評論
打印
Food politics in America
美國的食品政策
Popped
砰的出現
Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning). By Marion Nestle.
軟飲料策略：對付軟飲料（然后取得勝利）。作者馬里昂·奈斯特。
MARION NESTLE'S heavyweight polemic against Coca—Cola and PepsiCo comes at an odd moment for the industry. Americans are drinking fewer sugary sodas—in 2012 production was 23% below what it had been a decade earlier. Even sales of diet drinks are losing their fizz, as consumers question the merits of artificial sweeteners. From one angle, it would seem that health advocates such as Ms Nestle have won. Yet in America companies still produce 30 gallons of regular (not diet) fizzy drinks per person per year. In many countries, particularly developing ones, consumption is on the rise.
軟飲料工業正處不尷不尬之際，馬里昂?奈斯特對口可口可樂以及百事可樂的抨擊頗具影響力。越來越少的美國人選擇飲用含糖碳酸飲料—與十年前相比，2012年含糖碳酸飲料的生產減少了23%。人們甚至也失去了對膳食飲料的親睞，因為消費者們對飲料中是否添加人工甜味劑提出了質疑。從某個角度來看，像奈斯特女士這樣的健康倡導者似乎贏得了勝利。然而，美國軟飲料公司每年生產的常規碳酸飲料（而非膳食飲料）人均多達30加侖。在許多國家，尤其是發展中國家，常規碳酸飲料的消費仍呈上漲趨勢。
Ms Nestle, a professor at New York University, is both heartened by recent progress and dissatisfied with it. That is no surprise. Her first book, “Food Politics” (2002), remains a bible for those who bewail the power of food companies. In her new book she attacks the industry's most widely consumed, least healthy product. “Soda Politics”, she says, is a book “to inspire readers to action”. As a rallying cry, it is verbose. When readers learn on page 238 that she will pick up a particular subject in chapter 25, it is with no little dismay that they realise they are only on chapter 17. But what the author wants most is to craft a meticulous guide to the producers' alleged transgressions, and how to stop them.
對于最近取得的進展，奈斯特女士，這位紐約大學的教授頗受鼓舞，但并不滿足于此。這也不足為奇。她的第一本書“糧食政策”依舊被那些哀嘆食品企業權勢的人們奉為經典。在新書中，奈斯特女士對軟飲料行業消費最廣，最有害健康的產品進行了抨擊?！盾涳嬃喜呗浴愤@本書旨在激勵人們采取行動，奈斯特說到。然而作為戰斗口號，卻顯得頗為繁冗。讀者們在第238頁了解到奈斯特將在第25章講述一個特別的主題，卻意識到自己才看到第17章，但他們并沒有因此而沮喪。作者最想做的是擬定一份詳細的指南，指出生產商曾經的過失，并想方設法阻止他們的這種行為。
Ms Nestle says she would have no quibbles with sweet fizzy drinks if they were sipped occasionally, as a treat. However, for millions of people in many countries, they are not. In Mexico companies sold 372 cans of fizzy drinks per person in 2012. About half of Americans do not drink them regularly, but those who do are disproportionately poor, less educated, male, Hispanic or black. Ten per cent of Americans down more than four cans a day.
奈斯特說如果人們只是在吃飯招待的時候偶爾飲用加了甜味劑的碳酸飲料，她不會提出異議。但實際上許多國家，成千上萬的人們都在喝這種飲料。2012年，僅墨西哥人均消費的碳酸飲料就高達372罐。大約一半的美國人不會經常性地飲用碳酸飲料，但是那些選擇碳酸飲料的人多半是些窮困潦倒，未接受良好教育的西班牙或者黑人男性。百分之十的美國人平均每天要喝掉至少4罐碳酸飲料。
Drinking a lot of sweet fizzy drinks is plainly unhealthy. Unlike a Big Mac, they have no nutritional value; nor do their calories satisfy hunger. One large study found that for each can added to a person's daily diet, the risk of diabetes jumped by 22%. There are also links between sugar and heart disease, stroke and cancer. Drinking lots of sodas imposes clear costs on individuals, Ms Nestle argues, but it has a broader cost, too. American taxpayers subsidise corn production (and thereby corn syrup) and let the poor use government food vouchers to buy fizzy drinks. More important, taxpayers foot the health bill for those who develop chronic disease.
