full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Mark Bittman: What's wrong with what we eat

Unscramble the Blue Letters


I write about food. I write about cooking. I take it quite seriously, but I'm here to talk about something that's become very important to me in the last year or two. It is about food, but it's not about cooking, per se. I'm going to start with this picture of a beautiful cow. I'm not a vgtriaeaen — this is the old Nixon line, right? But I still think that this — (Laughter) — may be this year's vsroien of this.

Now, that is only a little bit hyperbolic. And why do I say it? Because only once before has the fate of individual people and the fate of all of humanity been so intertwined. There was the bomb, and there's now. And where we go from here is going to determine not only the quality and the length of our individual leivs, but whether, if we could see the Earth a century from now, we'd recognize it. It's a holocaust of a different kind, and hiindg under our desks isn't going to help. Start with the notoin that gablol warming is not only real, but dangerous. Since every stceiisnt in the world now believes this, and even President Bush has seen the light, or pdteners to, we can take this is a given.

Open Cloze


I write about food. I write about cooking. I take it quite seriously, but I'm here to talk about something that's become very important to me in the last year or two. It is about food, but it's not about cooking, per se. I'm going to start with this picture of a beautiful cow. I'm not a __________ — this is the old Nixon line, right? But I still think that this — (Laughter) — may be this year's _______ of this.

Now, that is only a little bit hyperbolic. And why do I say it? Because only once before has the fate of individual people and the fate of all of humanity been so intertwined. There was the bomb, and there's now. And where we go from here is going to determine not only the quality and the length of our individual _____, but whether, if we could see the Earth a century from now, we'd recognize it. It's a holocaust of a different kind, and ______ under our desks isn't going to help. Start with the ______ that ______ warming is not only real, but dangerous. Since every _________ in the world now believes this, and even President Bush has seen the light, or ________ to, we can take this is a given.

Solution


  1. lives
  2. hiding
  3. version
  4. global
  5. vegetarian
  6. scientist
  7. pretends
  8. notion

Original Text


I write about food. I write about cooking. I take it quite seriously, but I'm here to talk about something that's become very important to me in the last year or two. It is about food, but it's not about cooking, per se. I'm going to start with this picture of a beautiful cow. I'm not a vegetarian — this is the old Nixon line, right? But I still think that this — (Laughter) — may be this year's version of this.

Now, that is only a little bit hyperbolic. And why do I say it? Because only once before has the fate of individual people and the fate of all of humanity been so intertwined. There was the bomb, and there's now. And where we go from here is going to determine not only the quality and the length of our individual lives, but whether, if we could see the Earth a century from now, we'd recognize it. It's a holocaust of a different kind, and hiding under our desks isn't going to help. Start with the notion that global warming is not only real, but dangerous. Since every scientist in the world now believes this, and even President Bush has seen the light, or pretends to, we can take this is a given.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
junk food 3
organic food 3
global warming 2
livestock production 2
ann cooper 2
food pyramid 2
united states 2
greenhouse gases 2
red herring 2
ate food 2
eat real 2
home cooking 2
ice cream 2
corn products 2
stop eating 2


Important Words


  1. beautiful
  2. believes
  3. bit
  4. bomb
  5. bush
  6. century
  7. cooking
  8. cow
  9. dangerous
  10. desks
  11. determine
  12. earth
  13. fate
  14. food
  15. global
  16. hiding
  17. holocaust
  18. humanity
  19. hyperbolic
  20. important
  21. individual
  22. intertwined
  23. kind
  24. laughter
  25. length
  26. light
  27. line
  28. lives
  29. nixon
  30. notion
  31. people
  32. picture
  33. president
  34. pretends
  35. quality
  36. real
  37. recognize
  38. scientist
  39. se
  40. start
  41. talk
  42. vegetarian
  43. version
  44. warming
  45. world
  46. write
  47. year