全新版大学英语(第二版)综合教程-第五册unit-2

Let's Go Veggie!

1 If there was a single act that would improve your health, cut your risk of food-borne illnesses, and help preserve the environment and the welfare of millions of animals, would you do it?

咱们吃素吧!

如果有一件事，既能增进健康、减少患上食物引起的疾病的危险，又有助于保护环境、保护千万动物安全生存，你做不做？

2 The act I'm referring to is the choice you make every time you sit down to a meal.

我说的这件事就是每次坐下来就餐时挑选菜肴。

3 More than a million Canadians have already acted: They have chosen to not eat meat. And the pace of change has been dramatic.

一百多万加拿大人已经行动起来：他们决定不吃肉。变化速度之快令人惊叹。

4 Vegetarian food sales are showing unparalleled growth. Especially popular are meat-free burgers and hot dogs, and the plant-based cuisines of India, China, Mexico, Italy and Japan.

素食品的销售额大大增加，前所未有。尤受欢迎的是无肉汉堡包和热狗，以及以蔬为主的印度、中国、墨西哥、意大利和日本的菜肴。

5 Fuelling the shift toward vegetarianism have been the health recommendations of medical research. Study after study has uncovered the same basic truth: Plant foods lower your risk of chronic disease; animal foods increase it.

推动人们转向素食的是医学研究提出的关于如何增进健康的建议。一项又一项的研究都揭示了同样的基本事实：果蔬降低患慢性病的危险；肉类食品则增加这种危险。

6 The American Dietetic Association says: "Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for several chronic degenerative diseases."

美国饮食学协会指出，“科学资料表明，素食与降低多种慢性变性疾病的患病危险肯定有关系。”

7 This past fall, after reviewing 4,500 studies on diet and cancer, the World Cancer Research Fund flatly stated: "We've been running the human biological engine on the wrong fuel."

去年秋天，在检验了4500个饮食与癌症的研究报告之后，世界癌症研究基金会直截了当地指出：“我们一向利用不合适的养料来维持人类生理引擎的运转。”

8 This "wrong fuel" has helped boost the cost of degenerative disease in Canada to an estimated $400 billion a year, according to Bruce Holub, a professor of nutritional science at the University of Guelph.

据威尔夫大学营养科学教授布鲁斯·霍拉勃称，这一“不合适的养料”致使加拿大每年用于治疗变性疾病的费用高达4000亿（加）元。

9 Animal foods have serious nutritional drawbacks: They are devoid of fiber, contain far too much saturated fat and cholesterol, and may even carry traces of hormones, steroids and antibiotics. It makes little difference whether you eat beef, pork, chicken or fish.

肉类食品存在严重的营养缺陷：它们不含纤维，含有过多的饱和脂肪和胆固醇，甚至可能

含有微量的激素、类固醇和抗菌素。牛肉、猪肉、鸡肉或鱼肉都一样。

10 Animal foods are also gaining notoriety as breeding grounds for E. coli, campylobacter and other bacteria that cause illness. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, six out of ten chickens are infected with salmonella. It's like playing Russian roulette with your health.

肉类食品也是越来越广为人知的大肠杆菌、弯曲菌以及其他致病细菌的孳生地。据加拿大食品检验机构称，十分之六的鸡染有沙门氏菌。吃肉无异于玩俄式轮盘赌，拿你的健康做赌资。

11 So why aren't governments doing anything about this? Unfortunately, they have bowed to pressure from powerful lobby groups such as the Beef Information Center, the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency and the Dairy Farmers of Canada. According to documents retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act, these groups forced changes to Canada's latest food guide before it was released in 1993.

既然如此，政府为什么不采取任何措施？很遗憾，政府屈服于强有力的院外活动集团的压力，如牛肉信息中心、加拿大禽蛋营销公司、加拿大乳牛场场主协会等。根据信息自由法案获得的有关文件记载，这些集团迫使加拿大最新食品指南在1993年公布前作出修改。

12 This should come as no surprise: Even a minor reduction in recommended intakes of animal protein could cost these industries billions of dollars a year.

这并不奇怪。即使建议动物蛋白质的摄入量减少一丁点儿都会给这些企业带来每年数十亿元的损失。

13 While health and food safety are compelling reasons for choosing a vegetarian lifestyle, there are also larger issues to consider. Animal-based agriculture is one of the most environmentally destructive industries on the face of the Earth.

