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Vitamins and Minerals

Date: Jun 06 2008

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

For every ailment, there’s a vitamin or mineral. Have a cold? Take some zinc. Can’t focus? Try some vitamin B.

supplements[/def] are a big industry. There’s no doubt they can do a lot of good. But there are so many, how do you know which ones you really need? Marni and Jason both fancy themselves vitamin experts.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Marni

Jason

Marni: So, do you take a lot of vitamins?

Jason: I take so many. I take so many supplements.

Marni: Really? Do tell.

Jason: I take garlic for my immune system. Calcium because I don’t eat a ton of dairy, really.

Marni: Neither do I. That’s good.

Jason: I take evening primrose oil…

Marni: For what?

Jason: ...which keeps my skin clear.

Marni: It is good for that. I don’t know very many men who take that.

Jason: Oh really? My mom is obsessed with this stuff so she’s always passing along some new supplement or vitamin. Do you take ‘em?

Marni: I do. I take…I’ve sort of tried to pare down because for a while I felt like for a while I was like, “It’s a supplement. I want to take it!” which really isn’t very healthy for you.

Jason: And you end up taking a handful of pills everyday.

Marni: Yeah, and it gets a little cumbersome. But I have to say I’m kind of a secret closeted fan of Dr. Oz, he’s always on Oprah and he was talking about supplements and what you really should take and he recommends everyone take a multivitamin. So I do do that. And calcium and in conjunction with magnesium. But I think the main thing I keep hearing lately and I’ve been reading about is vitamin D because we’re so vitamin D deficient because…

Jason: The sun…

Marni: There’s no sun here! So I actually take fish oil. I feel like a 80-year-old woman, I’ve got my fish oil, you know. And it has vitamin D in it and it gets you all the omegas you’re supposed to get in your diet.

Jason: Interesting. I often wonder though, when I’m taking all my supplements. I’m like, “How did people live before supplements?”

Marni: Exactly!

Jason: I mean, there had to be some way to get all this stuff without these pills.

Marni: Right. Well that’s also why probably why people died at the age of 40 on the farm.

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Discussion

Jason takes a lot of vitamins. His mother sends them to him. He even takes evening primrose oil, which is normally only taken by women, because it keeps his skin clear.

Marni takes vitamins, too, but she’s trying to cut back. She’s afraid she’s taking too many pills and that it isn’t healthy.

She trusts a doctor she watches on TV who suggests everyone take a multivitamin and calcium and magnesium. She also takes vitamin D, which helps the body use calcium and which you absorb from sunlight. Since she lives in a rainy city, Marni doesn’t see much of the sun.

Even though he takes them, Jason thinks its strange to take so many vitamins since people lived just fine without them until recently. Marni points out that people didn’t used to live as long.

Do you take any dietary supplements?

Comments

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hanci34

Turkey

Yes,suppliment vitamins are not healty,but if humans are compelled to suppliment vitamins,example after surgical operation it's OK,but humans must take of natural food.