科学美国人60秒 蔬菜是原始人饮食的重要组成部分

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Christopher Intagliata.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是克里斯托弗·因塔格里塔。

The paleo diet is a popular high-protein diet that aims to mimic¹ what our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate.

“原始人饮食法”是一种流行的高蛋白饮食法，旨在模仿我们狩猎采集祖先的饮食。

But what we buy at the supermarket doesn't quite approximate those ancient foods.

但是我们在超市买到的东西和那些古代食物不太一样。

Take for example, star lily roots. Heard of those?

以星百合根为例。你听说过这种食物吗？

"They taste a bit like yams."

“味道有点像山药。”

Lyn Wadley is an archaeologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

南非威特沃特斯兰德大学的考古学家林·瓦德利说到。

Her team recently discovered the charred² remains³ of star lily roots in South Africa's Border Cave—

她的团队最近在南非边界洞穴中发现了烧焦的星百合根遗迹，

hunks of roasted root that date to 170,000 years ago.

这些大块烤根可追溯到17万年前。

"And there's greater glucose⁴ availability once the root vegetables were cooked. And they knew that nearly 200,000 years ago, which I think is extraordinary. Or maybe they didn't know the chemistry of it, but they would have realized they felt far more satisfied after eating a meal that's cooked rather than one that is raw."

“块根类蔬菜经过烹饪后，葡萄糖的利用率就会上升。他们早在20万年前就知道了这一点，我认为这非常了不起。或许他们不知道其中的化学成分，但他们会意识到，食用烹饪过的食物比吃生食要令人心满意足得多。”

It's not easy to identify a charred chunk⁵ of ancient food, though. So Wadley's team gathered an array of raw ancient foodstuffs⁶ and roasted and charred them in ovens and campfires. They then did visual comparisons to the ancient sample and observed them both in a scanning electron microscope—which revealed that the charred leftovers⁷ from that meal, 170,000 years ago, were probably chunks⁸ of star lily root.

不过，要辨认出大块烧焦的古代食物并不容易。因此，瓦德利的团队收集了大量古代生食，在烤炉和营火中烘烤烧焦。之后，他们将其与古代样本进行目视比对，并用扫描电子显微镜进行观察，结果显示，17万年前那顿饭烧焦的剩饭，很可能是星百合根块。

Details and photos of those roots are in the journal Science.

这些根茎的细节和图片刊登在《科学》期刊上。Wadley says the find also provides a better view of what the ancients ate. "I think the people who assume the paleo diet was based on protein simply haven't done their homework properly."

瓦德利表示，这项研究也让我们对古代人的饮食有了更深入的了解。“我认为那些认为原始人饮食是以蛋白质为基础的人，根本没有做好功课。”Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。

1 mimic   

v.模仿，戏弄；n.模仿他人言行的人

参考例句：

• A parrot can mimic a person's voice.鹦鹉能学人的声音。
• He used to mimic speech peculiarities of another.他过去总是模仿别人讲话的特点。

2 charred   

v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦

参考例句：

• the charred remains of a burnt-out car 被烧焦的轿车残骸
• The intensity of the explosion is recorded on the charred tree trunks. 那些烧焦的树干表明爆炸的强烈。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

4 glucose   

n.葡萄糖

参考例句：

• I gave him an extra dose of glucose to pep him up.我给他多注射了一剂葡萄糖以增强他的活力。
• The doctor injected glucose into his patient's veins.医生将葡萄糖注入病人的静脉。

5 chunk   

n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量）

参考例句：

• They had to be careful of floating chunks of ice.他们必须当心大块浮冰。
• The company owns a chunk of farmland near Gatwick Airport.该公司拥有盖特威克机场周边的大片农田。

6 foodstuffs   

食物，食品( foodstuff的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Imports of foodstuffs accounted for a small proportion of total imports. 食物进口仅占总进口额的一小部份。
• Many basic foodstuffs, such as bread and milk, are tax-free. 许多基本食物如牛奶和面包是免税的。

7 leftovers   

n.剩余物，残留物，剩菜

参考例句：

• He can do miracles with a few kitchen leftovers.他能用厨房里几样剩饭做出一顿美餐。
• She made supper from leftovers she had thrown together.她用吃剩的食物拼凑成一顿晚饭。

8 chunks   

厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分

参考例句：

• a tin of pineapple chunks 一罐菠萝块
• Those chunks of meat are rather large—could you chop them up a bIt'smaller? 这些肉块相当大，还能再切小一点吗？