Healthy eating in January

     

The Christmas and New Year celebrations are occasions to eat and drink to excess. We enjoy big family dinners with lots of alcohol and huge (enormes) bowls of pudding for dessert. A few weeks of eating like this, however, (sin embargo) can make us feel unhealthy (poco saludable). Fortunately, January is the time for New Year’s Resolutions, (propositos para el nuevo año) and they usually include improving (mejorar) our diet. In this post we look at some things you can do to recover from the Christmas excess, detox (desintoxicar) your body and feel better.

         

The first step (paso) to take to improve your diet is to eat lots of meals a day. None of them, however, should be very substantial. It is not a good idea to have only a coffee for breakfast, a very big lunch and a sandwich at eleven o’clock at night. Ideally, you should eat five times a day and ensure you start the day with a proper (apropiado) breakfast. This should include fresh fruit, for example a glass of freshly squeezed (recién exprimido) orange juice. You should also avoid eating late at night and going to bed on a full stomach. To cleanse your body after the holiday excess, one option is to have a “detox week”. For this you need to eat lots of certain foods and avoid others. Firstly, drink lots of water, ideally a litre and a half every day. Avoid coffee and alcohol. The best hot drink is green tea, which is low in caffeine. Avoid meat, especially red meat, and dairy products,(lácteos) and eat plenty of fruit. Berries (frutos rojos) are especially good for cleansing your system. After a few days of radical detoxing, it is time to establish a balanced diet (dieta equilibrada) for the rest of the year.

         

Going Organic

One thing you can do to improve the quality of the food you eat is going organic. You can start by buying organic fruit and vegetables, and you will definitely taste (notaras) the difference. Next, try organic eggs, which have a truly (verdaderamente) delicious flavour (sabor) Finally, order (encarga) some organic meat, such as (como) chicken or beef, and you will probably not want to eat non-organic meat again!

Good Intentions

Everybody starts the year with good intentions, but they are usually a distant memory (recuerdo lejano) when it is time for more family celebrations, complete with big dinners and large portions of pudding. But this does not mean you should not detox and try to eat better after New Year. On the contrary, you can start the process several times a year – resolutions do not necessarily have to be for January!

      
 

Proverbs Related to Animals.

"When the cat's away,..."

Rose and James are parents to two teenage children. When they are away on Friday nights, the children always take advantage ( aprovechan ) of their parents’ absence by having a party with their friends. You know what people say: When the cat’s away, the mice will play.

Last week, Rose declined a promotion at work, as she thought it would have been too difficult. Her bosses were a bit disappointed (decepcionados ) because they had given her the chance ( la oportunidad) to improve (mejorar) but she couldn’t be persuaded to take the job. As the Managing Director said, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink”.

James owns (es el dueño de) a software company, and refused to give his best programmer a pay rise,(aumento de sueldo ) even though he made a lot of profit for the company. Soon he left and the new worker was not as good, so the company lost a lot of clients. Everyone told James that he had “killed the goose that lays the golden egg” because he sacrificed future benefits to save money in the short-term.(corto plazo)

Their daughter, Nathalie, recently broke up (rompió) with her boyfriend Charles. Her mother comforted   (consoló) her by saying “there are plenty more fish in the sea”. In other words, if that relationship hadn’t worked, there would be more opportunities to find other boyfriends. Meanwhile, her brother Peter has decided not to see his ex-girlfriend again because she had given him a lot of headaches in the past and he’s afraid that she would cause a lot of trouble again. He decided it was best to let sleeping dogs lie.

English Proverb	Spanish Equivalent
1. When the cat’s away, the mice will play. [Cuando el gato está fuera, los ratones juegan.]	I. Cuando el gato duerme, bailan los ratones.
2. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. [Puedes llevar a un caballo hasta el agua, pero no puedes hacer que beba.]	II. Puedes darle un consejo a alguien, pero no puedes obligarlo a que lo siga.
3. Kill the goose that lays the golden egg. [Matar al ganso que pone el huevo de oro.]	III. Matar a la gallina de los huevos de oro.
4. There are plenty more fish in the sea. [Hay muchos más peces en el mar.]	IV. Hay mucho más donde elegir.
5. Let sleeping dogs lie. [Deja que los perros que duermen sigan durmiendo.]	V. Mejor no  despertar la fiera.

