2 . Gene-edited Foods: Yes or No?

Gene-edited foods could soon be hitting supermarket shelves in the UK as the government announced plans to allow gene-edited foods to be sold unlabeled in British supermarkets, promoting an outcry from some consumers who claim they “should be given a choice”.

GE foods are produced using the gene-editing tool CRISPR, which edits the existing DNA of a plant or animal. Unlike genetically modified food, gene-edited food contains no “foreign” DNA from other species. Scientists use a specialized protein to make tiny changes to the organism’s DNA that could occur naturally or through selective breeding.

Environment Secretary George Eustice insisted that GE products would not need to be advertised as such because they are “fundamentally natural”. However, Scotland and Wales both vowed to reject the move, and Britain’s biggest supermarkets have so far refused to confirm if they will stock the foods.

Now let’s take a closer look at some of the GE foods that could be on shelves in the UK as early as next year.

Vitamin D-boosted tomatoes

Tomatoes have been genetically engineered to produce more vitamin D. Researchers claim that the “super” fruits could help reduce the risk of developing diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease and dementia (痴呆).

Mushrooms that don’t go brown

A variety of white button mushroom has been genetically edited so that it doesn’t go brown when sliced. The researchers used CRISPR to remove a small piece of one gene that causes mushroom browning. Thus it can stay on supermarket shelves for longer, reducing food waste.

Bread that reduces cancer risk from burnt toast

Acrylamide (丙烯酰胺), a substance that can cause cancer, is created when bread is baked or toasted. Researchers have edited the genome (基因组) of wheat to reduce its production of the cancer-causing chemical.

Chickens resistant to bird flu

Researchers have used gene-editing techniques to grow chicken cells that are unable to replicate the bird flu virus in a lab. They edited a section of chicken DNA to make it resistant to the virus.

5 . A New Campaign to Stress the Benefits of a Balanced Diet

Look out for a new TV campaign, entitled “Eat Balanced”, which will highlight the continued benefits of eating meat and dairy (奶制的) products as part of a balanced diet.

The campaign spearheaded by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) will appear on TV, social media and supermarket packaging and aims to highlight the nutritional benefits of enjoying red meat and dairy, while showing Britain’s world-class standards in food production and sustainability.

The campaign will be built on the following three key messages about meat and diary products:

●Meat and dairy products contain vitamin B12, an essential nutrient not naturally present in vegan diet;

●Red meat and dairy products from Britain are produced to world-class standards;

●Red meat and dairy products from Britain are among the most sustainable in the world.

AHDB is conveying a message to consumers for a bright new year—enjoy the food you eat.

AHDB’s Chief Communications and Market Development Officer Christine Watts says, “In Britain, we have so much to be proud of when it comes to the food we eat, how it’s produced and the entire journey from farm to fork. Our farmers operate farms in the excellent way, so our food meets the international criterion. This campaign is aimed to balance the negative commentary around farming, as well as highlight the importance of eating meat and dairy products as part of a balanced and healthy diet.”

6 . Cutting 20% of sugar from packaged foods and 40% from beverages could prevent 2.48 million cardiovascular disease events, 490,000 cardiovascular deaths, and 750,000 diabetes cases in the U.S. over the lifetime of the adult population, according to a micro-simulation study published in Circulation.

A team of researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and New York City Departnent of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH)created a model to simulate and quantify the health, economic, and equity impacts of a pragmatic sugar-reduction policy proposed by the U.S. National Salt and Sugar Reduction Initiative (NSSRI). As a partnership of more than 100 local, state and national health organizations convened by the NYC DOHMH, the NSSRI released draft sugar-reduction targets for packaged food sand beverages in 15 categories in 2018. This February, NSSRI finalized the policy with the goal of industry voluntarily committing to gradually reformulate their sugary products.

Ten years after the NSSRI policy goes into effect, the U.S. could expect to save $4.28 billion in total net healthcare costs, and $118.04 billion over the lifetime of the current adult population (ages 35 to 79), according to the model. Adding the societal costs of lost productivity of Americans developing diseases from excessive sugar consumption, the total cost savings of the NSSRI policy rises to $160.88 billion over the adult population’s lifetime. These benefits are likely to be an underestimation since the calculations were conservative. The study also demonstrated that even if partial industry observed the policy, it could generate significant health and economic gains.

“Sugar is one of the most obvious additives in the food supply to reduce to reasonable amounts,” says Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, co-senior author and leader of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. “Our findings suggest it’s time to implement a national program with voluntary sugar reduction targets, which can generate major improvements in health, health disparities, and healthcare spending in less than a decade.”

You can’t really avoid processed food, and that’s not     1     (necessary) a bad thing. Processed food is food that     2     (change)in any way from its natural state. That includes washing, canning, freezing, or adding ingredients.

