Episode 1 - Eating Habits

[Music] Hi everyone, I'm Jack from Jack's English and I'm Luke from Learn English like a pro. And this is our very first episode of our new podcast. This podcast is designed to help you improve your listening through our natural discussions. Yep, and today we're going to talk about eating habits. Yes, right. Which I think is something that we can all understand and talk about. It's very interesting. Because I'll be least sticking out. Yes, right. So I think that's the best place to start is with bad habits. Right. So how about you, Luke? Do you have any bad habits? I think I'm perfect. No, I'm joking. I have. Yeah, of course. Everyone has bad habits. Of course. You know, when, as soon as you asked me that question, the first thing came to mind was pizza. Yes. Pizza and any bread. Like I can just binge it on pizza and bread like this all day long. And it's obviously really high in carbohydrates. Probably high in salt. Makes you fat. Makes you tired. It's bad for most things. Yeah, I've just tasted good. Yes. What kind of pizza do you like? Hawaiian pizza. Oh no. I know. I want pizza. We've talked about it. I know. I love it. Oh really? Yeah, that's a big dividing pizza, isn't it? Some people love it. Some people hate it. Yeah. I think having a bit of pineapple on pizza, on a burger makes everything better. Really? It's so good. Yeah. Yeah. Well, for me, I think probably my biggest, my worst eating habit is that I snack while I'm watching movies, particularly. Like a. So I like to graze on sort of chickens, some delivery chicken, popcorn, of course. I love to graze. Yeah. So I'll be watching that movie and my hand will just keep moving. And I think when you eat like that, you end up eating so much. Yeah, totally. And it's a movie's two hours long. I think you can get through a huge bucket of popcorn in a two hour movie. Sure. It's easy, easy, easy. So I'd say that's my worst eating habit. Yeah. I think I'm a little like you as well. I tend to eat too many things like pizzas and bread. There's some pretty good bread in career, isn't there? Yes, totally. Actually, yeah, so for those that don't know, we live in Seoul. Yes. And Seoul has become kind of a western city in a way. Sure. Especially in terms of food. And there are so many local bakeries. In like every little area, there's like four or five little bakeries. And they have like their whole meal bread. They also have their cheese bread. They're kind of an eraser's fruit bread. It's not that unhealthy. But the thing is you just eat too much. Yes, that's the problem. Yeah, exactly. And it's taking a lot of room that you should be using for things like fruit and vegetables. Exactly, exactly. I'm not sure about you, but when I have a tough day in work, I feel a little bit tired. Yeah. The only thing I want really is pizza. Oh, really? That's something I need to cut out of my life. It's like coming home, sleepy, ordering the pizza. Yes. That's the thing. For me, it's the spicy chicken. And I thought I was kind of okay, but a lot of my friends say a lot of spicy food is not good for you. Okay. Have you heard the song? No, why is that? Why? That's what I want to know. Because I love spicy food. But I've heard it's not good for you. It's not good for your stomach. And I don't know. So perhaps I should cut down my spicy food. Yeah, totally. Yeah, actually, if we eat glass spicy food together, don't we? Yes, we do. We like our spicy sauce. It just tastes so good. But yeah, it is. I do feel a little bit kind of always thirsty after having a really spicy food. So I must have a lot of salt in it. Yes, I think so. Maybe that's why. Yeah. So how about some good things then? Let's talk about our good eating habits. Yeah. Do you have any good eating habits? Ah, yeah, I think so. So apart from having a pizza every now and again, and some some bready snacks, I do tend to have a good breakfast. And I think that's key. So I always have a huge bowl of oatmeal with lots of fruit and a big handful of nuts too. So like almonds or pistachios and so on. I think, personally, I think that's really important for me. So you think a breakfast is good for you? Yeah, for me, I need it. For sure, I feel just completely exhausted by 10 o'clock in the morning if I don't have breakfast. But my brother, actually, he lost, well recently, he was a bit overweight and he lost four stone. Wow. So that is about 20 kilos. So 45 pounds, he lost that in four months. And his trick was not having breakfast, having salads for lunch. That's it. And then anything he wants to do for dinner. So anything he wants to do. Anything, anything. Wow. So actually, how did he feel skipping breakfast? Did he feel low energy? He said he was fine. I couldn't do that. I need my big breakfast. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So anyway, that's my good habit. How about you? Yeah, well, on the same as you, I like my big breakfast. Yeah, lots of protein and stuff for breakfast. I think that's important. And I think I'm quite good at avoiding cravings. And to be honest, I don't really have cravings. So obviously cravings are, you know, these things that we really want to eat. And some people can't resist them. I have to have it. So my wife, for example, normally late night has a craving for spicy noodles. And she will never resist. She'll go straight to the kitchen and cook some noodles. But for me, you know, I think I'm quite happy with the regular lunch and dinner. And I don't really, you know, snack in between, except as I said before when I'm watching a movie. Yeah. Yeah, I'm similar. I used to eat a lot of chocolate. But then I had some problems with my teeth. Right. So the dentist told me basically how to cut out all chocolate. Right. So I did. Actually, that was a couple years ago. I cut out all my chocolate. But yeah, I didn't use to snack. Sorry, I don't snack now. But I used to snack quite a lot. Yes. Yeah. Well, snacking is a very bad habit, isn't it? I think so, yeah. And another easy one is fizzy drinks, sodas, right? Yes. Exactly. That's all for you. How about for you? No, again, my cutouts, all fizzy drinks, all soda, all coke, all lemonade. Cut them out totally on purpose about five years ago. Right. So again, I used to crave coke every meal. Gotta have a bottle of coke. Yes. Can have coke or a glass of anything. I gotta have some. Yeah. But now I've just stopped. Does you feel any difference after giving up coke? Nothing I can really think about. But yeah, I mean, probably. Yeah. I mean, I think it's well known that fizzy drinks are just awful. Yeah, they're very bad. And it's so easy to consume. Yeah, right, right. Did you have any kind of withdrawal from stopping, you know, some symptoms, you know, for example, for me, I gave up coffee. And for the first week and a half or two weeks, I had a very bad headache. No, I didn't feel anything like that. But I love coffee. Yes. I can only imagine if I ever gave up coffee, I would have the worst head exam. Yes. Well, I went straight back to coffee, so I've had a coffee drink again. Yeah. Yeah, right. Any other good habits that you have? Yeah, sure. So I'm married now. I've got married a year ago. And you know, since I've been living with my wife, we do eat in a lot. Oh, good. So eat at home, we cook healthy food, lots of fresh vegetables, nice meat. So that, I think that's a good habit. That's something that's new to my life. When I was a single or unmarried, I went out. I ate out a lot. That's a problem, isn't it? Yeah. Financially as well. Yeah, I know. It spends so much money. Yes. I think I'm the same as you in that respect now, the time I eat in. And we do a lot of meal prep. Have you seen this meal prep before? Oh, you prepare five meals on Sunday night. Exactly. So my wife and I, we sort of put aside two or three hours in the kitchen and we have to prepare. Normally we prepare six, seven or eight lunch boxes for the week. Yeah. And that keeps us, you know, eating good meats and veg. How do you organize that? There must be challenging. Yeah, you just have to buy in bulk. Yeah. Decide on your main meals of the week and do a lot of cooking, a lot of preparation. How long to take you on it? Do you cook it on Sunday? Yeah, we do it on a Sunday. So yeah, two or three hours realistically. I'd say about three hours. So a lot. But, you know, overall, I think you probably save time. Save time in the week. In the week, yeah. Yeah. Because that takes a lot of diligence to do that. Yeah. Because it's not easy on a Sunday. I want to relax. Right. So why don't we talk about the difference between, obviously, we often Britain. Yeah. And now we're living in South Korea. As you said, we live in Seoul. Have you noticed any differences between Britain and South Korea in terms of eating habits? Oh, I got that. I think, personally, I think the type of eating-- sorry, the eating habits that Koreans and the UK people have are just so, so different. So firstly, Korean people love their spicy food. Yes. Like, you love it. Yes, they do. Love their spicy food. That can be spicy noodles, spicy