健康和食品安全是选择素食生活方式令人信服的理由，但此外还有更为重大的因素要考虑。以饲养动物为基础的农业是世界上对环境破坏最严重的产业之一。

14 Think for a moment about the vast resources required to raise, feed, shelter, transport, process and package the 500 million Canadian farm animals slaughtered each year. Water and energy are used at every step of the way. Alberta Agriculture calculates that it takes 10 to 20 times more energy to produce meat than to produce grain.

想一想培育、饲养、建牲畜栏、运输、加工和包装加拿大每年宰杀的5亿头牲畜所需的巨大资源。其中的每一个环节都耗费水和能源。阿尔伯达农业署估计，生产肉耗费的能源比生产谷物多10－20倍。

15 Less than a quarter of our agricultural land is used to feed people directly. The rest is devoted to grazing and growing food for animals. Ecosystems of forest, wetland and grassland have been decimated to fuel the demand for land. Using so much land heightens topsoil loss, the use of harsh fertilizers and pesticides, and the need for irrigation water from dammed rivers. If people can shift away from meat, much of this land could be converted back to wilderness.

用于直接为人们提供食物的土地还不到农业用地的四分之一。其余的都用来放牧和种饲料。森林、湿地和草原的生态系统遭受相当严重的破坏，以满足对土地的需求。土地的大量利用加剧了表土的流失，增加了会带来负面作用的化肥和杀虫剂的施用，增加了从筑有水坝的河流中引水灌溉的需求。如果人们能摒弃肉食，许多土地就能回复到未开垦状态。

16 The problem is that animals are inefficient at converting plants to edible flesh.

It takes, for example, 8.4 kilograms of grain to produce one kilogram of pork, the U. S. government estimates.

问题在于，动物在把植物转化为可食用的肉类这方面的效率很低。举例来说，美国政府估测，生产1公斤猪肉需要耗费8.4 公斤的谷物。

17 After putting so many resources into animals, what do we get out? Manure—at a rate of over 10,000 kilograms per second in Canada alone, according to the government. Environment Canada says cattle excrete 40 kilograms of manure for every kilogram of edible beef. A large egg factory can produce 50 to 100 tonnes of waste per week, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture estimates.

我们把这么多资源耗费在动物身上，又得到什么回报呢？粪肥——据官方资料，仅加拿大，就以每秒10,000多公斤的速度排出。加拿大环境部称，牛每产1公斤可食牛肉需排出40公斤粪便。安大略省农业部估测，一家大型禽蛋工厂每星期可产出50－100吨禽粪。

18 And where does it go? In the 1992 Ontario Groundwater Survey, 43 per cent of tested wells were contaminated with agricultural run-off containing fecal coliform bacteria and nitrates. Earlier this month, charges were laid against a large Alberta feedlot operator for dumping 30 million litres of cattle manure into the Bow River, "killing everything in its path," as a news story described it.

这些粪便都到哪儿去了？1992年安大略省地下水调查发现，43%的被测试水井都受到含有粪便大肠杆菌和硝酸盐等农业生产排出的废物的污染。本月初，阿尔伯达一家大型围栏肥育地经营者被指控将3千万升牛粪排入博河，“沿途生灵悉数被毁”，一则新闻这么报道。

19 And then there is methane, a primary contributing gas in global warming and ozone layer depletion. Excluding natural sources, 27 per cent of Canada's and 20 per cent of the world's methane comes from livestock.

此外还有沼气，那是促使全球气候变暖和臭氧层减少的主要气体。不把天然沼气资源包括在内，加拿大27%的沼气、全世界20%的沼气都来自牲畜。

20 John Robbins, author of the Pulitzer prize-nominated book Diet for a New America (Group West), said it best when he stated: "Eating lower on the food chain is perhaps the most potent single act we can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve our natural resources."

获普利策提名奖的《新美洲饮食》一书作者约翰·罗宾斯说得好：“食用食物链较低部分的食物或许是我们可用以阻止环境破坏、保护自然资源的最最有效的行动。”

21 Our environment also includes the animals killed for their meat. It has become an accepted fact that today's factory-farmed animals live short, miserable, unnatural lives.

