吃什麼最健康 專家和你想的不一樣
We surveyed Americans and a panel of nutrition experts about which foods they thought were good or bad for you.
我們針對美國人和一組營養專家進行問卷調查，詢問他們覺得哪些食物對身體好，哪些不好。
Is popcorn good for you? What about pizza, orange juice or sushi? Or frozen yogurt, pork chops or quinoa?
爆米花對身體好嗎？披薩、橙汁或者壽司呢？冷凍酸奶、連骨豬排或藜麥怎麼樣？
Which foods are healthy? In principle, it’s a simple enough question, and a person who wishes to eat more healthily should reasonably expect to know which foods to choose at the supermarket and which to avoid.
哪些食物是健康的？原則上講，這是個很簡單的問題，希望吃得更健康的人應該會知道該在超市選什麼食物，避開什麼。
Unfortunately, the answer is anything but simple.
可惜答案絕沒那麼簡單。
The Food and Drug Administration recently agreed to review its standards for what foods can be called “healthy,” a move that highlights how much of our nutritional knowledge has changed in recent years – and how much remains unknown.
美國食品與藥品管理局(The Food and Drug Administration)最近同意重新審視它有關何爲“健康”食物的標準，這一舉措凸顯出我們的營養知識在最近幾年發生了多大的變化——以及還有多少是未知的。
With the Morning Consult, a media and polling firm, we surveyed hundreds of nutritionists – members of the American Society for Nutrition – asking them whether they thought certain food items (about 50) were healthy.
我們和媒體與民調公司晨間顧問(Morning Consult)一起對數百名營養學家——美國營養學會(American Society for Nutrition)的成員——做問卷調查，詢問他們是否認爲某種食物（約50種）是健康的。
The Morning Consult also surveyed a representative sample of the American electorate, asking the same thing.
晨間顧問也在美國選民中選取有代表性的人羣做問卷調查，向他們徵詢了同樣的問題。
The results suggest a surprising diversity of opinion, even among experts. Yes, some foods, like kale, apples and oatmeal, are considered “healthy” by nearly everyone. And some, like soda, french fries and chocolate chip cookies, are not. But in between, some foods appear to benefit from a positive public perception, while others befuddle the public and experts alike. (We’re looking at you, butter.)
結果顯示意見非常多樣，令人意外，即便在專家羣體內也是如此。沒錯，幾乎所有人都認爲羽衣甘藍、蘋果和燕麥等一些食物是“健康的”；汽水、炸薯條和巧克力曲奇則不是。但在介於二者之間的區域，一些食物似乎得益於正面的公衆觀念，而其他的則讓公衆和專家都感到困惑。（說的就是你，黃油。）
“Twenty years ago, I think we knew about 10 percent of what we need to know” about nutrition, said Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean of the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. “And now we know about 40 or 50 percent.”
有關營養，“20年前，我認爲我們知道大約10%我們需要知道的東西，”塔夫茨大學弗裏德曼營養科學與政策學院(Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University)院長達柳什·莫扎法裏安(Dariush Mozaffarian)說。“現在我們知道40%或50%。”
Here’s what we found.
以下是我們的發現。
Of the 52 common foods that we asked experts and the public to rate, none had a wider gap than granola bars. More than 70 percent of ordinary Americans we surveyed described it as healthy, but less than a third of nutritional experts did. A similar gap existed for granola, which less than half of nutritionists we surveyed described as healthy.
在我們請求專家和公衆評分的52種常見食物中，沒有什麼比燕麥棒獲得的評價差異更大。在參與調查的普通美國人中，有超過70%認爲它是健康的，但只有不到三分之一的營養專家也這麼想。對麥片的看法同樣存在這種巨大的差異，少於一半的受調查營養學家認爲它是健康的。
Several of the foods considered more healthful by everyday Americans than by experts, including frozen yogurt, a SlimFast shake andgranola bars, have something in common: They can contain a lot of added sugar. In May, the Food and Drug Administration announced a new template for nutrition labels, and one priority was to clearly distinguish between sugars that naturally occur in food and sugars that are added later to heighten flavors. (You’d be surprised how many foods contain added sugar.) It’s possible nutritionists know this, but the public still does not.
相比於專家，普通美國人認爲更健康的幾種食物——凍酸奶、速瘦(SlimFast)奶昔、燕麥棒等——有一些共同特徵：他們包含很多額外的糖分。今年5月，美國食品與藥品管理局宣佈了營養標示的新樣板，其中一項優先項是明確區分食物中自然產生的糖分和後來爲了加強口味而加入的糖分。（你會驚訝於有那麼多食物包含額外的糖。）有可能營養學家明白這一點，而公衆還不知道。
On the other end of the spectrum, several foods received a seal of approval from our expert panel but left nonexperts uncertain. Most surprising to us was the reaction to quinoa, a “superfood” grain so often praised as healthful that it has become the subject of satire. (At the moment, The New York Times cooking site offers 167 recipes for quinoa, roughly a third of which are explicitly tagged “healthy.”)
另一方面，有好幾種食物獲得了專家羣體的認可，但非專家羣體卻感覺未必。對我們來說最讓人吃驚的是對藜麥的反應，這種“超級食品”穀物如此頻繁地被讚揚爲有益健康的，以致它變成了諷刺的對象。（此刻，《紐約時報》美食頻道上提供了167種藜麥食譜，大約有三分之一都被明確標註爲“健康”。）
In addition, tofu, sushi, hummus, wine and shrimp were all rated as significantly more healthful by nutritionists than by the public. Why?
