2021双语新闻 美食史的背后也是人类的进化史

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Changing the food we eat

美食史的背后也是人类的进化史

We truly are what we eat – and what our ancestors ate.

人如其食，也如其祖先食。

Food has changed who we are and how we developed for hundreds of thousands of years.

千百年来，食物改变了我们自己，也改变了我们的发展方式。

From processing to preserving to cooking, what humans did and continue to do to food played a big role in shaping our evolution.

从加工、保存到烹饪，人类曾经以及未来对待食物的方式在我们进化过程中发挥着重要作用。

“Processed food isn’t just a modern invention, created in factories from artificial ingredients. It is as old as humanity itself and may have helped create our species,”

“工厂使用人工配料生产的加工食品并不仅仅是个现代发明。它与人文学科本身一样古老，或许还有助于创造了我们这一物种，”

wrote Nicola Temple, author of Best Before: The Evolution and Future of Processed Food, for the BBC.

《最佳食用日期：加工食品的演变与未来》一书的作者妮古拉·坦普尔在为英国广播公司的撰文中如此写道。

Although processing is viewed negatively nowadays, it was important to our development as a species.

尽管加工食品如今被认为并不健康，但对我们物种的发展至关重要。

Processing doesn’t necessarily mean adding chemicals – it also includes pounding or slicing or changing the food in any way before eating.

加工并不一定意味着添加化学物质 —— 还包括了捣碎、切片等食用之前处理改变食物的任何一种方式。

Compared to our ancestors, modern human teeth, jaws¹ and faces have gotten smaller relative to overall skull² size because of making food easier to chew, especially from cooking.

和我们的祖先相比，现代人类的牙齿、颌部、面部相对于整个头盖骨尺寸而言变小了，因为我们令食物变得更易咀嚼，尤其是通过烹饪。

Cooking food was one of the biggest changes in human history.

烹饪食物是人类历史上的一大巨变。

Researchers believe it could have occurred between 1.8 million and 400,000 years ago, Harvard professor Richard Wrangham said, according to National Geographic³.

据《国家地理》杂志报道，哈佛大学教授理查德·兰厄姆表示，研究人员认为，距今180万至40万年前，烹饪食物开始出现。

Cooking increases the energy and nutrients⁴ we get from food.

烹饪使我们能从食物中获得更多能量与营养物质。

Without cooking, according to the BBC, an average person would have to eat around 5 kilos of raw food to survive – and we’d have to spend most of the day chewing.

英国广播公司报道称，如果不进行烹饪的话，一个人平均（每天）要吃约5公斤的生食才能生存，而且我们还要花上大半天的时间咀嚼食物。

Also, up to 50 percent of women who only eat raw foods develop a condition that signals that the body cannot support a pregnancy⁵ – a major problem from an evolutionary⁶ angle, according to Scientific American.

此外，据《科学美国人》杂志报道，在只吃生食的女性中，高达50%的人身体无法生育 —— 从进化的角度来看，这是一大问题。

Processing food led to a huge gain in leisure time.

加工食品大大增加了人们的闲暇时间。

The less time people spent chewing, the more time they had to develop complex oral language.

人们在咀嚼食物上花的时间越少，就能有越多的时间发展复杂的口语。

Cooking food also breaks down its cells, so our stomachs need to work less to absorb the nutrients our bodies require.

烹饪食物也分解了食物的细胞，我们的肠胃能更轻松地吸收身体所需的营养物质。

This, said Professor Peter Wheeler from Liverpool John Moores University, UK, “freed up energy which could then be used to power a larger brain. The increase in brain-size mirrors the reduction in the size of the gut⁷.”

英国利物浦约翰摩尔大学教授彼得·惠勒表示，这“腾出了能量，能够用于支持更大的脑容量。大脑增大，同时肠道也变小了。”

Processed food literally⁸ shaped us as a species and made us human – the only species on Earth who can cook.

加工食物的确塑造了我们这一物种，令我们成为了地球上唯一一个能够烹饪的物种 ——人类。

1 jaws   

n.口部；嘴

参考例句：

• The antelope could not escape the crocodile's gaping jaws. 那只羚羊无法从鱷鱼张开的大口中逃脱。
• The scored jaws of a vise help it bite the work. 台钳上有刻痕的虎钳牙帮助它紧咬住工件。

2 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

3 geographic   

adj.地理学的，地理的

参考例句：

• The city's success owes much to its geographic position. 这座城市的成功很大程度上归功于它的地理位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Environmental problems pay no heed to these geographic lines. 环境问题并不理会这些地理界限。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

4 nutrients   

n.（食品或化学品）营养物，营养品( nutrient的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a lack of essential nutrients 基本营养的缺乏
• Nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream. 营养素被吸收进血液。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

6 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。

7 gut   

n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏

参考例句：

• It is not always necessary to gut the fish prior to freezing.冷冻鱼之前并不总是需要先把内脏掏空。
• My immediate gut feeling was to refuse.我本能的直接反应是拒绝。

8 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。