The New Super Food

　　Jackie:  Hello welcome to Entertainment! I'm Jackie Dalton. If you're someone

　　who is quite careful about what you eat and likes to be healthy, then you

　　might want to find out about what's being hailed¹ as the latest super food.

　　A 'super food' is a term which we're hearing more and more these days to

　　describe food that's very good for you. So far, the 'super foods' category

　　has included blueberries, nuts, tomatoes and garlic. But new research has

　　found that yet another type of food deserves² to be added to the list. And

　　that's watercress. Watercress is a small leafy green plant that grows in

　　water and tastes quite strong. It's often used in salads.

　　Ian Rowland

　　Watercress has been known for a long time to have beneficial properties.

　　Jackie:  Ian Rowland is a Professor of Human Nutrition and has just done a study

　　that shows watercress is very good for us. As he just said, it has

　　'beneficial properties' - a term we often hear to describe things which are

　　good for our health - 'beneficial properties'. Watercress has been used for

　　medicinal purposes for many years… that's another expression: if

　　something is used 'for medicinal purposes' it's used to treat or to prevent

　　illness. So, since when is watercress known to have been used for

　　medicinal purposes? Listen to find out.

　　Ian Rowland

　　Watercress has been known for a long time to have beneficial properties. It's been

　　known since the times of the Greeks, the Ancient Greeks that it has been used for

　　medicinal purposes

　　Jackie:  Did you get that answer? Watercress has been used for medicinal

　　purposes since the times of the Ancient Greeks – a very long time indeed!

　　Professor Rowland and his team carried out an experiment on volunteers

　　to see what effect eating watercress would have on them. Two questions

　　for you to answer this time: how many volunteers took part in the

　　experiment and how much watercress did they eat each day?

　　Ian Rowland

　　We recruited³ 60 volunteers, who ate a bag of watercress – one bag a day. And these

　　were a nice cross-section of people, they were 19 to 55 years old, they ate it for 8 weeks.

　　Jackie:  Did you get those answers? They recruited sixty volunteers for the

　　experiment and they each had to eat a bag a day. Ian said they had a

　　cross-section of the population, which means it was a group of peopl

　　that was typical of the population as whole, with a range of ages,

　　lifestyles, races and so on.

　　BBC Learning⁴ English

　　Before we hear from Ian again, a few bits of language that might be

　　useful to you:

　　To analyse something – means to examine it very closely⁵

　　A sample – a sample is a small part or amount of something that's

　　examined in order to find out something about the whole, doctors

　　sometimes look at blood samples to find out what is wrong with patients.

　　DNA⁶ – is a substance that carries information in the cells of the body and

　　controls how our bodies function and change.

　　Now try to answer this question: what did the researchers look for when

　　they analysed blood samples from volunteers?

　　Ian Rowland

　　We analysed the blood samples for the amount of DNA damage in the blood. And

　　DNA damage, we know, is an important process in the development of cancer.

　　Jackie:  Did you get the answer? The researchers looked for damage to DNA.

　　Every day our DNA is damaged – that's part of our body's ageing process.

　　But it is possible to reduce DNA damage. In the experiment, the

　　researchers found two key things: what were the two things?

　　Ian Rowland

　　A decrease in the level of DNA damage in blood cells of those individuals and

　　furthermore⁷, when we took those blood cells and treated them with a chemical which

　　caused DNA damage, they were more resistant⁸.

　　Jackie:  Did you get those answers? They found firstly that DNA damage

　　decreased - went down - in people eating watercress. They also found the

　　cells were more resistant to chemicals that are known to damage DNA –

　　they could defend themselves better against bad chemicals. Listen again.

　　Ian Rowland

　　A decrease in the level of DNA damage in blood cells of those individuals and

　　furthermore, when we took those blood cells and treated them with a chemical that

　　caused DNA damage, they were more resistant.