除此以外，營養專家給予豆腐、壽司、鷹嘴豆泥、紅酒、蝦的健康評分也比公衆的打分高出許多。爲什麼呢？
One reason may be that many of them are new foods in the mainstream American diet. Our colleague Neil Irwin measured mentions of trendy foods in Times coverage over the years, and found that quinoa had only recently picked up steam. Others may reflect mixed messages in press coverage of the healthfulness of foods. Shrimp was long maligned for its high rate of dietary cholesterol, though recent guidelines have changed. And public messages about the healthfulness of alcohol are conflicting: While moderate drinking appears to have some health benefits, more consumption can obviously have real health costs.
其中一個原因可能是它們中有許多是美國主流飲食中的新出現的食物。我們的同事尼爾·歐文(Neil Irwin)統計了《紐約時報》過去多年報道中提到流行食物的情況，發現藜麥的流行度是最近纔開始上升。其他的可能反映了媒體在報道食品健康程度時傳達的信息有些含混。因爲膳食膽固醇含量高，蝦長久以來一直被錯誤地看待，不過最近的飲食指南已經發生了變化。有關酒的健康程度的公衆信息相互矛盾：儘管適度飲酒似乎在一定程度上有益健康，但更多的飲用顯然會讓人付出實實在在的健康代價。
We weren’t surprised to find areas in which both ordinary Americans and experts disagreed.
不出所料的是，我們發現在有些領域，普通美國人和專家的意見並不一致。
We expect researchers to be better informed about current research, and everyday consumers to be more susceptible to the health claims of food marketers, even if the claims are somewhat dubious.
我們預料研究人員對目前的研究狀況會有更多瞭解，認爲普通消費者更容易受到食品賣家健康說法的影響，哪怕那些說法有點可疑。
But some of the foods in our survey split both the public and our panel of experts.
但我們調查的一些食物令公衆和專家羣體內部都產生了分歧。
Four of the foods listed above – steak, cheddar cheese, whole milkand pork chops – tend to have a lot of fat. And fat is a topic few experts can agree on. Years ago, the nutritional consensus was that fat, and particularly the saturated fat found in dairy and red meat, was bad for your heart. Newer studies are less clear, and many of the fights among nutritionists tend to be about the right amount of protein and fat in a healthy diet.
調查表中列出的食物有四種——牛排、切達乾酪、全脂奶和連骨豬排——似乎脂肪含量比較多。脂肪是一個很少能有專家意見一致的話題。多年前的營養共識是脂肪對心臟不好，尤其是奶製品和肉類中的飽和脂肪。更新一些的研究結論沒那麼清晰，營養學家之間的爭執點似乎在於健康飲食中蛋白質和脂肪的正確含量上。
The uncertainty about these foods, as expressed both by experts and ordinary Americans, reflects the haziness of the nutritional evidence about them. (If you’re a steak lover and you find this news discouraging, our colleague Aaron Carroll has written that red meat is probably fine in moderation.)
專家和普通美國人在這些食物問題上表現出的不確定性，反映出有關它們的營養學證據的模糊。（如果你是個牛排愛好者，你覺得這條消息令人沮喪，那我就告訴你，我們的同事阿倫·卡羅爾[Aaron Carroll]寫過，適度食用紅肉或許沒有問題。）
It’s clear that many shoppers do want to eat healthful foods but are unsure what to choose. To gain some perspective on this, we asked Google which foods were most commonly part of a simple search: “Is [blank] healthy?” We used these results to generate some of our survey questions. The food people were likeliest to ask about was also one nutritionists generally approve of: sushi.
顯然很多顧客的確想吃健康的食物，但他們不確定該選什麼。爲了在這方面獲得一些認知，我求助於谷歌(Google)，問該公司以下的簡單搜索中最常見的部分是什麼：“[空格]是健康的嗎？”我們用這些搜索結果設計了問卷中的一些問題。這些關心飲食的人最有可能問到的，也是營養學家普遍認可的一種食物，那就是壽司。
There are some areas of nutritional consensus. Nearly everyone agreed that oranges, apples, oatmeal and chicken could safely be described as healthy, and also agreed that chocolate chip cookies,bacon, white bread and soda could not.
有些領域存在營養方面的共識。幾乎所有人都同意，橙子、蘋果、燕麥和雞肉可以比較安全地被列爲健康食品，也同意巧克力曲奇、培根、白麪包和汽水則不是。
Where does this leave a well-meaning but occasionally confused shopper? Reassured, perhaps: Nutrition science is sometimes murky even to experts.
對一個動機良好但偶爾會感到困惑的消費者來說，這會帶來什麼影響？或許是安心：營養學有時甚至對專家來說都是含糊不清的。
Your overall diet probably matters a lot more than whether you follow rigid rules or eat just one “good” or “bad” food. Our colleague Aaron Carroll has published a list of common-sense rules for healthful eating, which represents a good start.
相比於你是否嚴格遵守飲食法則，或是否吃一種“好的”或“不好的”食物，你的整體飲食可能要重要得多。我的同事阿倫·卡羅爾列過一系列常識性的健康飲食法則，這代表一個不錯的開始。
We also asked our experts whether they considered their own diet healthful, and how they described it. Ninety-nine percent of nutritionists said their diet was very or somewhat healthy. The most popular special diet type was “Mediteranean”; 25 percent of our nutritionists picked it. But the most common answer, even for experts, was “no special rules or restrictions.”
我們也詢問了專家，他們是否認爲自己的飲食是健康的，以及他們會如何描述。99%的營養學家表示，自己的飲食非常或比較健康。最受歡迎的特殊飲食類型是“地中海式”；我們調查的營養學家有25%選了這種。但最常見的答案，哪怕對專家來說，也是“沒有特別的規則或限制。”
