英伦广角 2011-09-17 应对食品过期新对策

 Almost everything we eat has some kind of date on it, but how much attention do we really pay to the expiry?

 

"Yeah, sell-by date or use-by date, those are the only two that I gotta buy.."

 

"Going with your gut¹ on something and using even if they've passed their dates."

 

"If it's rotten, it's rotten, you throw it away. For some if you look that's okay, it’s not molded, then I ate it."

 

"But it says use-by, I will use it. Then if it's, you know, the smell is funny, I throw it away."

 

The government is trying to stop people wasting so much food by making the labels on packaging less confusing. So, out with the words sell-by and display until, instead, the new guidelines will suggest manufacturers stick with use-by or best before. It's estimated that UK households throw away 8.3 million tons of food and drink every year. And campaigners say that 60% of that could be avoided, saving families up to 50 pounds a month.

 

So we want to simplify this. So that you can see, when a food should be used by for food safety reasons if it's perishable², something like soft cheese or smoked fish, and then we want best before as alternative for foods start simply deteriorating³ quality.

 

The People's Supermarket in Central London was founded on the belief that many shops waste too much food. It even has its own kitchen to cook anything that's getting old to make sure it's not wasted and they try where possible to avoid showing any dates on food.

 

Now we are so conditioned as consumers to think about dates, numbers and so on. To take out display-by dates and sell-by dates which are there only for the supermarket's benefits, it's gonna do one thing, as I think, for the amount of food that gets chopped away.

 

And as the cost of living keeps on rising, the savings⁴ too, might be incentive⁵ enough to look beyond the date on the packaging.

 

Harriet Prest , Sky News, Central London.

1 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。

2 perishable   

adj.（尤指食物）易腐的，易坏的

参考例句：

• Many fresh foods are highly perishable.许多新鲜食物都极易腐败。
• Fruits are perishable in transit.水果在运送时容易腐烂。

3 deteriorating   

恶化，变坏( deteriorate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The weather conditions are deteriorating. 天气变得越来越糟。
• I was well aware of the bad morale and the deteriorating factories. 我很清楚，大家情绪低落，各个工厂越搞越坏。

4 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

5 incentive   

n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机

参考例句：

• Money is still a major incentive in most occupations.在许多职业中，钱仍是主要的鼓励因素。
• He hasn't much incentive to work hard.他没有努力工作的动机。