我们的环境也包括为食其肉而被宰杀的动物。当今工厂化农场的牲畜寿命极短，过着悲惨的、不正常的生活，这已是公认的事实。

22 As part of my research at the University of Waterloo, I toured some of the country's largest "processing" plants. The experience has left me with recurring nightmares.

作为我在沃特卢大学研究工作的一部分，我参观过一些全国最大的“加工”厂。这个经历让我日后尽做噩梦。

23 I saw "stubborn" cows being beaten and squealing pigs chased around the killing floor with electric calipers.

我见到“固执”的牛被打、尖叫着的猪在屠宰室被人用电卡钳追逐。

24 I looked on in utter shock as a cow missed the stun gun and was hoisted fully conscious upside down by its hind leg and cut to pieces, thrashing until its last breath.

我万分震惊地目睹一头牛躲过了眩晕枪，结果被缚住后腿倒挂起来，惨遭活剐，一直挣扎到断气。

25 Noticing my shock, the foreman remarked: "Who cares? They're going to die anyway."

工头见我惊骇不已，便说：“管它呢！它们反正得死。”

26 Because it can cost hundreds of dollars per minute to stop the conveyor line, animal welfare comes second to profit. Over 150,000 animals are "processed" every hour of every working day in Canada, according to Agriculture Canada.

由于传送线停转一分钟就要损失好几百元，家畜的利益就变得不如利润重要。据加拿大农业署称，在加拿大，每个工作日，每小时有150,000多头家畜被“加工”。

27 The picture gets uglier still. En route to slaughter, farm animals may legally spend anywhere from 36 to 72 hours without food, water or rest. They're not even afforded the "luxury" of temperature controlled trucks in extreme summer heat or sub-zero cold.

情况变得甚至更可怕。家畜在宰杀前的运输途中，法律允许在36－72小时内不给进食、进水，不让休息。即使在炎夏或零度以下的严冬，它们连乘温控卡车的“奢侈”也不让享受。

28 Agriculture Canada has estimated that more than 3 million Canadian farm animals die slow and painful deaths en route to slaughter each year.

加拿大农业署估计，加拿大每年有3百多万头家畜在宰杀前的运输途中痛苦地慢慢死去。

29 I've also visited typical Canadian farms. Gone are the days when piglets snorted and roosters strutted their way about the barnyard. Most of today's modernized farms have long, windowless sheds in which animals live like prisoners their entire lives. I have seen chickens crammed four to a cage, nursing pigs separated from their young by iron bars and veal calves confined to crates so narrow they couldn't turn around. Few of these animals ever experience sunlight or fresh air — and most of their natural urges are denied.

本人还参观过一些典型的加拿大农场。猪崽喷着鼻息、公鸡在粮仓的空场上昂首行走的日子已经一去不复返。而今大多数的现代化农场都有一个个狭长的、没有窗户的牲畜棚，牲畜一生关在棚里，如囚犯一般。我见到过四只鸡挤在一个笼里，喂奶的母猪与猪崽被铁条隔开，肉用小牛关在狭窄得转不过身来的板条箱里。这些牲畜几乎都终年不见阳光，呼吸不到新鲜空气——它们天生的欲望大都得不到满足。

30 Although it is difficult to face these harsh realities, it is even more difficult to ignore them. Three times a day, you make a decision that not only affects the quality of your life, but the rest of the living world. We hold in our knives and forks the power to change this world.

面对这种严峻的现实固然困难，置之不理更是难上加难。一日三次，你要做出不仅影响自身生活质量、更是事关整个有生命世界的决定。我们手里的餐刀餐叉拥有改变这个世界的力量。

31 Consider the words of Albert Einstein: "Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as the Evolution to a vegetarian diet."

让我们想一想阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦的话吧：“没有什么比转向素食更有益于人类健康，更能

增加世间万物的生存机会。”

32 Bon appetite.

祝君胃口好。

Where’s the Beef?

Alan Herscovici

1 With summer comes that most wonderful of North American traditions, the backyard barbecue. The succulent aroma of fresh grilled steak, sausages, chicken and fish draws family, friends and neighbours together for a communal feast. Inevitably, in these politically correct times the conversation may drift to the question of whether we really ought to be eating meat at all.