Salt is often used     3     (keep) food fresh. Even if you’re careful about adding it     4     your food,it’s probably already there, thanks to processing. It is advised to read labels when you buy goods.

    5     (find) in processed foods like baked goods, salty snacks, and margarine, trans fat can affect your cholesterol(胆固醇) and lead to inflammation that’s linked to heart disease, stroke, and other conditions. Recent government     6     (ruling) have made trans fat increasingly difficult to find. However, it must be known that even if     7     product’s label says it has 0 grams of trans fat, it can have up to 0.5 grams of it.

    8     (prepare) your own food lets you decide the ingredients and the amounts of them     9     go into it. If you don’t have the time or the skills, frozen meals aren’t that bad. While these are still processed, some food companies are using     10     (few) unhealthy ingredients.

8 . We need a varied diet, and one way to do this is by eating all the colors of the rainbow. The proof may be in the Mediterranean diet, which contains a lot of fruit, vegetables and healthy fats. “Eating a traditional Mediterranean diet means you consume different nutrients and phytonutrients,” says Francesco Sofi of the University of Florence. Phytonutrients are small chemical compounds produced by plants that help us digest larger nutrients.

Really, he adds, the colors of the Mediterranean diet are no different to other vegetable-based diets. There’re thus other reasons why it is among the healthiest. For example, Mediterranean populations traditionally boil, rather than fry, their vegetables, which preserves nutrients, Sofi says.

The health benefits of a diet rich in fruit and vegetables on our brain and heart are among the most consistent findings within nutrition science, says Deanna Minich of the University of Western States in Portland, Oregon. Plant foods contain thousands of phytonutrients.

According to Tian-shin Yeh of Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, eating a colorful diet can help people avoid possible side effects of eating too much of one food. “Research has found that orange juice can reduce the risk of cognitive decline, but too much intake is associated with type 2 diabetes,” she says.

Minich argues that the rainbow diet isn’t limited to fruit and vegetables, but includes other natural foods, such as herbs, spices, nuts, seeds, and even tea. She also considers white food as part of the rainbow diet, including tofu. Eating various colors could mean we eat more fruit and vegetables overall.

There’re other ways to get a range of nutrients and phytonutrients from your diet, researchers say. One study found that participants who ate bitter and strong tasting vegetables over 12 weeks had lower blood pressure and blood sugar. It’s also important to consider which parts of the plant you’re eating, says Yeh. “The nutritional values for cabbage and turnip aren’t that similar because one is the leaf and the other one is the root part of the plant,” she says.

9 . Avoid These Foods Before Bed

Chocolate

Chocolate is packed with sugar, which can have a serious impact on how well you sleep. A study found that people who ate more sugar and saturated fats（饱和脂肪）experienced less deep sleep and woke up more throughout the night. Chocolate also contains some caffeine, which can stimulate the nervous system and keep you awake for hours.

Hamburger

According to Health, the problem with hamburgers is their high amount of fat content. More fat means more acid production in the stomach, which means more heartburn due to acid reflux（反流）—a no-no before bed.

Broccoli

These vegetables are high in soluble fiber（可溶性纤维）, which is great for digestion during the day but can leave the body focused on digestion as opposed to sleep at night. This can cause discomfort or trouble sleeping.

Spicy foods

Spicy foods like chili also contribute to heartburn. If someone experiences acid reflux from spicy foods and lies down right after eating spicy foods, the acids from the stomach can flow back into the esophagus（食道）more easily, causing a burning sensation in the chest, which may disturb sleep.

10 . I started the latest round of the NutriFit programme weeks ago. We take about 45 minutes to go through participants’ health records, previous diets, expectations, and levels of willingness to change to customize the programme to meet each individual’s needs.

I was shocked by one thing. When it comes to weight-loss goals, I usually ask, When was the last time you were happy with your body? The reply usually relates to pre-wedding, pre-kids, pre-college—the usual suspects. However this time, almost everyone said, “Of course, I wasn’t happy with it then, but I’d be happy with it now!”

It made me stop to think. For most of us, no matter how much we don’t really like the body shape, there will likely be a point in the future when we would kill for the body we currently have. I don’t mean to upset anyone from improving their health right now. But maybe we need to stop and smell the roses. We should be happy and grateful for our bodies exactly as they are.

That’s why NutriFit has changed into something much more holistic. Now we have every shape and size taking part, but the goals are so much bigger: disease prevention, more energy and clarity, better immunity, well-balanced hormones... the list goes on. Yes, we get great body part results, but you are about so much more than what your body looks like.

In my opinion, the key rule of a successful nutrition programme is to be based on real food. If you focus more on balanced diets and less on weight, it becomes a mentally healthier process. If you’re going to maintain your new, healthy lifestyle, it needs to be something you actively enjoy—a lifestyle that you want to maintain. If you eat healthily because you want to rather than you have to, life gets 1,000 percent easier.