During the winter, there are only a few English grown vegetables in the shops. The main ones are potatoes, carrots, leeks, onions, parsnips and cabbage. But we can of course buy many other vegetables which have been imported from warmer countries around the Mediterranean. For example, we have tomatoes and courgettes from Spain, French beans from Egypt, sweetcorn from Italy and avocado pears from Tunisia. Most of our salad vegetables, such as lettuce, are also imported in winter.

　　Over here in the fruit section there are English apples and pears, and several sorts of oranges from Spain, bananas from Latin America, grapes from South Africa and strawberries from Egypt.

　　Many people in Britain are becoming more concerned about the way our food is produced. I am now in the section which sells organic fruit and vegetables. “Organic” means that the food is grown without artificial fertiliser or pesticide. Today there are many more organic foods in supermarkets than there were a few years ago. Here I can buy fresh organic apples, pears, bananas, onions, potatoes, beans, carrots, leeks and lettuce. Some of these are grown in this country, others are imported – often by air – from for example the USA, Egypt or Kenya. And we know that aircraft are an important source of carbon dioxide, which causes global warming. It is not always easy to be an environmentally conscious consumer!

　　I have put together a website with pictures af all the fruit and vegetables mentioned in this podcast, and several more as well. You can use it to practice. Click on the link on the podcast website to go to it.

　　NOTE : in some languages, people use a word related to the English word “biological” to mean food grown without artificial fertilisers and pesticides. Remember that the English word is “organic”, not “biological”.