1 . Why Subscribe to Reader’s Digest?

The world’s best-loved general-interest publication contains something for everyone. Reader’s Digest magazine is bursting with stories, articles, advice, recipes, reviews, tips, jokes and anecdotes. Each issue is small enough to fit in your handbag or pocket, but big enough to keep you entertained for weeks on end.

From regular columns packed with information to gripping (扣人心弦的) human-interest stories and helpful how-tos, our magazine offers knowledge, positivity and humour. In this month’s issue you’ll find...

An interview with Hugh Dancy:

The newest addition to the cast of Downton Abbey on New York, Law & Order, and the nostalgia (怀旧) of playing an English gentleman.

Saving the sound of the Stradivaius:

Meet the experts fighting to save the unbeatable sound of history’s greatest violins, meeting the love of her life.

Community Power:

Across the UK, communities are coming together to save their pubs, shops, and more.

If Grace Dent ruled the world:

The restaurant critic shares her manifesto (宣言) for world domination.

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3 . When preparing fruit and vegetables, many people will peel (削皮) them. But often, it’s not necessary.

Fruit and vegetables are rich sources of nutrition like vitamins. Not consuming enough of these nutrient-rich foods is linked to an increased risk of diseases. Eating 400g of fruit and vegetables a day, as the WHO recommends, is difficult to achieve for many people. So could consuming fruit and vegetable peels help with this issue by adding important nutrients to people’s diets?

They can certainly contribute. For example, nutritionally important amounts of vitamins and minerals are found in the peels of seven root vegetables: beetroot, field mustard, wild carrot, sweet potato, radish, ginger and white potato. And the US Department of Agriculture shows that unpeeled apples contain 15% more vitamin C, 267% more vitamin K, 20% more calcium and 85% more fibre than peeled apples.

Another reason is the effect on the environment. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, uneaten food, including peels, generates 8%-10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. New Zealand alone reports an annual wastage of 13,658 tonnes of vegetable peels and 986 tonnes of fruit peels.

Given the nutrient content of peels and its contribution to food waste, why do people peel fruit and vegetables at all? Some must be peeled as the outer parts don’t taste nice, are hard to clean or cause harm. Also, peeling may be a necessary part of the recipe, for example, when making mashed potato. But many peels, such as carrot and kiwifruit, are suitable to be eaten, yet people habitually peel them anyway. Some people peel fruit and veg because they are concerned about pesticides (杀虫剂) on the surface.

If you want to find out more about fruit and vegetable peels and what to do with it, there is lots of advice online including help on how to deal with peels. With a little investigation and creativity, you can help to reduce waste and increase you fruit and vegetables intake.

4 . Music is present in any part of the world, and it is appreciated and felt everywhere. Without its presence, life could be boring. Studies show that music is good for your body and mind.     1    

Music can increase pain management. Listening to music can help increase your pain tolerance (耐痛性).     2     Listening to music can help you gain a sense of control over your ability to deal with pains. If you have a certain pain, for example, listening to music that you enjoy can help reduce the pain that you experience.

●    3     Listening to certain types of music, such as relaxing music, can naturally reduce both your heartbeat rate and breathing rate. Additionally, music has shown promising results as a treatment for heart disease. Whether it involves listening to music or composing music, the calming effect that music produces further improves your heart’s health by supporting it throughout the healing process.

●Music can reduce anxiety and depression     4     When it comes to anxiety and depression, music treatment can help to reduce the amount of stress hormones. For example, listening to music that you enjoy can naturally decrease the amount of cortisol (皮质醇) that your body releases.

●Music can improve self-expression and communication. Self-expression and communication are an important part of the human experience, especially when it comes to basic emotional and mental health needs.     5     By listening and singing along to music, kids who struggle to interact and communicate with others can practice using the very skills needed to do so.

7 . On Oct. 11, hundreds of runners competed in a cross-country race in Minnesota. Melanie Bailey should have _________ the course earlier than she did. Her _________ came because she was carrying a _________ across the finish line.

