評論
打印
Changing the food we eat
美食史的背后也是人類的進化史
We truly are what we eat – and what our ancestors ate. Food has changed who we are and how we developed for hundreds of thousands of years. From processing to preserving to cooking, what humans did and continue to do to food played a big role in shaping our evolution.
人如其食，也如其祖先食。千百年來，食物改變了我們自己，也改變了我們的發展方式。從加工、保存到烹飪，人類曾經以及未來對待食物的方式在我們進化過程中發揮著重要作用。
“Processed food isn’t just a modern invention, created in factories from artificial ingredients. It is as old as humanity itself and may have helped create our species,” wrote Nicola Temple, author of Best Before: The Evolution and Future of Processed Food, for the BBC.
“工廠使用人工配料生產的加工食品并不僅僅是個現代發明。它與人文學科本身一樣古老，或許還有助于創造了我們這一物種，”《最佳食用日期：加工食品的演變與未來》一書的作者妮古拉·坦普爾在為英國廣播公司的撰文中如此寫道。
Although processing is viewed negatively nowadays, it was important to our development as a species. Processing doesn’t necessarily mean adding chemicals – it also includes pounding or slicing or changing the food in any way before eating. Compared to our ancestors, modern human teeth, jaws and faces have gotten smaller relative to overall skull size because of making food easier to chew, especially from cooking.
盡管加工食品如今被認為并不健康，但對我們物種的發展至關重要。加工并不一定意味著添加化學物質 —— 還包括了搗碎、切片等食用之前處理改變食物的任何一種方式。和我們的祖先相比，現代人類的牙齒、頜部、面部相對于整個頭蓋骨尺寸而言變小了，因為我們令食物變得更易咀嚼，尤其是通過烹飪。
Cooking food was one of the biggest changes in human history. Researchers believe it could have occurred between 1.8 million and 400,000 years ago, Harvard professor Richard Wrangham said, according to National Geographic. Cooking increases the energy and nutrients we get from food.
烹飪食物是人類歷史上的一大巨變。據《國家地理》雜志報道，哈佛大學教授理查德·蘭厄姆表示，研究人員認為，距今180萬至40萬年前，烹飪食物開始出現。烹飪使我們能從食物中獲得更多能量與營養物質。
Without cooking, according to the BBC, an average person would have to eat around 5 kilos of raw food to survive – and we’d have to spend most of the day chewing.
英國廣播公司報道稱，如果不進行烹飪的話，一個人平均（每天）要吃約5公斤的生食才能生存，而且我們還要花上大半天的時間咀嚼食物。
Also, up to 50 percent of women who only eat raw foods develop a condition that signals that the body cannot support a pregnancy – a major problem from an evolutionary angle, according to Scientific American.
此外，據《科學美國人》雜志報道，在只吃生食的女性中，高達50%的人身體無法生育 —— 從進化的角度來看，這是一大問題。
Processing food led to a huge gain in leisure time. The less time people spent chewing, the more time they had to develop complex oral language.
加工食品大大增加了人們的閑暇時間。人們在咀嚼食物上花的時間越少，就能有越多的時間發展復雜的口語。
Cooking food also breaks down its cells, so our stomachs need to work less to absorb the nutrients our bodies require. This, said Professor Peter Wheeler from Liverpool John Moores University, UK, “freed up energy which could then be used to power a larger brain. The increase in brain-size mirrors the reduction in the size of the gut.”
烹飪食物也分解了食物的細胞，我們的腸胃能更輕松地吸收身體所需的營養物質。英國利物浦約翰摩爾大學教授彼得·惠勒表示，這“騰出了能量，能夠用于支持更大的腦容量。大腦增大，同時腸道也變小了?！?/p>
Processed food literally shaped us as a species and made us human – the only species on Earth who can cook.
加工食物的確塑造了我們這一物種，令我們成為了地球上唯一一個能夠烹飪的物種 ——人類。
