1 . David Brunelli has eaten up a huge burger. He starts eating handfuls of French fries. If he eats them fast enough, he could win. The crowd shouts with excitement. Suddenly, a stream of food pours out of Brunell' s mouth. Puking (呕吐) during an eating competition means you lose. So Brunelli catches the food in his hands and pushes it back into his mouth. Welcome to the world of competitive eating.

Thousands of eating competitions take place around the world each year. To win, people like Brunelli eat huge amounts of food as quickly as possible.They eat everything from mountains of hot dogs to hundreds of chicken legs.

Some people say it is time for eating competitions to stop. One reason is that the competitions can lead to serious health problems. These include weight gain, heart disease, and stomach problems. In 2004, a woman died from choking (窒息) during a competition. Eating competitions can make overeating look attractive. This sets a bad example for fans. Also, millions of people in the world go hungry every day. That makes it seem wasteful to eat amounts of food just for fun.

Still, many people love competitive eating. They say it is a fun tradition that goes back many years. Fans point out that the group Major League Eating (MLE) runs professional eating competitions. At these competitions, injuries are uncommon. MLE always has doctors on hand.

Eating competitions allow people like Brunelli to get famous and win money. And the competitions are popular. Each July 4, more than a million people watch Nathan s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on TV. This year, will you be one of them?

1. Why does the author write the first paragraph?

A．To bring up the topic.	B．To introduce Brunelli.
C．To make a comparison.	D．To show some delicious food.

2. What can we learn about eating competitions from the text?

A．They have a short history.	B．They enjoy great popularity.
C．They are attractive to the poor	D．They introduce lots of new food.

3. What does paragraph 3 mainly talk about?

A．The fun of watching eating competitions.

B．The health problems caused by overeating.

C．The difficulties in winning an eating competition.

D．The reasons why eating competitions should be stopped.

4. What can we learn about MLE?

A．It trains many doctors.	B．Its prizes are unusual.
C．Its competitions are relatively safe.	D．It is an organizer of traditional competitions.

2 . With all the dietary information online, it can be hard to know what tips to follow. Watch out for these words and expressions.

Fat Is Good

It doesn’t matter if you are part of the fat is GOOD for you or BAD for you group, the important question to ask is the source of the fat. If it comes from a land-based animal, and is likely to be solid at room temperature, then it is saturated (饱和的) fat whereas if it comes from fish or plants, and it is likely to be liquid at room temperature, then it is unsaturated fat. All the evidence indicates that eating more unsaturated fat than saturated fat lowers your risk of dying early.

Natural Sugar Is Better

The vast majority of sugar we consume is sucrose (蔗糖). It is the white powdered stuff we cook with and is made up of glucose and fructose. How about sugar from honey? It is often marketed as natural and better for you. Actually, it just has its own distinct flavour, but is as sweet because of glucose and fructose.

High-pH Water

Some people think we need to eat alkali (碱) food to maintain our blood at a pH of 7.4. But everything we eat or drink passes through the stomach, which, at a pH of 1.5, is the most acidic part of the body. It is then neutralised to a pH of 7. So, nothing we eat will change the pH of our blood.

Don’t Eat Anything That You Can’t Pronounce

Whether foods are natural or highly processed, they are all full of chemicals. Are you supposed to fear “phenylthiocarbamide”, because you can’t pronounce it? This is simply the chemical responsible for the bitter taste found in brassicas, the plants in the cabbage and mustard family.

Don’t Eat Food With More Than Five Ingredients(佐料)

Simple foods are not necessarily healthier for you. If I, for instance, use Chinese five spice powder in a recipe, that would count as one of the five ingredients. However, what if I added the typical components of five spice powder separately into a dish? Does that mean my recipe suddenly becomes bad because it has more than five ingredients?

1. According to the passage, healthier fat ______.

A．can be found in fish and plants	B．comes from land-based animals
C．remains solid at room temperature	D．can lower the death rate of elders

2. The passage suggests that ______.

A．diets can help adjust the pH of our blood	B．honey sugar can do more good than sucrose
C．foods with more ingredients may be as healthy	D．chemicals we can recognize are safer to take in

3. What is the main purpose of the passage?

A．To compare tips on food choices.	B．To introduce different health concepts.
C．To recommend fitness recipes to readers.	D．To warn us of some dietary misunderstandings.

