2 . By now, most people know they should be eating more vegetables. But are there ways to get more from the vegetables you already eat? A research shows that when it comes to vegetables, it’s not only how much we eat, but also how we prepare them, that decides the vitamins and other nutrients that enter our body.

Many studies show that people who eat lots of vegetables have less heart disease, and eye problems and even cancer. But raw vegetables are not always best. The researchers found that 198 Germans who eat raw food were short of lycopene, the matter found in tomatoes and other red vegetables. “There is an idea that raw foods are always going to be better,” says Steven K. Clinton, a professor at Ohi o State University. “For fruits and vegetables, sometimes a little bit of cooking can be helpful.”

A number of factors decide how the vegetables do good to people’s health before they reach the table, including where and how they were grown and stored before being bought. No single cooking way is best. Some nutrients are easily lost in cooking if they are cooked in different ways.

Vitamins C and B are often lost. In January, another report said that boiling was better for carrots than frying or serving them raw. Frying was the worst way to cook.

What cooked with the vegetables can also be important? When the vegetables were cooked with fat, the diners can get more nutrients. Fat can also make the taste of vegetables better, meaning that people will eat more of them. Putting on some other things that make it taste better—a little salt—can make the food taste better.

The “sour and spicy shredded potato” (酸辣土豆丝) is a typical home cooking dish in China,     1     is seen frequently at home and in restaurants because of the simple cooking method. Although it belongs to Sichuan cuisine, the dish now is     2     favorite choice for many diners all over China. Its flavor can be flexibly adjusted by adding different     3     (amount) of peppers and vinegar. The only main ingredient (原料), potato, is     4     (reasonable) priced in all seasons. When     5     (cook) well, it looks bright and the potato shreds are clear and crisp with sour and spicy taste. It     6     (win) the fond of the majority of people in China and been evaluated     7     one of the best matches for rice. Here is the way of     8     (it) cooking.

Wash the potatoes and remove the skin. Cut them into thin and similar shreds. Put in salt water for a few minutes     9     (remove) the starch (淀粉) and clean them well. Heat the oil in a pan. Add and fry green onion and dried peppers before adding the potato. Then add all the other ingredients     10     (include) white vinegar, peppers and salt. Fry until the potato is well cooked. You should be careful that you do not overcook the potatoes.

6 . Advice for Cooking on a Tight Schedule

From my experience, there are three main reasons why people don’t cook more often: ability, money, and time.

    1    Money is a topic that I’ll talk about another day. So today I want to give you some advice about how to make the most of the time in the kitchen. Here are three tips for great cooking on a tight schedule:

Think ahead. I usually think cooking is a pain when I’m already hungry and there is nothing ready to eat. So think ahead of the coming week. When will you have time to cook? Do you have the right materials already?    2    

Make your time worth it. When you do find time to cook a meal, make the most of it and save yourself time later on. Are you making one loaf of bread?    3    It takes around the same amount of time to make more of something. So save yourself the effort for a future meal.

    4    This may surprise you, but one of the best ways to make cooking worth your time is experimentation. It gives you the chance to hit upon new ideas and recipes that can work well. The more you learn and the more you try, the more ability you have to take control of your food and your schedule.

Hopefully that gives you a good start.    5    And don’t let a busy schedule disappoint you and stop you from making some great changes in your life!

7 . Cooking is, for sure, an act of love.     1     For a while when it was just me and my wife, cooking was an unplanned thing. But now we have a son and it’s nice to spend some time planning our meals.

Cooking is my mental (精神的) break. It’s also a valuable time when I’m really not looking at a screen.     2     Sometimes when I’m cooking, I’m ruminating (沉思) on whatever’s on my mind.

    3     I never need a helper. I like having my own corner in the kitchen. And I never follow any recipe (食谱).     4     The kitchen isn’t a closed-door space. But it is mostly my time. It’s the space where I just get to think and relax.

I’m confident about my cooking.     5     And I just enjoy the sensory (感官的) experience of cooking. The smells, the sounds and the sights. I love sitting down with the food. It’s like what I said: cooking is for sure an act of love.

8 . What did you eat for lunch today? Did you choose this dish because it was healthy, cheap or because it was just very delicious? Are you a selective eater or an adventurous foodie?

I love exploring trends in food. Fusion cuisine is not for everybody. My Italian grandmother would turn her nose up at the thought of pizzas with mangoes topping but this marriage of tastes is perfectly fine in the 21st century. Chef and food writer Ching-He Huang, who presented a series on Chinese Food for the BBC, is a fan of fusion cuisine. She says: “Fusion has been happening for centuries, for as long as people have travelled, but with the internet and global travel, the exchange of ideas makes the process much faster.”

Wolfgang Puck is seen by many as one of the chefs who made fusion cuisine elegant. He opened his own restaurant in Los Angeles in the 1970s. This European devoted himself to Asian cuisine and became one of the first in a long line of celebrity chefs, because he adjusts the Asian cuisine to western customers’ appetites by mixing different types of flavors. He said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that initially he got negative responses from traditional American-Chinese restaurant owners but he is not bitter.“ Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many notes or colors, there are only so many flavors-it’s how you combine them that distinguishes you.” he explains.

My granny’s cup of tea would be the Slow Food Movement. Founded by Carlo Petrini in the 1980s and still going strong, it seeks to preserve traditional cuisine and the use of ingredients that are grown locally. But Petrini thinks fusion cuisine is trendy.

All these trends give us food for thought. We might be wasting an exciting opportunity to wake up our taste buds (味蕾) when we scoff (狼吞虎咽) a sandwich at our desks. Tomorrow, why not find an exotic (异国风味) restaurant and enjoy a feast?