　　Jackie:  So all this suggests that watercress is good at protecting our bodies and

　　may help us fight against things like cancer. But that's not the only

　　reason to eat watercress. Tom is a British chef. He is glad watercress has

　　become part of what he calls the 'super food clique⁹'  – a clique is a kind

　　of special club or group that is not always very easy to get in to. As Tom

　　points out, there are other things that, at least for people in Britain, make

　　watercress a good choice. What are they? Try to list at least three.

　　Tom

　　I'm delighted with this piece of research. It's really nice to see a food sort of enter the

　　super food clique that's grown in Britain, largely¹⁰, and all year round it's available… so

　　it's not like air freighted¹¹ blueberries, it does taste good, and it's very versatile¹².

　　Jackie:  Did you catch any of those reasons? Tom says watercress is always

　　available - it's grown all year round, it tastes good and it's versatile,

　　which means it can be used in lots of different ways. He points out that

　　watercress in Britain isn't air freighted, which means it's not flown in

　　from other countries on a plane because it's grown in Britain.

　　That's all for this week and if you're not already a watercress eater

　　perhaps, if you can get it where you are, it's worth trying it out.

1 hailed   

下雹子( hail的过去式和过去分词 )； 如冰雹般地降下； 致敬； 打招呼

参考例句：

• The conference was hailed as a great success. 会议被称颂为一次巨大的成功。
• The new manager has been hailed as the saviour of the club. 新任经理被誉为俱乐部的救星。

2 deserves   

v.应受，应得，值得( deserve的第三人称单数 )；应受报答；应得报酬；应得赔偿

参考例句：

• A wilful fault has no excuse and deserves no pardon. 不能宽恕故意犯下的错误。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is the only poet in this country that deserves the name. 他是这个国家唯一的一位名副其实的诗人。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 recruited   

招聘( recruit的过去式和过去分词 )； 吸收某人为新成员； 动员…（提供帮助）； 雇用

参考例句：

• Were men for the Navy recruited from men on merchant ships? 海军的人员是从商船的人员中征募的吗？
• Most of the workers will be recruited locally. 大多数工人都会在本地招募。

4 learning   

n.学问，学识，学习；动词learn的现在分词

参考例句：

• When you are learning to ride a bicycle,you often fall off.初学骑自行车时，常会从车上掉下来。
• Learning languages isn't just a matter of remembering words.学习语言不仅仅是记些单词的事。

5 closely   

adv.紧密地；严密地，密切地

参考例句：

• We shall follow closely the development of the situation.我们将密切注意形势的发展。
• The two companies are closely tied up with each other.这两家公司之间有密切联系。

6 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

7 furthermore   

adv.而且，此外

参考例句：

• I don't like her because she is too tall and furthermore she smokes too much.我不喜欢她，因为她太高，另外她抽烟太厉害。
• I don't want to go there,furthermore,I have no time to do so.我不想去那里，而且我也没时间去。

8 resistant   

adj.(to)抵抗的，有抵抗力的

参考例句：

• Many pests are resistant to the insecticide.许多害虫对这种杀虫剂有抵抗力。
• They imposed their government by force on the resistant population.他们以武力把自己的统治强加在持反抗态度的人民头上。

9 clique   

n.朋党派系，小集团

参考例句：

• The reactionary ruling clique was torn by internal strife.反动统治集团内部勾心斗角，四分五裂。
• If the renegade clique of that country were in power,it would have meant serious disaster for the people.如果那个国家的叛徒集团一得势，人民就要遭殃。

10 largely   

adv.大部分，主要地

参考例句：

• It is largely dependent on the weather.这多半取决于天气情况。
• Their conclusions were largely founded on guesswork.他们的结论大部份基于猜测。

11 freighted   

运输（freight的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• We freighted the goods to the warehouse by truck. 我们用卡车把货物运到仓库。
• From these ports the grain is freighted down to America. 粮食从这些港口运到美国。

12 versatile   

adj.通用的，万用的；多才多艺的，多方面的

参考例句：

• A versatile person is often good at a number of different things.多才多艺的人通常擅长许多种不同的事情。
• He had been one of the game's most versatile athletes.他是这项运动中技术最全面的运动员之一。