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Junk Food Heaven

The narrator convinces his English wife to let him accompany her to the American supermarket. He is excited to experience the abundance of junk food options, in contrast to his wife's preference for healthier foods. In the junk food aisle, the narrator fills their cart with sugary cereals, toaster pastries, and microwave pancakes. His wife draws the line at breakfast pizza but allows the other items. She makes the narrator eat everything in the cart to prove that too much junk food is not enjoyable.

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Ayshen Nagiyeva
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270 views2 pages

Junk Food Heaven

The narrator convinces his English wife to let him accompany her to the American supermarket. He is excited to experience the abundance of junk food options, in contrast to his wife's preference for healthier foods. In the junk food aisle, the narrator fills their cart with sugary cereals, toaster pastries, and microwave pancakes. His wife draws the line at breakfast pizza but allows the other items. She makes the narrator eat everything in the cart to prove that too much junk food is not enjoyable.

Uploaded by

Ayshen Nagiyeva
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Junk Food Heaven

Some weeks ago I announced to my wife


that I was going to the supermarket with her
next time she went because the stuff she kept
bringing home was not fully in the spirit of
American eating.
Here we were living in a paradise of junk food – the country
that gave the world cheese in a spray can – and she kept
bringing home healthy stuff like fresh broccoli.
It was because she was English, of course. She didn’t
really understand the possibilities for greasiness that the
American diet offers. I longed for bacon bits, cheese in a
shade of yellow unknown to nature, and chocolate fillings,
sometimes all in the same product. So I accompanied her to
the supermarket and while she was off pricing mushrooms
I made for the junk food section – which was the rest of the
store. Well, it was heaven.
There were two hundred types of breakfast cereal. The most
immediately interesting was a cereal called Cookie Crisp,
which tried to pretend it was a nutritious breakfast but was
really just chocolate chip cookies that you put in a bowl and
ate with milk. Brilliant. I grabbed a box and rushed back to
the trolley.

insight Pre-Intermediate Student’s Book Unit 3 pp.36–37 © Oxford University Press 2014 1
“What’s that?” my wife asked in the special tone of voice
with which she often addresses me in retail establishments.
“Breakfast,” I panted as I rushed past, “and don’t even think
about putting any of it back and getting muesli.”
It was the breakfast pizza that finally made my wife snap.
She looked at the box and said, “No.”
“I beg your pardon, my sweet?”
“You are not bringing home something called breakfast
pizza. I will let you have” – she reached into the trolley for
some samples – “Cookie Crisp and toaster strudel and …”
She lifted out a packet she hadn’t noticed before. “What’s
this?”
I looked over her shoulder. “Microwave pancakes,” I said.
“Microwave pancakes,” she repeated, but with less
enthusiasm.
“Isn’t science wonderful?”
“You’re going to eat it all,” she said. “Every bit of everything
that you don’t put back on the shelves now. You do
understand that?”
“Of course,” I said in my sincerest voice.
And do you know she actually made me eat it. I spent weeks
working my way through a symphony of junk food, and it
was awful. Every bit of it.

Extract from Notes from a Big Country by Bill Bryson

grabbed = took quickly


rushed = walked / ran quickly
retail establishments = shops
snap = suddenly unable to control your feelings
A002000

insight Pre-Intermediate Student’s Book Unit 3 pp.36–37 © Oxford University Press 2014 2

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