牛肉在哪里？

阿伦泛兆瓤宋?

随夏日而来的是北美传统习俗中最美妙的一件事，后院烤肉餐。刚下烤架的牛排、香肠、鸡肉、鱼肉鲜美无比，引来了亲朋好友、左邻右舍，大家一起欢宴。不用说，在如今这个讲求政治正确的时代，聊着聊着就可能聊到我们究竟该不该吃肉的问题。

2 The following guide should help see you through until the burgers are done.

以下的指南想必会帮助你捱过等待汉堡牛排烤熟的那段时间。

3 Appealing to self-interest, a common opening line for proselytizing vegetarians is to claim that “eating meat is bad for us.” They have trouble explaining, however, why human health and longevity have improved steadily as animal products became more readily available throughout this century. In fact, meat is an excellent source of 12 essential nutrients, including protein, iron, zinc and B vitamins.

出于人们往往考虑自身利益这一点，那些劝人茹素的素食者通常一开口就声称“肉食有害健康”。然而，他们难以解释，为什么本世纪动物源性食品日益普及，人们的健康水平和寿命却持续上升。事实上，肉类富含12种人体必需的营养成分，其中包括蛋白质、铁、锌和各种维生素B。

4 It is true that excessive fats can be harmful, but today’s meats are lean. Based on equal-size servings, tofu has more fat than a sirloin steak and only half the protein. (Tofu also makes a mess of the grill.)

不错，过多的脂肪有害健康，但如今的肉都是瘦肉。以同样大小的一份计，豆腐比一块后腿部牛排的脂肪含量多，而蛋白质含量仅是其一半。(何况豆腐会把烤架弄得一团糟。)

5 With the exception of certain religious sects, people have rarely been vegetarian by choice. Most often, vegetarianism is the unfortunate result of poverty. Yet the veggie crowd also claims that “humans are not natural meat-eaters.” Our teeth are not as sharp and our intestinal tracts not as short as those of cats and other pure carnivores. But we are not equipped to be herbivores, either. Like other omnivores (such as bears or racoons), our digestive equipment allows us to tackle a wide range of foods.

除了某些宗教派别，很少有人自愿吃素。素食主义往往是贫穷的不幸产物。然而，那伙吃素的还说什么“人类并非天生的肉食者”。相比那些猫科动物及其他纯食肉动物，我们的牙齿不够锋利，我们的肠道又过长。但人类也并非理想的食草动物。如同其他杂食动物(如熊和浣熊)一样，我们的消化系统可以应付多种多样的食物。

6 If we were not designed to eat meat, why do we produce large quantities of the

enzymes required to break down such foods? Why is vitamin B12 (found only in animal products) essential to human life? If we were not natural meat-eaters, or at least bug and grub eaters, our species would have died out long ago. If we did not develop as hunters, why are our eyes in the front to our heads like those of other predators (tigers, wolves or owls)? Why does the mere smell of a sizzling steak set my saliva glands watering?

如果我们生来不吃肉，那人体何以会产生大量分解肉食所必需的消化酶？为什么维生素

B12(仅含于动物源性食品中)为人体不可或缺？如果人类并非天生的肉食者——至少要会吃昆虫——那人类这一物种早就灭绝了。如果人类不曾进化为猎食其他物种的动物，那为什么如其他食肉动物(如虎、狼或猫头鹰)一样，我们的眼睛长在头的前部？为什么一块烤得咝咝作响的牛排的香味就会让我的唾液分泌腺流出口水？

7 Shifting their ground, animal activists now charge that livestock threatens the environment. But much of the world’s arable land is best suited to be used as pasture. It is too hilly, fragile, dry or cold for cultivation. Cattle convert grass into nutrients that can be digested by humans. Those who promote organic agriculture understand that livestock completes the nutrient cycle by returning organic matter to the soil with manure.

