7 Eat Up

CHAPTER 1 Hunger WHY DO WE EAT? DO WE EAT TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE? Sometimes, when your stomach is empty, it makes noises! It's telling you that your body needs food. It needs energy! Some foods give you a lot of energy; others don't. The number of calories in a food shows how much energy the food gives. An adult man needs about 2,500 calories a day, an adult woman about 2,000, and young children about 1,000 to 1,400. Many people eat too much: three big meals a day and lots of snacks, too. They feel hungry when their stomach is not empty. Their bodies don't need food, but they want to eat. These people are sometimes overweight. Some adults and children don't walk or play outside very often. Many children stay inside the house and watch television and play games on the computer all day. This is very bad for their health. If you eat too much and you don't use enough energy, you can become obese. Today in the United States there are about 100 million obese adults and 23 million obese children. Obese people eat too much food. Other people don't eat enough food because they're poor. Sometimes, these people starve. This is a problem in poor countries but also for poor people in rich countries.

CHAPTER 2 Breaking Bread BREAD IS A VERY OLD FOOD. EATING BREAD WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY IS A VERY OLD TRADITION, TOO. About 5,000 years ago, people in Egypt made bread with flour and water. They cooked the bread in the sun. When Egyptians traveled, they took bread with them. Other people learned to make it also. Bread became an important food in many places. It is an old tradition to share bread and other food with friends. This tradition is called "breaking bread." The word companion (another word for "friend") tells us about this tradition. Com is an old word for "with" and panis is an old word for "bread." So a companion is a "person with bread," a friend. In every country, family meals are an important tradition. But today people are often busy, and they cannot always eat with their family. Many years ago, the big meal of the day in France was lunch. But today many people are at work or at school at lunchtime. So now, many French families have a small lunch and a big dinner. They often sit down at about 8:00 p.m. to eat and talk for an hour or two. In Spain, many stores and businesses close for lunch so that families can eat a big lunch together. Then they eat a small dinner very late, at about 9:00 p.m.!

In some countries, there are traditional times for snacks. In England and Ireland, people traditionally ate a snack between breakfast and lunch called elevenses. At 11 a.m. some people still stop working and have tea with bread or cake. In Spanish, "eleven" is once. In Chile, there is a snack called once. People eat bread, cold meats, and cake. They drink tea or coffee and visit with friends. But people in Chile don't have their once at 11:00 in the morning. They have it around 5:00 in the afternoon! In the past, many families worked on farms. On holidays and at harvest time, they had feasts. Today, fewer families work on farms, but there are still traditional harvest feasts, like Thanksgiving in the United States and Canada. Samhain, or Halloween, was a harvest feast in Ireland and Scotland. Today, children enjoy Halloween in many countries on the last night of October. In the evening, children wear funny clothes and go to people's houses and ask for candy. Now, Halloween is the children's feast of candy!

CHAPTER 3 When We Eat, and When We Don't SOMETIMES WE FEAST, AND AT OTHER TIMES WE FAST. FASTING IS AN IMPORTANT TRADITION IN MANY CULTURES. People of all cultures like eating together and they love having feasts. But sometimes people choose not to eat. When people stop eating, we say they are fasting. Most people sleep at night. They don't eat at this time, so they are fasting. In the morning, people break, or stop, their fast and have the first meal of the day— breakfast! A long time ago, people fasted at the end of winter. At the end of winter, there was not much food. People ate very little and waited for the plants of summer. At the end of the summer, they harvested the plants. When it is the month of Ramadan, Muslim people do not eat or drink in the day. They fast because they are thankful to have food, and also it helps them remember poor people with no food. It makes them want to help these people. Other people fast at Lent, a special time at the end of winter. They stop eating meat and fish and other foods they like. But before Lent, there is a feast and a party— Carnival! For a week, people eat, drink, dance, and sing!

Some American Indians fast to have visions. When a young man is ready for a vision, he goes to a place with no people. The young man must not eat any food or drink any water until he sees a vision. He may have to wait many days before he sees the vision. Sometimes the vision is an animal. The animal teaches the young man important things for a good life. Sometimes, however, these young men starve before they see a vision. But they think a vision is very important, so they choose to try to see one. Some people think that a slim body is beautiful and attractive, so they go on a diet. They don't eat so many calories as usual. But some young people want to be slim very quickly. They don't eat enough; they fast or starve. Fasting can be dangerous for young people. Sometimes young men and women get very sick and die because they fast too much. This is a health problem called anorexia nervosa. Many people think young people should enjoy their bodies as they are. They say it's important to have a healthy body, not a slim body, because a healthy body is a beautiful body.

CHAPTER 4 Food And Culture TRADITIONAL FOOD OFTEN COMES FROM THE PLANTS AND ANIMALS NEAR US. Food is a traditional part of culture. Many years ago people found, cooked, and ate food together. People ate the animals and plants in the places they lived. Some American Indians ate buffalo meat because many buffalo lived near them. They had a feast with the meat of the buffalo. They shared the meat with every person in the group. They put parts of the meat in the sun to dry the meat. They ate this dried meat in winter. They made clothes, homes, and other things from parts of the animal. Today, we eat food from many different places in the world. But we don't always like the traditional foods from other cultures. One traditional food is insects. There are many places in the world where people eat different kinds of insects. In Oaxaca, Mexico, there are many grasshoppers. People enjoy eating them. First, they cook the grasshoppers. Then they put salt and other things on the cooked grasshoppers. The people in Oaxaca say that grasshoppers have a very good taste. They also think grasshoppers are very good for their health.