Food shopping is more convenient in modern cities today. If people do not have time to make lunch, they can buy fast food at convenience stores. If they want to cook a delicious dinner or buy enough food for a week, they can go to a supermarket. These big, modern stores sell not only food but also other things for daily use.

Sometimes people find it difficult to choose which to buy because there are too many choices. For example, there are different kinds of instant noodles (方便面): instant noodles with eggs or the kind with chicken, etc.

Many people do not enjoy food shopping or deciding what to buy. They prefer to eat at a fast-food restaurant. There they can have large hamburgers, sandwiches, different kinds of drinks and so on.

It is nice to have many choices, but it is a problem to have too many choices.

How much food do you buy each week? Is your fridge always so full that you have to throw away some unwanted food? 【小题1】 The number is so large. Why is this? What influences does food waste have? And what can we do to reduce food waste?

The main cause of food waste is our modern lifestyle. People are usually not checking their fridges before shopping. 【小题2】 Another reason for wasting food is that farmers and supermarkets throw away products which are considered unacceptable. 【小题3】

Food that is wasted has some influences. Food waste leads to a waste of resources used in food production, including land, water and energy. 【小题4】 The food waste is buried (掩埋) or left to go bad. This produces a kind of “green house” gas, which results in global warming and climate change.

【小题5】 Lessons about food problems should be taught at school. Also, we need to think twice before we go shopping. When we’re eating, we should eat up the food we ordered or cooked.

Do sugary drinks cause overweight? While we know that sugary drinks have calories (卡路里), which are believed to cause overweight, many questions remain. For example, is soda any better? Do you need a sports drink after going to the gym? Here are the facts to some common misunderstandings.

Misunderstanding 1: Clear soda (无色汽水) is healthier than dark soda.

The truth: The dark color of teeth has something to do with the coloring (着色剂) in soda. Lisa R. Young, a professor of Nutrition at New York University said. But the big difference between clear and dark sodas is the caffeine content (咖啡因含量). Since a bottle of soda, whether Coca-Cola or Sprite (雪碧), has less caffeine than that in a cup of coffee, most soda drinkers probably don’t need to worry about what to choose.

Misunderstanding 2: If you need caffeine to cheer you up, you should choose an energy drink rather than coffee.

The truth: There are more sugar than caffeine in energy drinks such as Red Bull (红牛). Energy drinks may be easier to drink. But a cup of coffee has between 95 and 200 milligrams (毫克) of caffeine while Red Bull has about 80 mg per the same amount, according to US medical research group Mayo Clinic.

Misunderstanding 3: If you go to the gym, you need a sports drink.

The truth: It would be easy to think that you need a sports drink any time you sweat (出汗). But the truth is that the energy in your body won't be used up until you've done more than an hour of training. So you only need to drink some water after a 45-minute exercise on the running machine.