动物保护主义者换了个进攻方向，指责牲畜威胁环境。然而，世界上许多可耕地用作牧场最适合。那些土地起伏不平，土质贫瘠，不是太干就是气候太冷，不宜耕种。牲畜把牧草转化为人类能够消化的食物。那些提倡有机农业的人深知，牲畜通过粪肥把有机物质返回土壤，以此完成食物循环的过程。

8 Other anti-meat myths can also be dismissed. For example: ·Whatever you may think about fast food hamburgers, eating them does not encourage the destruction of Amazon rainforests. Because of disease-control measures, no unprocessed South American beef products at all may be imported into Canada. ·Livestock do not use up grains that could otherwise feed starving people in Third World countries. The main diet of cattle is grass and hay. Pigs, chickens and other farm animals are generally fed corn and barley, while people eat mainly wheat and rice. Animals also consume pest-and weather-damaged grains, crop residues (corn stalks and leaves) and by-products from food processing, such as unusable grains (or parts of grains) left over from producing breakfast cereals and other human foods. Raising livestock in Canada does not prevent us from shipping emergency supplies to people in need. Hunger today, however, is usually the result of political, economic and distribution problems, not a lack of production capacity. ·The production of methane gas by livestock is not a major contributor to global warming. Methane gas is only one of many possible “greenhouse” gases. It is produced by all sorts of decomposition of organic matter, including normal digestion (even by vegetarians). Main sources of greenhouse gases include wetlands, forest fires, landfills, rice paddies, the extraction of gas, oil and coal—and even termites. ·Meat does not contain harmful pesticide, antibiotic or other residues. This is assured by stringent Agriculture Canada and Health Canada regulations and inspection. Concerns about dangerous bacteria are easily addressed by cooking your meat well. (Fruit and raw vegetables, in fact, present a more difficult problem.)

其他反对肉食的奇谈怪论也都不值一驳。如：l 无论你对快餐食品汉堡包好恶如何，食用汉堡包并不会加快对亚马孙雨林的破坏。由于采取了各种控制疾病的措施，未经加工的南美牛肉制品根本不能进入加拿大。l 牲畜并不曾消耗掉原本可用于赈济第三世界饥民的粮食。牲畜的主要饲料是青草和干草。猪、鸡和其他家畜通常用玉米和大麦饲养，而人食用的主要是小麦和稻米。动物还吃遭受虫灾和灾害气候的粮食、庄稼的残留物(如玉米的梗和叶)，还有食品加工的副产品，如加工早餐谷类食品和其他人类食品的剩下的不能用的粮食(或部分粮食)。在加拿大，饲养牲畜毫不妨碍我们将紧急救援物资运送给急需的人。事实上，当今的粮荒往往是政治、经济、分配不公造成的结果，而非生产力不足所致。l 牲畜产生的沼气并非全球气候变暖的祸首。沼气只是许多潜在的“温室”气体中的一种。沼气由各种有机物在分解过程中生成，其中包括正常的(甚至包括素食者的)消化过程产生的部分。温室气体的主要来源包括湿地、森林火灾、垃圾埋填地、水稻田以及气体、石油和煤炭的开采，甚至包括白蚁。l 食用肉并不含有于健康有害的杀虫剂、抗菌素或其他残留物。这由加拿大农业部和加拿大卫生部严格的规定和检查制度所确保。至于对危险的细菌的担心，只需将肉煮熟煮透即可轻易解决。(事实上，水果和生食蔬菜带来的问题更不易解决。)

9 One study that is not often cited by animal activists is a recent report by the Centre for Energy and the Environment at the University of Exeter in England. David Coley and his associates analyzed how much fuel energy is used to produce and process different foods. Burning fuel releases carbon into the atmosphere, the major suspected cause of global warming.

动物保护主义者很少引用一项研究，那就是英格兰埃克塞特大学能源与环境中心最近的一份报告。戴维房评捌浜献髡叻治隽松爰庸げ煌称匪姆训娜剂夏茉础H忌杖加徒寂湃氪笃悖四巳蚱虮渑闹饕尚住?

10 To the dismay of the politically correct set, meat scores far better than vegetables on this environmental-impact scale. It requires eight megajoules of fuel energy to produce enough beef or burgers to provide one megajoule of food energy. The fuel energy costs of chicken and lamb are seven megajoules and six megajoules respectively. Typical salad vegetables, however, require as much as 45 megajoules of fuel energy for each energy unit of food intake provided.

