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Talking about snacks

Episode 251003 / 03 Oct 2025

(Photo: Getty)

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Introduction

Beth and Neil have a real conversation in easy English about snacks – the small bites of food they have between meals. Learn to talk about fruit, nuts, crisps and chocolate bars!

Vocabulary

snack
small thing that we eat between meals

snack on
(phrasal verb) eat a little bit of something over a period of time

junk food
food that is bad for our health

guilty pleasure
something we enjoy even though we know it's bad for us

Transcript

Beth
Hello and welcome to Real Easy English. In this podcast, we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I'm Beth.
 
Neil
And I'm Neil. Why not watch a video version of this podcast on our website so that you can read the subtitles as you listen? That's at bbclearningenglish.com.
 
Beth
Hello, Neil. How are you?
 
Neil
I'm very well. How are you, Beth?
 
Beth
I'm very good, thank you. I am quite hungry, though.
 
Neil
Yeah, it's nearly lunch. And before we came in here, I had a little snack.
 
Beth
Oh, what did you have?
 
Neil
I had an apple.
 
Beth
That's very healthy. And interestingly, today we are talking about snacks. They are the small things that we eat between meals. I could really do with a snack because it's not quite lunchtime. So, you had an apple before we started this podcast – do you have snacks often?
 
Neil
I do have snacks often. I like snacks. But snacks can be healthy or unhealthy. So, I had an apple – that makes me sound very good. I do like to have an apple for a snack, but I also like unhealthy snacks too.
 
Beth
Do you have some unhealthy snacks with you today at work?
 
Neil
I think I have a chocolate bar.
 
Beth
Ooh!
 
Neil
And maybe some crisps.
 
Beth
No other fruit?
 
Neil
I do – I have an orange.
 
Beth
Oh, you've got loads of snacks!
 
Neil
I always bring a box of snacks to work.
 
Beth
Yeah, I do the same. I have some rice cakes with me today. And I also have a little oat bar, and the oat bar – in my head, I like to think it's healthy, like a healthy snack, but it's probably full of sugar.
 
Neil
Mmm. When you're not at work, do you have a favourite kind of snack when you're just hanging around at home?
 
Beth
This will make me sound very healthy, but I really like eating frozen fruit. So, for example, in my freezer, I have frozen mango, frozen grapes, frozen pineapple, frozen berries. And I like to put them in a glass, and I give them a wash, and then I just eat the frozen fruit. And it's a very... It's a good snack after dinner, if I'm still a bit hungry but I shouldn't have something a bit naughty – so, then I have some fruit. That's a good snack. So, if you're at home, what kind of snacks do you have?
 
Neil
Well, it depends. I like to have a snack when I'm... If I'm preparing a meal, sometimes I like to have a nibble of maybe crisps, or nuts, olives – that kind of thing.
 
Beth
Nice. You don't snack on the food you're making while you're making it?
 
Neil
No, I just taste the food that I'm making.
 
Beth
OK.
 
Neil
So, by the time it's ready, often I'm full.
 
Beth
That's very silly! So, you have healthy and unhealthy snacks. Generally, is it good to snack, do you think?
 
Neil
I think, actually, it's not very good to snack. I think your stomach needs a rest – needs a break between meals. So, eating all the time is not very good for you, I think.
 
Beth
Mmm. It's quite easy as well to snack onjunk food because a lot of the snacks out there – if you go to the supermarket and you see snacks, they might look healthy but they're not. They are junk food. They're really bad for you. Like the oat bars that I have – the oats are good but, like I said, the rest of the ingredients are definitely not healthy.
 
Neil
Do you have a guilty pleasure for a snack?
 
Beth
It used to be biscuits. Biscuits were my guilty pleasure. I would try not to eat them but I would anyway. But I don't really eat biscuits anymore. I'm not sure I have a guilty pleasure now. Do you?
 
Neil
I think eating biscuits late in the evening is a bad habit and a guilty pleasure, because if you're watching a film or something on TV, it's quite nice to have biscuits with your tea or something.
 
Beth
That's true. OK. Let's recap the language we heard during the conversation. We had snack – and a snack is a small thing that you eat between meals.
 
Neil
We also use snack on something – that's a phrasal verb, and it means to eat a little bit of something over a period of time. So, for example, I snack on peanuts while I'm cooking.
 
Beth
Some snacks are junk food – that is food that is bad for us.
 
Neil
If a food is a guilty pleasure, we enjoy it even though we know it's bad for us.
 
Beth
That's it for this episode of Real Easy English. You can learn more phrasal verbs for eating with Georgie's series Phrasal Verbs with Georgie. Find it on our website: bbclearningenglish.com.
 
Neil
And you can also find a free worksheet on our website to practise what you've heard in this podcast. Thanks for joining us and goodbye.
 
Beth
Goodbye.

 

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