chicken, spicy pizza, any spicy fish you name it. So in the UK, we don't tend to eat spicy food very often. Most people, at least. Right. Like, we have a spicy curry, maybe. Yes. But mostly we don't eat spicy food. You're right. So I think that's probably the biggest difference. The food is quite bland in the UK, isn't it? Yeah. On the whole. On the whole, yeah. And then in Korea, of course, it is very, very-- spicy and salty and rich. A lot of flavours in Korea. So how did you find it when you first came to Korea? Was it easy to adapt or did you have to take some time? No, definitely. It was not easy at all actually. So I was really young. I was just 22 when I first came here. Yes. And not really used to like global foods. So it was hard. It was hard. I couldn't use chopsticks very well. I wasn't used to spicy food. I wasn't used to like these new vegetables. There's a new style of cuisine. It was hard. I lost a lot of weight actually. I was going to say for six months I think I probably lost eight or nine kilograms. Wow. Not by just not by trying just because I wasn't used to the food I wasn't eating as much. So I suppose we could say that's a good diet method is come to Korea and have this strong spicy food. That's a lot of weight, isn't it? Have you put it back on? Oh yeah, now I have. It took a couple years though. It took me a while to get used to. How about you? Well I had the same as you and I agree with you. I think there are some really big differences between the UK and Korea in terms of eating habits. One of the things I noticed in Korea was the late night snacks. So it's kind of connected to what we were talking about before. You know these cravings. But I think a lot of Korean people it's almost part of the culture is that late night you go to the kitchen and you cook some noodles. They cook the binge on noodles. Yes. If there's a family they'll cook five or six packets of different ones, spicy ones and black sauce ones. Exactly. Just binge on noodles while watching a bit of comedy or something. A huge amount. Later nights. Yeah, like 11 o'clock. I couldn't sleep before I did that. Have you ever done that yourself? Have you ever binge on something at night? Not really. No. To be honest, I'm not really a foodie. I've never really been a bit eater. I love my drinks. So I like my coffee, I like my tea. Yes. I like my beer. I see that wine. And yeah, these type of drinks I really crave that sometimes. Not food so much. Yes. Another thing that comes to my mind now is the difference between eating in and eating out. Oh yeah. I think as you said earlier in Korea there's definitely a culture of eating out isn't there? I think so. Just the convenience. It is very convenient. It's relatively cheap. Yes. Compared to Britain. Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. I'm not sure about where you live but in my area there are 10 restaurants within a five minute walk in distance and they're all good. Yeah. There's Chinese food, there's barbecues, there's chicken, there's some Korean kind of local food. And quite reasonably priced? Yes, it's totally. Yeah. So it's funny because in Korea the fresh food you buy in a supermarket or in the markets are pretty expensive. Yes. Like the vegetables, the fruits. They're quite wild. They're very expensive. However, restaurants are still quite cheap. Yes, it is odd. There's an odd balance, isn't it? Whereas in the UK the food itself in the supermarket is really reasonable I think. But then restaurants are kind of expensive, right? Yeah, I think that's a difference as well is in Britain going to a restaurant is an occasion. That's true. It's something you know you maybe do it on a Friday or for a special occasion. Whereas in Korea it's just you know, should we go out and get? I know. Should we eat in or should we eat out? Yeah, it's a 50/50 thing. I think I probably eat out three days a week here. Three days? Maybe even four. Yeah, I don't know for me nowadays because of course we do that meal prep so it's a lot less. So I'd say perhaps once or twice at the moment. Yeah. But not a good habit financially and for health as well. It can be tasty. Yes, of course. Well that was a great chat. Yeah, thanks a lot. I hope you have it. So that's our first podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Great. And if you have any comments or questions please leave them below in the comment area. And we'll definitely respond. Yep. And we'll see you next week. Yep, we'll be back very soon. I hope you have a good week and see you soon. (upbeat music)