2 . Adding salt to already prepared meals is linked to dying prematurely, according to a new study. Researchers found always adding salt to food knocks 2.3 years off life expectancy for men and 1.5years for women.

The study did not rule out other factors, but researchers said the evidence was compelling enough that people should consider avoiding seasoning their meals. The findings were based on research involving over 500,000 participants, who were followed for an average of 9 years. Compared with those who never added salt, those who always seasoned their food had a 28% increased risk of dying earlier. “To my knowledge, our study is the first to assess the relation between adding salt to foods and earlier death,” said Prof Lu Qi, who led the work. “Even a modest reduction in sodium (钠) intake can result in remarkable health benefits.”

Salt intake is difficult to accurately track because many processed foods contain high levels of salt. Roughly 70% of sodium intake in western populations comes from processed foods, with 8-20% from salt added at the table. However, adding salt is a very good indicator of a person’s preference for salty tasting foods, so the team focused their analysis on this measurement.

Prof Annika Rosengren, a researcher who was not involved with the research, said that there is an ideal level for salt to different people. It’s hard to figure out the best level in terms of health for any given individual. “So far, what the evidence seems to indicate is that healthy people consuming normal levels of salt need not worry too much about their salt intake,” she said. However, those at high risk of heart disease should probably cut down. “Not adding extra salt to already prepared foods is one way of achieving this.”

4 . Beejhy Barhany, growing up in an Ethiopian-Jewish community in Israel, has been cooking for her family as long as she can remember. Now a chef and owner of Tsion Café in Harlem, New York, Barhany continues to pull from cooking traditions, including one that has become the source of much controversy in recent decades: washing raw meat before cooking.

For Barhany, submerging raw chicken in salt and lemon water is both functional and ceremonial, as soaking or rinsing raw meat in salt water and acid-such as lemon juice or vinegar-is a common form of “washing” required by Jewish Kosher rules. And a 2015 survey of over 1, 500 American consumers found that nearly 70 percent rinse or wash their poultry before cooking it, though the U. S. Department of Agriculture( USDA) started telling consumers not to wash raw poultry in the 1990s. Experts including those from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly warned that rather than reducing the risk of foodborne illness (食源性疾病), washing meat increases the likelihood of spreading unwanted pathogens (病原体), like salmonella and campylobacter, around the kitchen.

“Washing meat before cooking is not really helping,” says Betty Feng, associate professor of food science at Purdue University. “The only thing it does is splashing (飞溅) and could cross-contaminate a lot of your kitchen items-your sink, probably your clothes, whatever you have by the sink.” Moreover, Feng cautions against using saltwater, vinegar, or lemon juice, which simply isn’t strong enough to effectively kill foodborne pathogens. “If the acidity is high enough to kill bacteria, then it’s not really likely you can use your bare hand to wash,” she says.

And a 2022 study showed that submerging meat in a bowl of water reduced the splashing but not the spread of germs. “I would treat the entire sink just like the outside of the chicken——it’s a biological hazard,” says Benjamin Chapman, one of the study authors and associate professor in North Carolina State University’s agricultural and human sciences department. “The way that we make meat safe is through cooking, not through the removal of pathogens.”

6 . Holiday Eating to Boost Immunity

People don’t generally use the words health and holiday eating in the same sentence, and when they do,     1    . Holidays are often a time of indulgence (放纵), even for people who are usually careful about their diets for the rest of the year. During the holidays we’re more likely to be served with and indulge in foods that are sweet or salty, and, of course, alcoholic drinks. These things can cause inflammation (炎症) in the body.     2    .

There’s more to holiday eating than avoiding too many calories. What we eat affects the health of the entire body, including the immune system. Most of the body’s immune system is concentrated in the gut (内脏) and the trillions of healthy bacteria living there called the microbiome, which might make you more possible to get sick. A lot of people don’t think about the effects of what they eat on immunity.     3    . And it’s especially important in winter, since the winter holidays occur around the time when illnesses like colds, flu, COVID-19 and other illnesses peak.

While an occasional indulgence probably won’t cause lasting damage, throwing caution to the wind from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day is certainly unhealthy.     4    . “Even just a month of really just blowing it and not caring about nutrition can impact the microbiome, ”says Kristin Kirkpatrick, a registered dietitian at Cleveland Clinic’s department of wellness and preventive medicine. To keep your immune system functioning efficiently,     5    . Just celebrate a little smarter and you can still enjoy yourself!

7 . “In high school, I decided to stop eating meat. I love animals. I couldn’t see them suffering.” Babulski says, who is a biologist at Monroe Community College in New York. Teenage Babulski initially lived on starches (淀粉食物) and salads. Eventually she learned to eat a more balanced vegetarian (素食者的) diet. But, Babulski remembers, her mom still wished she’d give up the madness. Mom thought she was going to straight up die.

The decision by Babulski and others to go vegetarian can be threatening to those who view eating animals as typically American. Eating meat is the norm in the United States, even though medical experts have long encouraged people to eat less processed and red meat for health reasons. What is becoming clear is that a meat-heavy diet is also terrible for the planet.

Shifting demand from meat to beans, whole grains, fruits, vegetables and nuts could have many benefits for the climate. A more recent April report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, suggests that the world’s wealthiest individuals could greatly decrease emissions (排放) through lifestyle changes. That’s because households with incomes in the top 10 percent produce roughly 36 to 45 percent of global emissions, while households with incomes in the bottom 50 percent contribute just 13 to 15 percent. Therefore, wealthier individuals, who adopt a low-carbon lifestyle, can help establish new, more sustainable social norms.

Babulski learned about the environmental impacts of meat production. She now shares her personal journey with students in her environmental science course. Many of her students come to realize the power of their individual choices. The little things they do actually do add up and make a difference.

Why would someone decide not to eat? We know that the body needs food     1     (function) well. However, many people fast at some time during their lives. Why is this?

Some people fast for political reasons. Mohandas Gandhi, the famous Indian leader, fasted 17 times during his life. For Gandhi, fasting was a powerful political tool. Fasting is also a     2     (spirit) practice in many religions. Every year during the month of Ramadan,     3     is a religious holiday, Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. Many Hindus fast     4     special occasions,     5     do some Christians and Buddhists.

Of course not everyone fasts for political or religious reasons. Some people     6     (occasion) fast just because     7     makes them feel better. The American writer Mark Twain thought fasting was the best medicine for common     8     (ill). Another American writer, Upton Sinclair, discovered fasting after years of overeating, indigestion, and headache. His first fast lasted for 12 days. During this time, his headaches and stomachaches went away. Sinclair said that fasting also made him more alert and energetic.

    9     (choose) to go without food can be very dangerous. However, that doesn’t stop people     10     (fast) for political, religious, or health reasons.