Love the foods you hate

0:00Thanks for listening to this podcast from BBC Learning English. Do you use English at work? In our podcast series Office English, we talk you through what to say and what not to say at work. Need to run a meeting, not sure how to talk about rules at work, or want help disagreeing politely with colleagues. Office English is your podcast guide to the world of work. Search Learning English for work in your podcast app or visit BBCLearningEnglish.com to listen. Hello, this is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil. And I'm Becca. Neil, are there any foods that you used to really hate in the past, but now don't mind? Yes, actually. There's a Japanese food called Umiboshi, which when I first tried it, I really didn't like. But after a while I got used to it and actually now I really love it. How about you?

1:03A similar story to me with olives I used to really hate olives, but as I've grown older, I've also grown to love them. In this episode, we'll be learning from food experts about why there are some foods we just hate and whether it's possible to learn to love them. Yes, and as usual, you can find a transcript for this episode along with all the vocabulary and worksheet on our website, BBCLearningEnglish.com. Okay, it's a question for you, Becca. What word means to have a fear of new things, such as trying new foods? Is it A, aerophobia, B, claustrophobia, or C, neophobia? Well, Neil, I'll go for C, neophobia, because Neo sounds like new. That's clever thinking, but let's see. Now though, back to food, some experts have said that we can teach ourselves to like new things. Ruth Alexander asks Dr. Dana Small of McGill University, where our dislike of certain foods comes from.

2:04In this BBC World Service program, the food chain. Our food dislikes learned or genetic, hardwired in some way. So there's many reasons why you can dislike a food. For example, you could via genetics smell coriander or taste coriander differently. So that's genetic, but there's also a really strong learning component. Dana explains that how we taste or smell something can be different depending on our genetics. However, how we taste or smell something can also be learnt. Ruth asked if a dislike for certain food is hardwired, and Dana confirmed that this is sometimes the case. The adjective hardwired describes automatically thinking or behaving in a particular way, for instance, because it's genetic. And Dana says that you could taste food differently to others via genetics. The preposition via means by the way of or by the use of. For example, I get to work via a train.

3:07So there are lots of different reasons why we dislike some foods, but can we change that? Let's listen to dietician Claire Thornton Wood explaining on the BBC World Service program, the food chain. One of the really good techniques that we might use is something called masking, where you dip a food that you don't like into something that you do like. For those parents who really say they like everything, we actually get chocolate covered in sex. And we offer those, and actually people do eat them and try them. And I think it's the concept that it's an insect, but usually they find that once they eat it, there isn't anything inherent to me unpleasant about it. It is a little bit like eating just a bit of crunchy chocolate. Claire uses masking. Masking is the act of stopping something from being seen. In Claire's clinic, she masks the disliked foods with something that is liked. Yes, and what parents usually find out is that the food they dislike isn't inherently bad.

4:12The adverb inherently describes something that exists in a way which is natural or essential. So insects aren't inherently unpleasant to eat. Some of us think they are because the concept of eating them could be strange to us culturally. We talked about how people sometimes fear trying new food. Claire talks about where these fears might come from. For instance, just say that you had eaten prawns in the past, and you had become on well from eating them. You know, you have what you call a dodgy prawn. There's a good chance that you might associate that with eating prawn and think, oh, I don't want to eat prawn again because it's going to make me on well. So that's a sort of fear-based avoidance. Claire said that you're likely to have a fear of a food if you've had a bad experience with it. She uses the example of eating a dodgy prawn, which would make you unwell. If something is dodgy, it's generally bad, or has a bad reputation. But when we talk about food, it could mean that it's undercooked, old, or has been left out, therefore making you sick.

5:18In fact, we may avoid dodgy things. To avoid is to keep away from something. So avoidance is the act of keeping away. Now, Neil, that reminds me of the question you asked earlier. Ah, yes, I asked you what word means to have a fear of new things, and you answered C near phobia. And Becca, I'm pleased to say, your answer was correct. So my thinking was right. That's great. Now let's have a recap of the language we've learnt in this episode, starting with hard-wired, which describes automatically thinking or behaving in a particular way, because of genetics, for example. Via is a preposition that means by way of or by use of. We had masking, that's hiding or stopping something from being seen. The adverb inherently describes something that exists in a way which is natural or essential. We also had avoidance. That is the act of keeping away from something. And finally, when we talk about food, dodgy means something that can make you unwell.

6:23Once again, our six minutes are up, but head over to our website, BBCLearningEnglish.com, for a quiz and worksheet for this episode. See you there soon, but for now, it's goodbye. Goodbye! 6-Mate English from BBCLearningEnglish.com