Now it is time for the proverb test.  For each situation find the most suitable proverb from the ones that have appeared in the article ! 

1.          The children at school always have fun when the teacher is absent.

2.          The parents did not wake up the baby in case she started crying.

3.          Monica was very sad as her boyfriend left her for her best friend.

Answers:

1. When the cat’s away, the mice will play 2.Let sleeping dogs lie 3-There are plenty more fish in the sea.

Spanglish (1)

Controversy reigns (reina) and the subject is Spanglish. Critics say Spanglish is neither good Spanish nor good English and that it is speaking two languages, but badly, at the same time. Other people say it is a natural phenomenon for people who live and think in both the English-speaking and the Spanish-speaking cultures.

Some people think it is very serious and maybe it is more serious than we realise. Academics and members of language associations criticise Spanglish because they say it has a destructive effect on the Spanish language. Some critics even say that using Spanglish is a conscious or unconscious acceptance of English as the superior language. They say that its users have no pride (orgullo) in the Spanish that is, in many cases, their native language. They complain that users of Spanglish don’t even make the effort (esfuerzo) to use perfectly correct Spanish expressions and that they use Spanglish because they prefer the English word (not because the appropriate word or expression does not exist in Spanish). The opposition also say that Spanglish originally came from dialects used by the under-educated (con pocos estudios ) and lower classes (in other words, people who might not know the words in Spanish.)

  

Maybe one of the issues that complicate the Spanglish question is Spanish speakers’ traditional dependency on pronouncing words as they are written (based on the Spanish phonetic system). Historically, the correct pronunciation of foreign words has never been encouraged, (promovidas) nor modelled by Spanish speakers. Even role models such as teachers, TV and radio announcers and political or religious leaders have notoriously mispronounced foreign words and names. For this reason, one of the ways foreign words have been successfully introduced and adopted without their pronunciation being totally distorted (distorsionados) has been by distorting their spelling. This has given us líder, instead of leader, mitin instead of meeting, quiosco for kiosk, champán for champagne, champú for shampoo, coñac for cognac, and suéter for sweater. A lot of Spanglish words are distorted Spanish spellings of English words.

         

   

Proverbs to Impress your Friends (2)

Proverbs Related to Food or Drink

"...an apple  a day ..."

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. It has been good advice, ( buen consejo ) as Tom  has never had a day off ( día libre) work because of illness. The apples have kept him healthy! He also realized at a young age that life isn’t all beer and skittles, as he does not have unlimited money to enjoy a completely carefree (despreocupado) existence. He has to work very hard to pay the mortgage! (hipoteca).
He has many different hobbies, such as tennis, flying and motor racing. He says that variety is the spice of life. Another of Tom's  hobbies is listening to classical music. This can sometimes be a problem, because Tom's  wife absolutely hates this type of music. This is a case of one man’s meat is another man’s poison, because Tom values and enjoys classical music while his wife does not share (comparte) the same interest. This week, Tom's  parrot ( loro ) escaped from its cage.(jaula) The whole family were very sad as they had owned it for ten years, but in the end everyone agreed it’s no use crying over spilt milk. 

English Proverb	Spanish Equivalent
1. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. [Una manzana al día mantiene al doctor lejos (de ti).]	I.  A diario una manzana es cosa sana.
2. Life is not all beer and skittles. [La vida no es sólo cerveza y bolos.]	II. En la vida no todo es de color de rosa.
3. Variety is the spice of life. [La variedad es el condimento de la vida.]	III.En la variedad está el gusto.
4. One man’s meat is another man’s poison. [La carne de un hombre es el veneno de otro.]	IV. Lo que a uno cura, a otro mata.
5. It’s no use crying over spilt milk. [De nada vale llorar sobre la leche derramada.]	V. A lo hecho, pecho.

 Are you ready for the proverb test? I hope so. You need to find the most suitable (apropiado) proverb :

1.          Mark enjoys the fact that he works on different projects every month.

2.          Mary’s cake has fallen on to the floor.

Solutions:

1. Variety is the spice of life.2.It’s no use crying over spilt milk.