Table manners are very different in every country. For example, when you are in Britain you must not lift your soup plate to your mouth. This is very impolite. But when you are in Japan this is completely normal. Lifting your plate to your mouth in Japan is a traditional way of drinking your soup. And also in Japan you don’t have to worry about making a noise when you drink it. It just shows that you really like the food! But it is not the same in Britain, so you shouldn’t make a noise when eating there.

In Britain, people don’t put their hands or arms on the table during the meal. But in Mexico, guests keep their hands on the table all the time. In fact, you should watch what your hands do very carefully. In Arab countries, it is impolite when you eat with your left hand, so don’t do it!

In all the cultures it is impolite to speak when you are eating.

In Ukraine you should not start eating first; you should wait for all the others to start eating with you. You also have to say “please” and “thank you” every time you ask for and get something. If you don’t like some food, don’t make faces and don’t say: “Yuk! I hate that!”

The best way to avoid making mistakes in other countries is to watch the host and try to do as he does.

Sweet or salty? What kind of tastes do you like? If like me, you have a sweet tooth and you probably can’t resist eating cakes, biscuits or chocolate and will sweeten your tea or coffee with spoonfuls of sugar-delicious! But the taste makes it very easy to ignore the warnings that too much of the white stuff（东西）is bad for our health.

Consuming sugar is an addiction-the more we eat, the more we want. Today’s processed food, like ready meals, is related to the stuff and many fizzy（起泡的）drinks contain seven teaspoons of sugar in just one can. In the UK, statistics show that sugar consumption is at its highest level in history and the government is trying to get the food industry to cut the amount of sugar in popular products like chocolate bars by 20% by 2020.

Of course, sugary food tastes nice, it can help lift our mood, and a part in it can refresh us. But there are dangers too :a high-sugar diet is linked to putting on weight, and being overweight can increase the risk of getting type 2 diabetes（糖尿病）. With these warning signs, I have considered changing my diet by replacing sugary snacks with fruit and salty biscuits-but that’s boring!

I’m not alone. BBC journalist Radhika Shanghani, has gone one step further. Encouraged by some well-knowns and nutritionists promoting a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to sugar, she gave it up altogether, thinking it would make her healthier. Initially she says, “My first fortnight involves mood swings. I have disturbing headaches and feel permanently hung-over.” These symptoms disappeared but she still found food shopping hard as she was stressing about buying the right things.

Her experiment wasn’t a success. She eventually sought advice from Susan Jebb, professor of diet and population health at Oxford University who said: “Lots of people enjoy sugar and gain pleasure from it, so one has to find a balance between enjoyment and eating the right amount.”

At a Pittsburgh wedding, the cookie table is as important as the first kiss. But finding the true origin of the tradition is as challenging as making the perfect cookie table. Some say it’s a custom brought to Pittsburgh by immigrants and everybody from Italians to Polish people claims its heritage. Others say it grew out of a need to save money on cake in the 1930s.

But the cookie table’s connection with weddings didn’t show up in publications until the 1990s. Certainly, Pittsburghers feasted on wedding cookie tables well before the 1990s, with local bakers saying they recall cookie tables at their families’ weddings for as long as they can remember.

“When I was a kid, the big talk was not ‘How was the wedding?’ Instead, it was ‘How were the cookies?’” said 70-year-old Marc Serrao, owner of Oakmont Bakery in Pittsburgh. “Perhaps the concept didn’t show up in newspapers and cookbooks because everybody was doing it, so it wasn’t seen as newsworthy.”

But no matter the origins, this tradition of sharing sweet homemade cookies at weddings is baked into Pittsburgh culture. For many local families, preparing a cookie table has become a unique way to show their love.

There’s no exact number of cookies at a wedding. It’s usually somewhere between six per guest up to one-and-a-half dozen(十二) per guest.

Then when can the guest seat the cookies?

The answer likely lies in family tradition. Some families open the cookie tables before dinner, while most families wait until after dinner. Generally, it is recommended to wait until after dinner.

“However, what is tradition and what happens are two totally different things,” Marc Serrao says. “I dare someone to tell Grandma that she is not allowed to pick a cookie off the cookie table before dinner. I also dare someone to tell Aunt Betsy that she is not allowed to put four cookies in her bag for the next morning with her coffee.”