触目惊心！美国家庭每天共扔掉15万吨食品垃圾

American households toss out 150,000 tons of food each day — roughly a pound of food per person per day.

美国家庭每天共扔掉15万吨食品垃圾——这大约相当于每人每天要扔掉大约1磅（约合0.45公斤）的食物。

The waste was recently uncovered in a new report compiled by the US Department of Agriculture that noted most tossed food tended to be fruits and vegetables, and that the wasteful habit has a pretty sizable environmental toll.

最近，美国农业部的一份新报告指出，美国人扔掉的食物垃圾中大多数是水果和蔬菜。这种习惯性浪费对环境造成极大影响。

The volume of discarded food wastes what is equivalent to the yearly use of 30 million acres of land, alongside the use of 780 million pounds of pesticide, and 4.2 trillion gallons of water. The rotting food also emits methane as it disintegrates in landfills, adding the the atmosphere’s stock of greenhouse gases.

这些废弃的食物数量相当于每年要使用3000万英亩（约合1214万公顷）的土地种植，同时使用7.8亿磅（约合3.5亿公斤）杀虫剂和4.2万亿加仑（15.9万亿升）的水。腐烂的食物还会在垃圾填埋场分解时释放甲烷，增加了大气中温室气体的浓度。

The study was composed after researchers looked at eight years of food data to try and determine what sorts of food is wasted, and what sorts of behaviours Americans have during various meal times.

研究人员观察了8年的食物数据，尝试确定哪些食物是被浪费的，以及在不同的用餐时间，美国人会有哪些扔掉食物垃圾的行为。

The most wasteful of Americans tend to be those who are the healthiest, the researchers found, because those individuals tend to keep a diet high in perishable fruits and vegetables.

研究最后发现，最浪费的美国人往往是那些最健康的人。因为他们倾向选择食用易腐烂的水果和蔬菜。

“We need a simultaneous effort to increase food quality as well as reduce food waste,” Lisa Jahns, a nutritionist at the USDA, told the Guardian. “We need to put both of those things out.”

来自美国农业部的营养学家莉萨.杨斯在接受《卫报》采访时说：“我们需要同时努力提高食品质量和减少食物浪费，这两方面都不容忽视。”

“Consumers aren’t connecting the dots, [and] they don’t see the cost when they throw food in the trash,” Ms Jahns continued. “At the same time, we don’t want to undermine legitimate food safety concerns and we need to be aware it’s not just the cost of food that’s the issue. It’s the time and energy required to prepare and store food, which often isn’t a priority in a busy household.”

杨斯表示：“当消费者把食物丢进垃圾桶时，他们并没有意识到这些食物的成本，消费者是不会把这些事情联系起来的。同时，我们不是想低估食品安全问题，我们需要意识到这不仅仅是食品价格的问题。不过对于繁忙的家庭而言，花时间和精力准备和储藏食品并不是他们优先考虑的事情。”