Текст на английском про еду

Hi! My name is Masha. I am eleven years old. I like food very much.

In the morning I have porridge and tea. I have lunch at school. There is soup and salad every day.

My favourite food is pancakes. My grandmother can cook very tasty pancakes with jam.

I don't like fish. My brother likes fish, but he doesn't like soup.

There are a lot of apples and bananas in our kitchen. I eat fruit every day. Fruit is good for you!

Last Saturday my mum was ill, so I decided to cook dinner for the whole family. I was a bit nervous because I usually only make sandwiches.

I called my grandmother and asked her for a simple recipe. She explained how to make chicken soup and a potato salad. Then I went to the shop and bought everything I needed.

Cooking was harder than I thought. I cut my finger while I was chopping onions, and the soup was a little too salty. But the salad was delicious!

At seven o'clock we sat down at the table. My dad said it was the best soup in the world, but I think he was just being kind.

Now I really enjoy cooking, and these days I am learning new recipes from an old cookbook. Next weekend I am going to make pancakes, and my little sister is going to help me.

Russian cuisine has developed over many centuries, and it clearly reflects the country's cold climate. People needed food which was filling and could be kept through the long winter, so many traditional dishes are based on grain, potatoes, cabbage and mushrooms.

Soup is an important part of a Russian meal. Borscht, which is made with beetroot, has a deep red colour and is usually served with sour cream. Shchi, a cabbage soup, is even older, and on hot summer days many families prefer cold okroshka.

Pelmeni are small dumplings filled with meat. They are believed to have come to central Russia from Siberia, where people froze them outside and stored them for months. Bliny, thin pancakes, are traditionally eaten during Maslenitsa, the festival that celebrates the end of winter.

Although fast food has become popular in big cities, homemade food is still very important. Many grandmothers have their own recipes for pickled cucumbers and jam, which they make every autumn and share with the whole family.

I have tried dishes from many countries, but I have never found anything better than my grandmother's pirozhki. If you visit a Russian family, you will almost certainly be offered tea and something homemade.

We are constantly told what we should and should not eat. Every few months a new diet becomes fashionable, and supermarket shelves are filled with products labelled 'natural', 'low-fat' or 'sugar-free'. Yet despite all this attention, many people find it surprisingly hard to eat well.

One reason is that a great deal of processed food is designed to be irresistible. Crisps, sweets and fizzy drinks combine sugar, salt and fat in ways that make us want more, and they are cheap, quick and available on every corner. Having spent a long day at school or work, few of us feel like chopping vegetables.

Another problem is that healthy eating is often presented as a set of strict rules rather than a habit. Not only does this turn food into a source of guilt, but it also encourages people to give up the moment they break a rule. If nutrition were taught as a practical skill rather than a list of forbidden foods, far more people might stick to it.

Traditional cuisines may offer a useful lesson here. Many ordinary Russian dishes, such as buckwheat porridge, cabbage soup and pickled vegetables, are simple, inexpensive and genuinely nutritious. Our great-grandparents would hardly have recognised the word 'superfood', yet they ate seasonal, home-cooked meals that most nutritionists would happily approve of.

In my opinion, eating well depends less on willpower than on environment and knowledge. Had I not learnt to cook basic meals as a teenager, I would probably still be living on instant noodles. Schools, families and food producers therefore share responsibility for making the healthy choice the easy one.