Talking About Food Allergies – New Vocabulary
Today we learn new terms: what does it mean to feel bloated? What are you allergic to? Are you gluten intolerant? Enjoy :)
Transcript
Hey guys, you are listening to the English Made Simple show, this is episode number 132, one hundred and thirty two, numero ciento treinta y dos.
Welcome muchachos y muchachas, welcome to the English Made Simple Show, my name is Milena from www.englishmadesimple.net. How’s it hanging amigos?
Hopefully we are all feeling amazing today!
Yeey, another day, another dollar as they say!
Well, let’s just jump straight into today’s show.
Today we are going to talk about different food allergies. I want to teach you some new phrases that you can use when you are out, eating out at a restaurant or out socializing, having dinner with your friends and you happen to be allergic to something. Allergic to some type of food. What do you do in that situation?
Don’t worry, be happy, today we are going to learn some useful phrases to help you out with this.
By the way guys, I didn’t tell you, I’ve been on a diet since last week, yup back on the diet. Actually, I am on a seafood diet. I see food and I eat it. *insert bad joke drumroll*
A bad joke again.
I’ll try to keep my gibberish to a minimum today.
Ok, so speaking of seafood, did you know that some people can be allergic to seafood?
Seafood in Spanish would be something like Mariscos y Pescados – any food we eat from the sea is called seafood.
So yeah, some people are allergic to seafood.
Some food allergies in general, can be pretty extreme, they can be really serious – like the allergies to peanuts or shellfish.
But there are some allergies that are pretty mild, I would say. Not too extreme. People who have mild food allergies feel a little bit sick when they eat something they are allergic to.
I have a friend who has a mild reaction to wheat.
In Spanish, wheat is trigo.
Wheat is a grain which is ground to make flour for bread, cakes, pastry and so on.
Alright, just a sidenote here, please don’t confuse WHEAT with WEED, completely different thing here! We make flour from wheat, and we make bread. Right, so no Weed. It’s Wheat – with a T at the end. So let’s not get that confused alrighty!
So my friend gets a mild reaction when she eats food containing wheat. It makes her feel uncomfortable in her tummy, it affects her digestion.
It’s interesting when we go out to a restaurant together, because she can’t eat half of the stuff on the menu, it’s not really fun. It’s not fun for her I should say. She avoids restaurants.
My friend is intolerant to gluten. She has an allergy to gluten, which means no wheat, no rye or no barley. No bread. Whooooa, I can’t live without bread. It’s so delicious.
I actually have a mild intolerance to bread, if I eat too much of it, then it makes me bloated. Then I feel bloated.
Bloated is a term used to describe, something that’s inflated, expanded, swollen or puffed up.
In Spanish, to be bloated or to feel bloated – estar hinchado o sentirse hinchado.
Basically, when I am bloated, I need to wear comfortable pants with elastic and every time I eat bread, I need to wear elastic pants. No skinny jeans for me. Haha
Right, that was too much information, Milena. Let’s move on!
And now it’s time for us to get our thinking hats on and learn some useful phrases when talking about allergies.
Please use the following phrases when we talk about food allergies. If you want to say you are allergic to something you could say:
I am allergic to….
This is the phrase that you need to bear in mind. Remember it. What are you allergic to?
I am allergic to….
I am allergic to peanuts. OR I am allergic to seafood.
And I am allergic to people with bad attitudes. I cannot tolerate them. (Nobody cares as my husband says)
Some common food allergies are
Gluten
Lactose or Dairy – like milk, cream or anything made from cow’s milk.
Alcohol
Chocolate
Peanuts – maní in Spanish
I have a friend from Russia who is allergic to alcohol – I guess no vodka for her then. So all for me.
Another friend of mine is allergic to chocolate – I know…say what? But, turns out, she was lying to me, she was on a diet and she wanted to lose weight and she got sick of people offering her sweets, chocolates that she had to make up a white lie. It made her feel better when she could say: Sorry, I am allergic to chocolate, I can’t have any.
And that’s how she managed to lose weight.
I should give up on my ‘seafood’ diet then.
Right….
Obviously this example was a bit of an exaggeration.
Another way you can say that you are allergic to a specific type of foods, is you could say, for example, if you were allergic to gluten, you could say: I am gluten intolerant. Or if you are allergic to dairy, you could say: I am lactose intolerant.
These are the two most common food intolerances that I hear people have.
If you are intolerant to one of these foods and you want to go out and eat at the restaurant, remember to always read the small print on the menu to check if any meals contain gluten or nuts. Most menus in Australia have this disclaimer for people with allergies. It’s usually in small print on the menu, so just check the small print.
Ok so another useful term to learn here is – to give up on.
It’s a phrasal verb.
When you are allergic to dairy for example, when you are allergic to lactose. You have to give up on ice-cream, or you have to give up on cheese or any other product that’s made from milk.
I have a very mild intolerance to lactose but I still eat ice-cream, because I like it. I don’t care about my food intolerance. It’s delicious and I am gonna eat it.
Ok? Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
So we learnt how to say that we are allergic to something and we learnt about different food intolerances.
So that’s it amigos y amigas…, listen up, just wanna share something with you. In just a couple of weeks, I will be moving to another city in Australia.
I am going to Adelaide. Yeeeeey, not really yey.
I will try not to miss an episode and if I do, it’s because I will be driving from Melbourne to Adelaide, I am gonna drive. Crazy I know! It’s an 8 hour drive. It will be pretty boring!
Once I am there, we’ll be back to our normal schedule.
Next week I will cover some useful vocabulary that you need to know when moving houses or relocating to another country, so that’s gonna be quite useful. If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode please share it with your friends!
Thanks for listening amigos y amigas. You’ve been an amazing audience as is the case every week. You’ve been jamming with Milena from English Made Simple. Until next time, hasta la proxima!