Shadowing Practice: The Sugar Epidemic Is Way Worse Than We Thought... - Learn English Speaking with Video

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In America, there's a drink you can buy right now that contains over 169 grams of sugar.

That is an entire week's worth of sugar in one drink.

And there's another company who secretly wiped their entire nutritional information from every corner of their website,

following backlash from launching an 840 calorie drink.

Food companies in America aren't just selling sugar anymore, they're actually racing to see who can pack in the most into their products

and competing for their next viral moment even if it means getting an entire generation hooked on sugar.

The latest and most popular sugary trend is the Utah -founded Crumble Cookie, limited edition cookies that change it up every week,

collaborating with huge dessert brands and even celebrities to hold the title of the world's best cookie.

Now, before we get into this video, make sure you're subscribed, because I'm trying to hit 500 ,000 followers by the end of 2026.

And also, I just want to quickly say that I'm moving house at the minute, so that's why my background is very boring.

Anyway, Crumble's marketing plays a huge part in the brand's success

because they're not just cookies and they're actually used as status symbols at this point.

They're meant to be incredibly aesthetic and continue to go viral on social media every time a new flavour drops,

with influencers running to Crumble to be the first one to film a review.

Not only this, but the cookies themselves are very expensive.

A single cookie is almost $5 and the most commonly bought box of four comes in at nearly $17.

The marketing of these cookies is genuinely genius, really.

The aesthetic of the brand, the pale pink cups, the pastel boxes,

the bright colours and glossy packing all help to disguise crumble as a sweet treat rather than what it actually is.

More than an entire day's worth of sugar in a single cookie.

Instead of the food being the reward, the entire experience becomes what consumers chase.

And it's like a dopamine machine.

And the celebrity and influencer endorsement of these insanely unhealthy cookies

and drinks makes them feel normal to consume regularly rather than what they should be, which is a sweet treat.

And before we look into how densely packed these cookies are, I want to start off by saying that eating these cookies isn't inherently bad.

If I ever go to America, I'll probably try one.

But the problem here lies in the deception from Crumble,

in making it difficult for consumers to know how many calories they're getting and how much sugar is in these cookies.

And they're marketing to a younger and more impressionable audience, people who probably care less about how many calories and how much sugar they're eating.

Over the past few years since Crumble's launch, the company has slowly increased the size and sugar content in each of their cookies.

While the options do change every week, they do have classic flavours that remain the same.

One of these is the Sugar Pink Cookie, which started off with an insane 64 grams of sugar and 520 calories.

Since then, Crumble has increased the size by 12 .5%,

which might seem small, but it has raised the sugar content to 76 grams and an overall calorie count of 760.

It's insane that one cookie contains this many calories.

It's just as much, if not more, than a big meal.

And the change has gone pretty much unnoticed.

So customers are eating an extra 240 calories without even realizing.

But to make things even worse, this is actually one of the lowest calorie cookies on the entire Crumble menu.

Because of the nature of the brand, they thrive on going viral.

Every week, they need a new flavor to drop to become a trend.

Crumble is a permanent competition to itself, introducing new cookies constantly, each with a higher sugar content than the last.

The Olivia Rodrigo Guts cookie contained 58 grams of sugar and 960 calories in the entire thing.

This cookie was pretty controversial as it was marketed towards teenage

girls as a limited time drop to help promote her new album and tour.

It's essentially an overpriced piece of consumable merch and contains more than the double amount of recommended sugar for teenage girls.

The highest calorie cookie ever released by Crumble, to date, as I'm sure they'll find a way to beat this record,

is the Chocolate Peanut Butter Sandwich cookie featuring Oreos and Reese's.

Just by the name alone, you know that the sugar content is going to be insane.

The cookie contains an astronomical 1 ,250 calories, and you're not going to believe this, 85 grams of sugar.

That is a total of 20 teaspoons of sugar, and triple the amount of daily recommended sugar.

If you're anything like me, you're probably wondering how on earth Crumble is fitting this many calories into a single cookie.

Well, the answer is on the nutrition label, which is conveniently hidden, but we'll discuss that later.

First of all, these cookies are huge.

They're so big, in fact, that Crumble actually displays on the nutrition label that just one quarter of the cookie is a portion size.

But obviously, no one's paying attention to that.

They're just going to have a full cookie because that looks like one serving.

It's natural to expect customers to eat the whole thing because it's literally one cookie.

But what no one expects is for the cookie to contain

more than 1 ,000 calories in at least double the recommended amount of sugar.

It's pretty ironic too, considering that they have the daily recommended calorie intake at the bottom of their website.

Like they aren't selling cookies that contain more than half that.

Now, as the food market becomes more and more saturated, brands are having to make the most extreme food combinations possible to keep gaining interest,

hoping for their viral moment.

Something else that has been going viral at the moment is protein products with every product under the sun, including popcorn and even vapes,

slapping on the protein tagline and trying to seem like a healthier product.

Now, I want to do a full video on this trend at some point, but some of the worst examples of this are protein bars.