3 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Emotional eating is eating as a way     1    (ease) negative emotions, such as stress, anger, fear, boredom, sadness and loneliness. Major life events or, more     2    (common), the troubles of daily life can arouse negative emotions that lead to emotional eating and disturb your weight-loss     3    (effort).

Although some people eat less in the face     4     strong emotions, if you’re in emotional distress you might turn to impulsive or binge (暴饮暴食) eating, quickly consuming whatever is convenient without     5    (enjoy).

In fact, your emotions can become so tied to your eating habits that you automatically reach for a treat whenever you’re angry or     6    (stress) without thinking about what you’re doing.

Food also     7    (serve) as a distraction. If you’re worried about an upcoming event or     8     conflict, for instance, you may focus on eating comfort food instead of dealing with the painful situation.

Whatever emotions drive you to eat more, the end result is often the same. The effect is temporary, the emotions return     9     you likely then bear the additional burden of guilt about     10     (set) back your weight-loss goal. This can also lead to an unhealthy cycle.

4 . I couldn’t sleep at all last night, and my sister believes it was because I ate a bowl of really spicy (辛辣的) food before bedtime. However, I was skeptical about the connection between spicy foods and sleep. Can eating spicy foods before bedtime truly impact one’s sleep quality? Some people believe that eating spicy foods before bedtime can disrupt sleep by increasing body temperature and causing heartburn. It may be worth avoiding spicy foods close to bedtime.

To find out the relation, the researchers in Australia conducted an experiment to investigate the effects of spicy foods on sleep. They provided a group of individuals with delicious late-night meals, alternating (交替) between spicy and mild options. The results revealed that consuming spicy foods led to disrupted sleep patterns, causing participants to take longer to fall asleep and sleep for shorter time. This data supported the belief that there is a correlation between eating spicy foods and experiencing sleep disturbances.

While the exact mechanism(机制)by which spicy foods influence sleep remains unclear, researchers have proposed several possibilities. One is that stomach discomfort resulting from spicy food consumption may affect sleep quality. Additionally, the long digestion (消化) of spicy foods could delay the start of sleep. Furthermore, spicy foods contain something that can raise body temperature, which has been linked to poor sleep in previous studies.

Given these findings, it is advisable to avoid consuming spicy foods before bedtime to promote better sleep. Next time, I will follow my sister’s advice and opt for a milder meal in the evening to ensure a restful night’s sleep.

1. What do people usually think of eating spicy foods before bedtime?

A．It can make people addictive to it.

B．It can be bad for digestion.

C．It can make sleep difficult.

D．It can lead to an increase in energy levels.

2. How did Australian researchers conduct this study?

A．By analyzing data.	B．By studying papers.
C．By doing an experiment.	D．By doing interviews.

3. What can we know from the study?

A．Spicy foods take long to digest.

B．Body temperature has no effect on sleep.

C．Bad eating habit changes sleep patterns.

D．Sleep problems may be caused by bad habits.

4. What is the purpose of this text?

A．To forbid children from having spicy foods.

B．To suggest not eating spicy foods before bedtime.

C．To promote some healthy food that is not spicy.

D．To keep up with the latest healthy food research.

5 . Research has shown that mindful eating has positive impacts on people, so it’s beneficial to know how to eat more mindfully. Here are some techniques for eating at a healthy pace.

Remove all distractions while you eat.     1     Make sure your cell phone is face down and you’re not going to be responding to any messages that come through.

Take enough time to finish your meal. Even with all distractions removed, very often you still find yourself eating faster than you should.    2     It takes about that time for your body to get the signal to the brain that you are full.

    3     You might wonder how to spend 20 whole minutes eating a sandwich. One way to slowdown is to engage your senses and think through all the details about your meal. Ask yourself: What’s on my plate? How hungry am I today? Is it too salty? Notice the smell, the taste and whatever other senses that arise as you eat.

Limit the amount of the food you might munch on(大口吃) mindlessly. Put a small amount of snack food, like potato chips, in a separate bowl to help avoid mindless munching.    4     Putting aside some of the food can help you eat less at a healthier pace.

Actually chew. If you’re wolfing down(狼吞虎咽) your food you’re probably not chewing it. And chewing is an important part of digestion.     5     Look at each bite before putting it into your mouth, acknowledge what you’re eating and chew, chew, chew.

A．Notice all the little details about your food.

B．Limit your time for a meal within 20 minutes.

C．It helps break up the foods so it’s easier for absorption.

D．Watch out for your food intake and the time you spend on it.