As reported by a local newspaper, Bailey was more than two-thirds of the way through her _________ when a runner in front of her began crying in pain. She _________ to help her fellow runner, Danielle Lenoue. Bailey took her arm to see if she could walk forward with _________. She couldn’t. Bailey then _________ to let Lenoue climb onto her back and carried her all the way to the finish line, then another 300 feet to where Lenoue could get _________ attention.

Once there, Lenoue was _________ and later taken to a hospital, where she learned that she had serious injuries in one of her knees. She would have struggled with extreme __________ to make it to that aid checkpoint without Bailey’s help.

As for Bailey, she is more __________ about why her act is considered a big __________. “She was just crying. I couldn’t __________ her,” Bailey told the reporter. “I feel like I was just doing the right thing.”

Although the two young women were strangers before the __________, they’ve since become friends. Neither won the race, but the __________ of human kindness won the day.

8 . When John Todd was a child, he loved to explore the woods around his house, observing how nature solved problems. A dirty stream, for example, often became clear after flowing through plants and along rocks where tiny creatures lived. When he got older, John started to wonder if this process could be used to clean up the messes people were making.

After studying agriculture, medicine, and fisheries in college, John went back to observing nature and asking questions. Why can certain plants trap harmful bacteria (细菌)? Which kinds of fish can eat cancer-causing chemicals? With the right combination of animals and plants, he figured, maybe he could clean up waste the way nature did. He decided to build what he would later call an eco-machine.

The task John set for himself was to remove harmful substances from some sludge (污泥). First, he constructed a series of clear fiberglass tanks connected to each other. Then he went around to local ponds and streams and brought back some plants and animals. He placed them in the tanks and waited. Little by little, these different kinds of life got used to one another and formed their own ecosystem. After a few weeks, John added the sludge.

He was amazed at the results. The plants and animals in the eco-machine took the sludge as food and began to eat it! Within weeks, it had all been digested, and all that was left was pure water.

Over the years, John has taken on many big jobs. He developed a greenhouse — like facility that treated sewage (污水) from 1,600 homes in South Burlington. He also designed an eco-machine to clean canal water in Fuzhou, a city in southeast China.

“Ecological design” is the name John gives to what he does. “Life on Earth is kind of a box of spare parts for the inventor,” he says. “You put organisms in new relationships and observe what’s happening. Then you let these new systems develop their own ways to self-repair.”

Nilsa stared at the clock on the classroom wall, daydreaming about lunch. Her mother had prepared a thermos (保温瓶) full of sancocho. It was one of Nilsa’s favorite dishes, and the national dish of Panama — a country in central America and the hometown of Nilsa’s family. Just thinking about sancocho made her mouth water.

Finally, it was time for lunch. Nilsa carefully poured some sancocho into a bowl. When she looked up, she saw her classmates staring.

“What is that? It smells really bad,” said Gus, covering his nose. “It’s sancocho,” Nilsa responded. “It’s kind of like chicken soup.” Codi glanced at the bowl and said, “Soup? It’s more like a science experiment.” He laughed, pointed to his lunch, and asked, “That’s one weird lunch. Why don’t you eat something normal, like pizza?”

Nilsa looked at everyone else’s lunches: pizza, fries, and sandwiches. Suddenly she didn’t feel hungry any more.

When Nilsa returned home and complained about her classmates’ negative comments, her mother wasn’t mad. Instead, she listened attentively and reminded Nilsa that there is no such thing as “normal” or “weird” food, and that different cultures have their own unique dishes that are loved and appreciated by those who grew up with them.

Nilsa’s mother also suggested making a fresh batch for Nilsa to bring to school the next day. “Then you can share it with your classmates and tell them sancocho tastes great, and that our family has been eating it for hundreds of years. Your great-grandmother taught your grandmother who then taught me.

Nilsa nodded in excitement, and she was grateful for the opportunity to share her favorite dish with her classmates.

The next day at lunch, Nilsa pulled out her thermos.

When Nilsa returned home and greeted her mother that day, her happiness was beyond description.