令那些讲求政治正确的人感到沮丧的是，在对环境的影响方面，肉要比蔬菜得分高得多。提供1兆焦耳食物能量的牛肉或汉堡牛排需耗费8兆焦耳的燃料能源。鸡肉和羊肉的耗能分别为7和6兆焦耳。而常见的色拉蔬菜却需要耗费多达45兆焦耳的燃料能源才能提供一个能量单位的食物摄入。

11 “Meat does well because it is not highly processed, provides a lot of calories and is often produced locally.” Coley reported in New Scientist last December.

“肉耗能少，因为肉加工程度不高，能提供大量的卡路里，而且常常是本地加工生产。”科利在去年12月的《新科学家》上著文说。

12 It would require more ink than is available to us here to respond to all the claims animal activists have made about the supposed evils of modern livestock husbandry methods, what they misleadingly label “factory farming.” For example, they criticize the caging of laying hens, while ignoring the fact that such systems improve hygiene, preventing disease and reducing the need for antibiotics.

我们在此无法花费过多的笔墨逐一反驳动物保护主义者指控现代家畜饲养方法，即他们误导性地称作的“工厂化养殖”的种种莫须有的危害。例如，他们抨击蛋禽的笼养化，却忽视了这样的事实，即此类系统能改善卫生，预防疾病，减少对抗生素的需求。

13 Detailed responses to animal-welfare concerns are provided in Food for Thought: Facts about Food and Farming, published by the Ontario Farm Animal Council.

安大略禽畜饲养会社发表的《应有的思考：食物与饲养业的基本情况》对有关动物生存状况的关注作了详细解答。

14 For debate around the barbecue, suffice it to say that animals cannot be productive unless they receive excellent nutrition and care. Farmers who do not provide good care for their animals will not remain in business for long.

至于围绕烤肉餐的争论，只需这样说就够了：动物得不到精良的食物和精心的照料就不长肉。饲养场主不精心饲养禽畜则无法长期经营。

15 Once fallacious claims about health, environment and animal welfare are stripped away, the heart of the animal-rights argument is exposed. What right, they ask, do we have to use animals at all?

一旦有关健康、环境以及动物生存状况的谬论被揭穿，有关动物权益的争论的核心便一清二楚了。他们质问道：我们究竟有什么权利去吃禽畜？

16 The central fallacy of this argument is that it ignores basic principles of biology and ecology. Every plant and animal species naturally produces far more offspring than their environment can support to maturity. This “surplus” provides food for other species. Aboriginal people called this “the cycle of life.” We now usually call it “the food chain.” We are part of this cycle, like every other living organism on the planet. The domestication of livestock has been a very successful survival strategy, not only for humans, but also for the other species involved.

这一论点的主要谬误在于忽视了生物学与生态学的基本原理。各类动植物物种自然而然地繁衍出大量后代，远远超出环境允许其长到成熟的数量。“过剩部分”则为其他物种提供了食物。土著人称其为“生命的循环”。我们现在通常名之曰“食物链”。如同地球上其他各种有机生命体一样，我们人类是这一循环的一个组成部分。驯养动物向来就是一种极为成功的生存策略，对人类如此，对有关的其他物种也如此。

17 The squeamishness some people now feel about eating animals does not represent a more evolved sensitivity to nature. It is a symptom of how cut off some people have become from nature.

如今有些人对吃肉觉得反感，这并不反映出他们对自然变得更加敏感。这表明了他们离开自然已经何等之远。

18 Thanks to modern agriculture, many city people now take our abundant food supply for granted. We forget that all our food must still be wrested from the land. Even our vegetables must be protected from other creatures. Even a carrot clings to the soil with all its strength. Like other animals, we kill to eat. But because we are human, we can also give thanks and treat the animals that feed us with respect.

多亏了现代农业，如今许多城镇居民对充足的食品供应习以为常，认为理当如此。我们已经忘却，凡人所食仍得靠土地出产。即便人类所食的蔬菜也必须加以守护，以防其他动物侵犯。即便生长中的胡萝卜也竭尽全力紧贴大地。一如其他动物，我们为吃肉而宰杀禽畜。然而，我们有幸为人，因而还能为此感恩，还能慎重地对待给我们提供肉食的动物。

19 I think those burgers should be ready about now…

我看那些汉堡牛排这会儿该烤熟了……