为什么人们浪费这么多食物?

AS IT IS 2015-09-27 Why Do People Waste So Much Food? 为什么人们浪费这么多食物?

Up to half of the food the world produces is never eaten. It is instead thrown away. Experts say food is wasted in both rich and poor countries, but for different reasons.

全球所生产的食物中有高达一半的食物并没有被食用，而是被随意浪费掉了。专家表示，无论是贫穷国家还是富有国家都在浪费食物，只是原因有所不同。

Elliot Woolley teaches about sustainable manufacturing 1 at Loughborough University in Britain. He spoke 2 at the Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing, held earlier this month in Vietnam.

在英国拉夫堡大学从事可持续生产教学研究的埃利奥特·伍利（Elliot Woolley），于本月初在越南举行的全球可持续生产会议上做了发言。

Mr. Woolley says in poor countries, food is usually lost while it is still in the field or during storage and transportation. He says that is because food producers there are inefficient 3. These businesses are unable to operate effectively without wasting materials, time or energy. But he adds that once food is sold in developing countries, people usually eat everything they buy.

伍利先生表示，在贫穷的国家，食物的浪费通常表现在田间种植时或是储运过程中。他说，这是因为当地食品生产商效率低下。由于生产率低下，生产商不得不浪费一些材料、时间以及能源。但他补充说，在发展中国家食物一旦售出，人们通常会全部吃完。

However, people in the United States and other developed countries throw away as much as half of the food they purchase. The British researcher called this custom “a disgrace 4.”

然而，美国和其它发达国家的人们将他们所购买的食物的一多半浪费掉了。伍利先生把这种行为视为耻辱。

Elliot Woolley has created a smartphone app that he says shows users 5 what food they have bought and when the food is about to become unsafe to eat. It also gives information on how people can combine the foods they have to make a meal. The software program is called the “Pantry App.”

伍利先生发明了一个智能手机应用程序，他表示这个程序可以向用户展示已经购得的所有食物，以及这些食物的过期时间。它还指导用户如何利用已经购买的食材做一顿大餐。该软件程序被命名为Pantry App。

Mr. Woolley said that people who used the app reduced the amount of food they wasted by a third. But this result came from a limited experiment -- users only followed their food use for a week.

伍利先生表示，使用该应用程序的人们将会减少三分之一的食物浪费量。只是这一结论是由只进行了一周的用户体验而得出的。

Jeremy Bonvoisin is a student at the Technical University of Berlin. He attended the recent conference in Vietnam. He said one way to solve the problem of wasted food is to take steps to persuade people to stop buying so much food in the first place. He said people buy more food than they need because it is becoming less costly 6. They waste so much food because they bought more than they needed.

杰里米·波瓦詹（Jeremy Bonvoisin）是柏林科技大学的一名学生。他参加了最近举行的这一次越南会议。他说解决食物浪费的办法之一，首先需要采取措施说服人们不要一次性购买太多食物。之所以购买过量食物是因为这样的话会更加优惠。而浪费大量食物是因为他们购买量远远超过自己所需。

He says the new app could help those who already want to change the way they use the food they buy. But he is also worried that it could get people to waste more food because they no longer have to pay attention to how much they have bought.

他说，这款新的应用程序可以帮助那些想要改变自己购买食物方式的人们。但他也担心这样做可能会让人们浪费更多食物，因为他们不再需要自己留意已经购买了多少这个问题。

Words in This Story

sustainable – adj. involving methods that do not completely use up or destroy natural resources

disgrace – n. loss of respect; v. bringing shame or discredit 7 on someone or something

app – n. a computer program that performs a particular task, generally on a smartphone