E．When you sit down to eat, spend at least 20 minutes doing so.

F．If you have a whole bag of it, it is challenging to stop after several bites.

G．They can limit your ability to enjoy your food and notice when you are full.

6 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. How many times did the Mediterranean diet win the Best Diet?

A．3.

B．4.

C．5.

2. What does the Mediterranean diet put great emphasis on?

A．High-quality olive oil.

B．Fruits and vegetables.

C．Whole grains and seeds.

3. What do people often do in Mediterranean areas?

A．Eat at small tables.

B．Eat out alone.

C．Have a meal for hours.

7 . You may have read that light coming into your eyes sets the body’s clock. Similarly, food changes the clocks in tissues in your liver, muscles, and fat. Human beings developed to eat only during daylight, which lasted 12 hours. That meant we didn’t eat for 12 hours a day. Sticking to that plan may help you stay healthier as well as thinner. However, it’s a surprisingly bad idea to ignore breakfast, eat lunch or dinner late, eat a big bedtime snack, or eat in the middle of the night.

In a study with 776 participants, people who ignored breakfast were 80 percent more likely to have obesity (肥胖症). People who ate lunch after 12:30 (or dinner after 21:00) were 60 percent more likely to have those extra pounds. That was true for both men and women at different ages and regardless of other factors that affect weight including your diet and exercise habits.

Odd hours seem to contribute to uncontrollable eating. When you eat late at night, you tend to eat more. Perhaps driven by hormone (荷尔蒙) increases, we long for sweeter, saltier food at night, research suggests. In one study, night eaters ate about 300 more calories each day.

“Eating late in the day aggravates reflux, writes Jamie A. Koufman, who specializes in voice disorders and acid reflux (胃酸倒流). Many of my patients find that eating late makes them suffer more from their allergies and diabetes symptoms,” he says. “Give your stomach at least three hours to digest before sleeping,” advises Jonathan Aviv, another specialist in acid reflux.

Eating breakfast late may also increase your breast cancer risk by about 17 percent for every hour you delay, according to a study of nearly 1,200 women with breast cancer in Spain, compared to more than 1,300 women who didn’t develop breast cancer. If you eat late at night, another research suggests, you may up the chance of breast cancer occurrence. While researchers work out the details of how our body clocks affect digestion and their downstream effects, one point is clear: Early is better.

1. What can be learned from the first two paragraphs?

A．What you eat makes no difference to your clocks.

B．Not eating for a half day may do good to your health.

C．Eating late may be more harmful than ignoring breakfast.

D．People gain weight because of their diet and exercise habits.

2. What does the underlined word “aggravates” probably mean?

A．Worsens.

B．Comforts.

C．Causes

D．Improves.

3. How is the result found in the text?

A．By experimenting on people of different ages.

B．By summarizing the data from various surveys.

C．By comparing the studies about the eating disorder.

D．By concluding some researches concerning eating habits.

4. Which of the following is the best title for the text?

A．Ignore Breakfast to Lose Weight.	B．Night Eaters Are Much Healthier.
C．Eating Late Is Really Bad for You.	D．Eating More Damages Body Clock.

8 . A good meal has a positive impact on one’s mood. Those who feast on Christmas buffet almost enjoy an immediate rise in their blood sugar. That will prompt a flood of chemicals that act as happy hormones to rush through their brains.

But the pleasure goes deeper. Tyrosine and tryptophan are needed for the production, respectively, of dopamine, a neurotransmitter (神经传递素) that controls feelings of pleasure and reward, and serotonin, another such, which helps regulate mood. And cranberries are high in vitamin C, which is involved in converting dopamine to noradrenaline, another neurotransmitter, and a lack of which seems to be associated with depression.

With mental-health disorders rising, a growing number of scientists are investigating how food or nutritional supplements affect the mind. But separating the brain’s nutritional needs from those of the rest of the body is difficult. Not possible for now, at least. And, compared with other fields, nutritional science is understudied. That is partly because it is hard to do well. Randomised controlled trials (rcts), used to test drugs, are tricky. Few people want to stick to an experimental diet for years. Instead, most nutritional science is based on observational studies that try to establish associations between particular foods or nutrients and diseases. They cannot be used to definitively prove a causal ( 因 果 关 系 的 ) connection between a disease and a particular contributing factor in a diet. But as with smoking and lung cancer, put together enough of these kinds of trials and causal narratives begin to emerge.

