total of 165 million cups every day.

With figures like these, it is no surprise that time spent taking tea affects the working day in Britain. A recent survey found that 24 minutes a day are lost to making, buying and drinking tea and coffee. That is, £400 a year is lost in working hours per employee, or 190 days over a lifetime. So, should employers be worried about this lost working time, or does the tea break make up in other ways?

One argument is that caffeine improves mental state: a drink of tea or coffee can make you active and focus on work.

Professor Rogers of the University of Bristol disagrees. After years of studying caffeine he sees nothing can prove that. “Workers would perform equally well if not drinking it at all,” he says. “But if they’re often drinking it and then go without, they’ll feel tired and won’t work well.”

Psychologist Cooper instead emphasizes the role tea breaks play in office life, and in building social relationships. “We need to make people more active and see other people. The tea break is one way of doing this,” says Cooper.

And Professor Rogers also points out the comfort effect of a hot drink: “We warm our hands on them on a cold day; they’re comforting and play a big role in our everyday life. Whatever the caffeine’s doing, I’d say these 24 minutes aren’t wasted.”