不要再浪費糧食了! 全球9人中仍有1人在捱餓!

Despite the fact that we produce more than enough food to feed the entire world population, why is that one in every nine people are starving?

儘管我們產出的食物足夠滿足全世界人口的需求，但爲什麼仍有1/9的人吃不飽飯？

The answer is simple - we never learned not to waste food. No matter how many times, by how many different people, in how many different ways we are told, we never stopped wasting food. In fact, we devised new ways to do so.

答案很簡單--我們從來就沒有學會不浪費食物。不管我們被不同的人以不同的方式告知了不知多少次，我們從未停止浪費食物。事實上，我們還創造出了新的方法去浪費。

Roughly, one-third (1.3 million tons) of the total food produced, is lost or wasted every year.

粗略估計，全世界每年約有1/3的食物（約130萬噸）被損耗或浪費。

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations, if all the food wasted or lost in Latin America, Europe and Africa alone could be saved, it can feed approximately 800 million people.

據聯合國糧食農業組織的數據顯示，如果僅將拉美、歐洲和非洲被浪費掉的食物累積起來，大約能養活8億人口。

Be it rich or poor, every nation is wasting food indiscriminately.

無論貧富，每個國家都在任性的浪費着食物。

In developing countries, most of the loss occurs at early stages of food processing due to poor harvesting methods and bad storage and cooling facilities.

在發展中國家，由於落後的收割、儲存和冷藏方式，大多數浪費都發生在食品加工的初級階段。

For example, properly constructed grain silos can reduce the loss to rodents and insects from 20 percent to a mere 1-2 percent.

比如，合理建造糧倉，可以將穀物受齧齒和昆蟲類動物侵害的損失降低20%，或者只是1-2%。

Tomatoes, if transported in crates instead of burlaps, can be prevented from bruising.

再比如西紅柿，如果用板條箱運輸而不是用麻袋，可以避免碰傷。

In developed countries, most of the food loss occurs at the retail and consumer level.

而在發達國家，大多食物的浪費都發生在零售和消費環節。

The aesthetic standards set by organizations such as USDA (United States Department for Agriculture) are so ridiculous that much of the fruits and vegetables produced never see the inside of a store.

如美國農業部等部門發佈的審美標準是如此奇葩，以至於許多水果和蔬菜都還未進超市就被丟棄了。

Many stores have even stricter standards than the USDA's and even more produce is rejected.

有一些商店的標準比農業部的更爲嚴格，以至於更多的商品被浪費掉了。

Grocery stores also tend to overstock to nurse the impulse of shopping for buyers.

考慮到顧客的購物衝動，雜貨店也傾向於儲存更多的商品。

The fully loaded shelves, with colorful fruits and vegetables, attract more buyers than the half or almost empty ones. If there is only one head of broccoli left on the shelf, it's probably not good.

擺滿了貨物的貨架，玲琅滿目的果蔬，比只有一半的或者幾乎空着的貨架更有吸引力。如果上面只有一顆花菜，那極可能是次品。

A lot of packed food is either not bought or thrown out by consumers or the stores themselves because it has passed its sell-by or use-by date, which has nothing to do with food safety standards (as widely believed), but is a date guessed by the manufacturers, kept as tight as possible to bump-up their sales.

很多包裝食品也因爲過期未售出而被店家扔掉，或是過期未食用被消費者扔掉，而這與食品安全標準一點關係也沒有（被廣泛認同），然而據猜測保質期可能是與生產廠家有關，被用來以促進銷量。

Even when asked, stores do not donate the food that is close to or has passed its sell-by-date out of the fear of accidentally poisoning someone and ending up being sued.

即使被問及，商家也不會將臨近過期或者已過期的食品捐贈出去，因爲他們擔心可能引起食物中毒，最終被起訴。

The benefits of saving our environment and getting rid of malnutrition and starvation should be incentive enough to encourage people to eat ugly, yet perfectly healthy fruits, not be stuck on the expiration dates and to pick that last cucumber on the shelf.

保護環境、擺脫營養不良和飢餓的好處應當足夠能激勵人們去吃那些不好看但卻足夠健康的水果，而不是陷入保質期的怪圈，買走貨架上最後一根黃瓜。

It may not seem like a lot in the beginning but these small steps may go a long way in ending world hunger.

這些事情一開始看起來可能微不足道，但這些小小的改變卻能爲世界對抗飢餓做出巨大貢獻。