I think it's fair to say

that most people enjoy protein bars as a pre -

or post -gym snack because they think it's a healthier option when compared to a chocolate bar.

To some extent, this can be true depending on which one you get.

They have a lot of protein in and can be quite filling, but there's so many different kinds on the market,

and some of them contain an insane amount of sugar.

For example, these Gatorade whey protein bars have over 350 calories and 29 grams of sugar.

And there's so many like this that are more dense in sugar than in protein.

You'd be better off than having an actual chocolate bar than any of these so -called protein bars.

A lot of the deception surrounding hidden sugar stems from the marketing.

For decades, breakfast cereal has been marketed as a nutritional meal packed with fiber and essential vitamins and minerals.

Parents are happy to give their kids a bowl every morning, but cereal isn't what it used to be.

And it's gone from a healthy breakfast to literally just a sugary dessert.

The cereal with the highest sugar content I could find is Kellogg's Honey Smacks, which contains an insane 21 grams of sugar per serving.

And that's assuming if you measure out with 36 grams serving size, which I can guarantee most people don't.

So in the entire bowl of cereal, 55 % of it is entirely sugar.

And the worst part is people don't even like this cereal and say it's not even any good.

Eating so much sugar early in the morning will leave you more tired than

when you woke up as it's so full of refined sugar and little of anything else, like fiber or protein, to slow down your digestion.

So, your blood sugar spikes, and then it crashes very quickly, which causes you to feel very hungry.

Plus, cereals like these are so processed that they don't even keep you full in the first place.

And because of this, you're more likely to reach for a quick snack like a cereal bar

or another processed food just to keep you full before lunch, which just adds to the amount of sugar consumed in one day.

Now, it feels like people have become so reliant on sugar that it feels like an addiction now.

The majority of food is filled with added sugar and there are constantly new trends of sugary filled snacks,

protein bars, anything else you can think of just filled with sugar.

And one of these trends happens to be the dirty soda trend which has become so popular that it's almost mainstream now.

Now the dirty soda trend originated in Utah

which is the same as crumble cookies and it's a huge part of Mormon culture.

The religion stipulates that people can't drink alcohol

or hot caffeinated drinks like tea or coffee but a few Mormons found a loophole.

There's no restriction around sodas, so the pioneers of the new drink created customized versions of

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different sodas to get their caffeine fix from a different source instead.

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Custom dirty soda drink shops started popping up all around Utah, like Swig and Sodalicious,

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with huge lines starting in the early hours for customers to get their morning dirty soda instead of their morning coffee.

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Now, to make a dirty soda, you first need to pick your ice, pebbled or crushed.

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Then you have to start with your soda base, something like Coke, Dr. Pepper, Sprite, or Mountain Dew.

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After that, you pick your flavorings, and there are many, many flavorings, mostly in fruity syrups like coconut, raspberry, or lime.

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Some drinks have more than 10 pumps of syrup in it.

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Then finally, you add your creamer, and this is what makes it dirty.

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You can either have coffee creamer or sweet cream or half and half.

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Some of the highest calorie drinks from Swig are crazy, like the Riptide and Bloody Wild containing over 600 calories.

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Swig doesn't display the exact sugar contents for each of their drinks, but you don't have to be a genius to know that they're high.

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Based on the amount of sugar in the soda and syrups,

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it's fair to say that the large drinks could contain anywhere from 60 grams to 100 grams of sugar.

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But to be fair to Swig, I don't think they're all 100 % that bad.

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You can easily swap out a sugary soda for a dire one or swap to zero calorie syrups, reducing the sugar content by a lot.

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They're fine for a treat every now and then, but best to avoid every single day.

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However, it.

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The dirty sodas from Swig aren't nearly as bad as the ones from Crumble yet again, who I am bullying this video.

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They know how to take the cake, literally, for having the highest amount of sugar on any dirty sodas on the market,

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because they've even been referred to as diabetic sodas.

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which can top up to 186 grams of sugar.

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And to give you a proper idea about how insane the sugar contents are in these dirty sodas, the Crazy Cousins Charger Dirty Soda,

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which contains an insane 186 grams of sugar in 840 calories, is the equivalent of 19 Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

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But that isn't the end of the story here with Grumble, and it actually gets much, much worse.

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While researching this video, I found it incredibly difficult to find the actual calories and nutritional information for their drinks and cookies.

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Now, as it turns out, Crumble removed their ingredients lists and nutritional information from the entire online menu,

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following outrage over the crazy cousin's drink that I just mentioned.

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Honestly, it's insane to me that this is even legal.

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If you order a collection or delivery with crumble, you will go through the entire process not knowing how many calories you're consuming.

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But it's not just even the calories, you don't know what ingredients you're eating or how much of each ingredient.

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In the UK, it's a legal requirement to display nutritional information on foods and drinks,

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so to me, that just seems very wrong not to do so.

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Now we don't have a crumble in the UK, so I can't exactly go and try the drinks now on the video.

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However, Starbucks is in the UK, and they do share their nutritional information.