It is now clear that some diets are particularly good for the brain. One recent study concludes that sticking to the “Mediterranean diet”, high in vegetables, fruit, pulses and wholegrains, low in red and processed meats and saturated fats, decreases the chances of experiencing strokes, cognitive impairment and depression. Other recent work looking at a “green” Mediterranean diet high in polyphenols found it reduced age-related brain atrophy. Another version, the mind diet, emphasises, among other things, eating berries over other kinds of fruit and seems to lessen the risk of dementia.

Scientists think such diets may work by reducing inflammation in the brain. This, in turn, may affect areas such as the hippocampus, which is associated with learning, memory and mood regulation—and where new neurons grow in adults. Studies in animals show that when they are fed a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids (from walnuts, for example), flavonoids (consumed mainly via tea and wine), antioxidants (found in berries) and resveratrol (found in red grapes), neuron growth is stimulated and inflammatory processes are reduced. This fits with research suggesting that those who regularly eat ultra-processed, fried and sugary foods, which increase inflammation in the brain, heighten their risk of developing depression.

1. Which of the following words can replace “tricky” in Paragraph 3?

A．Rare.

B．Tough.

C．Traditional.

D．Contradictory.

2. How do researchers do observational studies in nutritional science?

A．By keeping at an experimental diet for years.

B．By carrying out randomized controlled trials.

C．By identifying a particular contributing factor.

D．By comparing findings of certain kinds of trials.

3. What can be inferred from the last two paragraphs?

A．A diet rich in fruit is good for cognitive abilities.

B．People fond of sugary foods may be a risk lover.

C．Red grapes add fuel to inflammation in the brain.

D．Drinking tea can solve age-related brain problems.

4. What is mainly discussed in the passage?

A．The links between diets and diseases.

B．The significance of Mediterranean diet.

C．The function of various neurotransmitters.

D．The influence of nutrients on mental health.

9 . 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.

1. What can be known about GE foods?

A．They edit their own existing DNA.

B．They have foreign DNA from other species.

C．They are completely as natural as ordinary foods.

D．They are exactly the same as genetically modified foods.

2. What’s the right attitude toward GE foods?

A．The UK government supports GE foods.	B．George Eustice is against GE foods.
C．Some consumers object to GE foods being sold.	D．Britain’s biggest supermarkets welcome GE foods.

3. All of the following can help reduce the disease EXCEPT ________.

A．vitamin D-boosted tomatoes’	B．mushrooms that don’t go brown
C．bread that reduces cancer risk from burnt toast	D．chickens resistant to bird flu

10 . In the chaos of modern living, maintaining balance denting patterns within shifting schedules and various family favourites can seem like a huge challenge.     1     Below are some tips to help find an appropriate approach.

Embrace (拥抱) mindful eating

Mindfulness transform seating into a nurturing practice, encouraging a deep connection with how food affects your body and mood.    2     Eat slowly and avoid being disturbed by the surroundings. This attentiveness contributes to a high respect for your body’s needs, and recognizes your body’s hunger and satisfaction signals more accurately.

Have mealtime house rules

Consider establishing guidelines that encourage eating without distractions such as TVs, phones or other electronic devices. That helps everyone at the-table to fully engage with their food and with each other, promoting a more connected and present eating experience.     3    

Establish a flexible meal routine

Being flexible with mealtimes is important if you have busy schedules. Finding a common mealtime can be challenging.     4     If you’re hungry earlier, empower yourself to eat when you feel the need. There’s beauty inflexibility; you can still share quality time with loved ones by sitting together at the table when they eat, even if you’re not eating yourself.

Set boundaries on body talk

    5     Setting boundaries around body image comments is essential, as these can significantly impact eating patterns and self-perception. This approach helps reduce the negative influence such comments can have on eating habits and fosters a positive, body-neutral environment where personal worth isn’t tied to physical appearance.

In navigating (导航) the complexities of modern home life, let these strategies be your guide to developing a peaceful and satisfying relationship with eating in your family.

A．It’s crucial to honour your own hunger signals.

B．When you eat, take the time to really notice your food.

C．Yet, you can establish a peaceful relationship with food easily.

D．Family discussions should be about health and well-being, not appearance.

E．It’s about finding balance between personal nutrition needs and favorite foods.

F．Body image is a common topic to strengthen the family bond during home eating.

G．Such rules will enhance the enjoyment of meals and support healthier eating habits.