為什么植物性肉類風靡一時

為什么植物性肉類風靡一時

There's never been a better time to cut meat out of your life or at least limit it significantly.

要從你的生活中去除肉類，沒有比現(xiàn)在更好的時候了，或者至少可以有效限制它。

There's a plethora of meat substitutes on the market, some more affordable than others, but all with a lower environmental impact than meat produced from cows and pigs. In the '90s, I was usually unable to find anything to eat at many restaurants aside from French fries or a salad. But the widespread acceptance and availability of tasty plant-based foods has been nothing short of a miracle.

市場上有大量的肉類替代品，有些比其他的更便宜，但都比牛和豬生產(chǎn)的肉對環(huán)境的影響更低。在90年代，我在很多餐廳除了炸薯條和沙拉外，通常找不到任何吃的東西。但是人們對美味的植物性食物的廣泛接受和可獲得性可以說是一個奇跡。

These tacos are made with jackfruit, one of a variety of base ingredients behind ever-more-popular plant-based meats. (Photo: shellygraphy/Shutterstock)

Meat consumption overall and per-capita is still rising as population increases, so actual reductions in meat-eating on a large scale have yet to happen. But more people seem concerned about eating less meat as the connections between industrial meat production and climate change have become more obvious. The long-term trend may be reduced meat eating — and the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated that trend. Nielsen reported that in the two-month period ending May 2, sales of alternative-meats in grocery stores increased by 264%.

隨著人口的增長，肉類的總消費量和人均消費量仍在上升，因此，肉類消費的實際大幅減少還沒有發(fā)生。但隨著工業(yè)化肉類生產(chǎn)與氣候變化之間的聯(lián)系變得越來越明顯，越來越多的人似乎擔心少吃肉。長期趨勢可能是減少吃肉，而冠狀病毒大流行加速了這一趨勢。尼爾森報告說，在截至5月2日的兩個月里，雜貨店里替代肉類的銷售額增加了264%。

That's in part due to the disturbing stories of meatpacking facilities closed because they're located in coronavirus hotspots. Nearly 60% of the employees at one Tyson plant in Iowa, and almost 50% at another tested positive for the virus. A pork plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is in another virus hotspot — and 5% of the nation's pork moved through that particular plant. At least 20 meat-processing plant workers have died from coronavirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The reason these numbers are so high is directly related to the work of slaughtering and processing animals, which makes physical distancing difficult for workers. Also, to keep industrial meat cheap, the working poor make up most of the employees of these plants, and they endure crowded living and transportation conditions — the perfect environment for coronavirus.

這部分是由于令人不安的故事，肉類加工廠關(guān)閉，因為他們位于冠狀病毒熱點地區(qū)。愛荷華州泰森食品公司一家工廠近60%的員工和另一家工廠近50%的員工被檢測出埃博拉病毒呈陽性。南達科他州蘇福爾斯的一家豬肉加工廠是另一個病毒高發(fā)區(qū)，全國5%的豬肉都是通過這家工廠運輸?shù)摹?jù)美國疾病控制與預(yù)防中心(CDC)稱，至少有20名肉類加工廠工人死于冠狀病毒。這些數(shù)字如此之高的原因與屠宰和加工動物的工作直接相關(guān)，這使得工作人員很難保持身體距離。此外，為了保持工業(yè)肉類價格低廉，這些工廠的大部分員工都是窮人，他們?nèi)淌苤鴵頂D的生活和交通條件——這是應(yīng)對冠狀病毒的完美環(huán)境。

Changing habits

改變習(xí)慣

Expectations about how animas that provide meat and dairy products should live are changing, too. (Photo: koi88/Shutterstock)

But the rise in consumption of alt-meats might have less to do with climate-change guilt and more to do with all the tasty alternatives that people have been buying during the pandemic. There are veggie-based cold-cuts (hard to tell the difference when they're stacked on a sandwich), mycoprotein chicken nuggets, tofu hot dogs, red-meat substitutes like Impossible Burgers that "bleed" heme (though I liked these better as meatballs than a burger, personally). And of course there's a variety of dairy-free cheeses in all kinds of tasty formulations, far beyond those mock American cheese slices. My favorites are made by Treeline, especially the soft spreadable cheeses, which layer beautifully with fresh veggies, pickles, and onions for a killer sandwich.

但是，人們對另類肉類消費的增加可能與氣候變化的罪責關(guān)系不大，更多的是與人們在流感大流行期間購買的所有美味替代品有關(guān)。有以素食為基礎(chǔ)的冷盤(放在三明治上很難分辨)、菌蛋白雞塊、豆腐熱狗，以及像“流血”血紅素的不可能的漢堡這樣的紅肉替代品(盡管我個人更喜歡這些肉丸而不是漢堡)。當然，在各種美味的配方中也有各種各樣的不含牛奶的奶酪，遠遠超過那些模仿的美國奶酪片。我最喜歡的是用Treeline做的，尤其是柔軟的奶酪，它可以和新鮮蔬菜、泡菜和洋蔥完美地搭配在一起，做成美味的三明治。

The growing popularity of plant-based foods is good news for the long-term. The coronavirus will have plenty of lasting negative impacts, but a very real, positive one could be a reduction in the greenhouse gases and the water pollution these operations produce. As Jonathan Safran Foer wrote in The New York Times, "Whether they become Whoppers or boutique grass-fed steaks, cows produce an enormous amount of greenhouse gas. If cows were a country, they would be the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world."

從長遠來看，植物性食品越來越受歡迎是個好消息。冠狀病毒會有很多持續(xù)的負面影響，但一個非常真實、積極的影響可能是減少溫室氣體和這些操作產(chǎn)生的水污染。正如喬納森·薩夫蘭·福爾在《紐約時報》上所寫的那樣，“無論牛變成了龐然大物還是食草的精品牛排，牛都會產(chǎn)生大量的溫室氣體。”如果奶牛是一個國家，它們將是世界上第三大溫室氣體排放國。”

It's interesting that as we've had more time to think about what we eat during our stay-at-home moment, vegetarian foods have gained popularity. That's good for our health, and the planet's. It's also good for the animals — not just the cows that are killed to make burgers, but wildlife as well. Ranchers notoriously shoot wolves, coyotes, and other predators when those animals do what comes naturally, which includes hunting cows if they're in their range, doubling the animal body count of that steak. And outside the United States, "Cattle ranching is the largest driver of deforestation in every Amazon country, accounting for 80% of current deforestation rates," according to Yale's Global Forest Atlas.

有趣的是，當我們有更多的時間來思考我們在家吃什么時，素食變得流行起來。這對我們的健康和地球的健康都有好處。這對動物也有好處——不僅僅是被殺來做漢堡的牛，還有野生動物。牧場主們以射殺狼、郊狼和其他食肉動物而臭名昭著，當這些動物做它們天生該做的事情時，包括在它們的活動范圍內(nèi)獵殺牛，這使得牛排的數(shù)量翻了一番。在美國之外，“畜牧業(yè)是所有亞馬遜國家森林砍伐的最大驅(qū)動力，占當前森林砍伐率的80%，”耶魯大學(xué)的全球森林地圖集顯示。

Only time will tell if this recent uptick in plant-based food buying continues, but here's hoping it does — especially for the world's children, who will inherit a planet transformed by human desire for a cheap burger.

只有時間才能告訴我們，最近植物性食品購買量的上升是否會繼續(xù)下去，但我們希望它會繼續(xù)下去——尤其是對世界上的兒童來說，他們將繼承一個被人類對廉價漢堡的渴望改變了的星球。