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And I know

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Starbucks aren't a great company, but at least they don't try and hide it.

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Now, I don't really like syrups in my coffee.

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They're just way too sweet for me.

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And that's why I rarely ever go to Starbucks, because most of the drinks on the menu have at least five pumps of syrup in them.

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Unless I get like a normal flat white or a black Americano.

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But I understand

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Starbucks is very popular here in the UK.

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And one of the most popular coffee drinks is the Caramel Macchiato, which contains several pumps of vanilla and caramel syrup,

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and even more caramel sauce on top.

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The entire drink has 35 grams of sugar and over 300 calories

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and the frappuccinos from Starbucks are even worse with the white chocolate mocha

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and java chip fraps containing over 90 grams each and 600 calories.

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And this is just what's on the menu and people have become

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so accustomed to sugaring their drinks that the standard menu isn't enough

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so custom orders have become a lot more popular and contain way more sugar.

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Now that looks completely undrinkable.

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It's just more than half filled with sauce.

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And I don't even want to know what the sugar content is because it's got to be outrageous.

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And I get that these types of videos are sometimes made as a joke by staff,

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but I've genuinely seen so many of these videos are made online

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that I believe a lot of people are making them genuinely.

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But it doesn't end with Starbucks either, as pretty much every drinks -focused drive -thru is offering drinks with a higher and higher sugar content,

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all because companies are trying to stay relevant and trying to get their viral moment.

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We've gotten so used to expecting sugar in everything we eat, especially Americans.

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American food is so unregulated that when the same products get shipped to Europe, the nutritional information is always completely different because of the restricted ingredients,

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and they end up having a lot less calories too.

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Ultimately, eating foods and drinks with this high amount of sugar is dangerous.

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They're empty calories so they provide you with little feeling of fullness and just make them want to eat something else later, contributing to obesity.

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And when food companies are constantly fighting for their place at the top, inventing new flavours every week for a chance to go viral,

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caring little for the substance of what they're creating, it's the consumers that suffer.

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And if you want to see the effects of a high sugar diet and a high calorie diet,

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click the video on your screen now to watch a video on my 600 pound life.

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Make sure you subscribe to my main channel, my compilation channel, follow me on Instagram at BigCraigYT.

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Thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “The Sugar Epidemic Is Way Worse Than We Thought..”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: sugar, cookie, calorie, drink, crumble. This video has 168 sentences and 2573 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:08. The speaker talks fast, about 196 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
cookie noun	/ˈkʊki/	A small, flat, baked good which is either crisp or soft but firm.
calorie noun	/ˈkæləɹi/	A non-SI unit of energy, equivalent to 4.184 kilojoules, that can raise the temperature of a kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. This is the unit normally…
soda noun	/ˈsoʊdə/	Sodium bicarbonate.
gram noun	/ˈɡɹæm/	A unit of mass equal to one-thousandth of a kilogram. Symbol: g.
insane adjective	/ɪnˈseɪn/	Exhibiting unsoundness or disorder of mind; not sane; utterly mad.
viral adjective	/ˈvaɪɹəl/	Of or relating to a biological virus.
syrup noun	/ˈsɪɹ.əp/	Any thick liquid that has a high sugar content and which is added to or poured over food as a flavoring.
cereal noun	/ˈsɪə.ɹɪ.əl/	A type of grass (such as wheat, rice or oats) cultivated for its edible grains.
nutritional adjective	/njuːˈtɹɪʃ.ə.nəl/	Of, pertaining to, or providing nutrition.
menu noun	/ˈmɛn.juː/	The details of the food to be served at a banquet; a bill of fare.
ingredient noun	/ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/	One of the substances present in a mixture, especially food.
pump noun	/pʌmp/	A device for moving or compressing a liquid or gas.
genuinely adverb	/ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/	In a genuine manner; truthfully, truly.
snack noun	/snæk/	A light meal.
consume verb	/kənˈsum/	To use up.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
have over verb		To host (a visiting guest) at one's house.
pop up verb		To come up with a "pop" sound.
slow down verb		To decelerate.
start off verb		To begin.
turn out verb		To end up; to result.
wake up verb	/ˌweɪk ˈʌp/	To stop sleeping; to awake.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has slowly increased · has increased · has raised
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was marketed · is conveniently hidden · has been marketed
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	people who probably · label, which is · trend which has

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 55 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, don't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: aesthetic /ɛsˈθɛ.tɪk/, thrive /θɹajv/, unhealthy /ʌnˈhɛl.θi/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: nutritional /njuːˈtɹɪʃ.ə.nəl/, nutrition /njuːˈtɹɪʃ.ən/, deception /dɪˈsɛpʃən/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, controversial /ˌkɑn.tɹəˈvɝ.ʃəl/
Long words — get the stress right: nutritional /njuːˈtɹɪʃ.ə.nəl/, ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, celebrity /səˈlɛb.ɹɪ.ɾi/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like cookie, calorie, soda.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: The Sugar Epidemic Is Way Worse Than We Thought... - Learn English Speaking with Video

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