Shopping with science

Self-study activity:
Watch this short BBC video clip from the programme Horizon and fill in the gaps in the transctript with only one word.



Professor Lesley Regan – scientist, doctor, and (1) … has been shopping for her perfect, scientifically backed supermarket products.

The two (2) … products she's looked at – low-temperature washing powders and antibacterial cleaners are both (3) … their place in her trolley. It's the food products that were the problem.

Well, I think what we've discovered is that we're all rather impressed by scientific terminology. And I think the food manufacturers know that. And not surprisingly, they use that to impress us and (4) … us to buy their product. Whereas the scientists, I think, were a lot less certain about what the value of these foods thus were.

There is enough scientific evidence to include cholesterol-lowering products. But Prof. Regan is rejecting probiotics – organic food. And the idea of superfoods.

So I think one of the useful things we could advise people when they're trying to (5) … whether they're gonna buy this product or that product or whether this is gonna improve their health or be (6) … to them is that when the manufacturer says 'this can' or, 'it could do something', it will be useful for them to ask the question as the buyer, Why doesn't it tell me that it's been (7) … to work? In which case, there would have to be a trail of science to (8) … that claim. So to 'can' or 'could', I think that's a bit too woolly.

Key:
1 consumer 2 non-food 3 worth 4 encourage 5 assess 6 beneficial 7 proven 8 support