很顯然，過度飲用碳酸飲料對身體健康是有害的。與巨無霸不同的是，這些碳酸飲料毫無營養價值，它們產生的熱量也無法抵抗饑餓。一項大型研究表明，如果在日常飲食中加入碳酸飲料，那么人們罹患糖尿病的風險就會增加22%。心臟病，中風以及癌癥與過多的糖分攝入不無關系。奈斯特說，大量飲用碳酸飲料會增加個人開支，但實際上個人花費要遠大于此。美國的納稅人為玉米生產做出了貢獻（也就是為玉米糖漿的生產做出了貢獻），同時，他們讓窮人用政府提供的食品券來購買碳酸飲料。更重要的是，納稅人為那些罹患慢性疾病的人支付醫療帳單。
Encouraging people to drink fewer fizzy drinks, however, is fiendishly difficult. Soda companies spend billions on marketing; it is a tribute to the admen that Coca—Cola is one of the world's best—loved brands, despite selling what is essentially fattening sugar—water. (Think of Coca—Cola's encouragements to “open happiness” and PepsiCo's exuberant spokeswoman, Beyoncé Knowles.) Once people get used to consuming sugary drinks, they are loth to give them up. There is evidence suggesting that sugar is addictive—some laboratory animals prefer sugar to cocaine.
然而，鼓勵人們盡量少喝碳酸飲料卻出奇的難。碳酸飲料企業在營銷上花費巨資。盡管可口可樂售賣的實際上是令人增肥的糖水飲料，但可口可樂無疑是世界上最受消費者青睞的品牌之一。而這對于廣告人而言，是件可喜可賀的事情。（想想可口可樂頗具鼓動性的廣告語“開啟幸福”，百事可樂活力四射的代言人碧昂絲·諾利斯。）人們一旦習慣了消費含糖飲料，便很難戒掉。有證據表明食糖是會上癮的—與可卡因相比，實驗室的動物們更喜歡食糖。
Most interesting, fizzy—drink companies are skilled at swatting away attempts at regulation. Ms Nestle describes an extraordinarily broad team of allies. That includes obvious friends, such as employees, bottlers and distributors, as well as the restaurants, cinemas, shops and sports stadiums that sell their products. But the companies are also astute philanthropists. When Michael Bloomberg, then mayor of New York, tried to block the use of government vouchers to buy sodas in 2010, the congressional black caucus was among those to lobby against it. The caucus's foundation has received money from both Coke and Pepsi. In 2011 Philadelphia was considering a soda tax. After the soda lobby offered a big donation to the city's children's hospital, the idea fizzled out.
更有趣的是，碳酸飲料企業對規避規范化的嘗試頗有一套。奈斯特將其描述為一個非比尋常的龐大聯盟。很顯然，這個聯盟包括了這些企業的盟友們，比如雇員，瓶裝工，經銷商，那些出售他們商品的飯店，電影院，商店以及體育場。但這些碳酸飲料企業同時也是非常精明的慈善家。2010年，當時的紐約市市長邁克爾?布隆伯格試圖阻止人們用政府代金券購買碳酸飲料，但卻遭到了包括美國國會黑人同盟在內的多數人的反對。2011年，費城考慮是否要征收碳酸飲料稅，但在碳酸飲料游說集團出資捐助了一家當地的兒童醫院之后，這項提議未能實施。
Coca—Cola and PepsiCo do have a few notable adversaries. Mr Bloomberg, a billionaire, remains their single biggest foe. It is telling that in two rare instances when a soda tax has been passed—in Berkeley, California and in Mexico—it was with the help of cash from Mr Bloomberg. Drinks companies must also reckon with a small army of health advocates, among which Ms Nestle is a major—general.
可口可樂和百事可樂確實有一些頗為出名的對手。布隆伯格，這位億萬富翁是他們最大的對手。據說在兩個頗為罕見的通過征收碳酸飲料稅的例子中—一個是加利福尼亞的伯克利市，另一個是墨西哥—都是在布隆伯格的資金幫助下通過了碳酸飲料稅法案。飲料公司還得去對付那些以奈斯特為首的健康軍團。
With the slow decline of soda in America, she and her allies are advancing. Coca—Cola and PepsiCo are peddling healthier drinks, such as bottled water. However, as they try to face down a long—term threat while maintaining near—term profits, they are still pushing their syrupy fare.
隨著美國人慢慢地拒絕碳酸飲料，奈斯特和她的盟友們正向成功一步步邁進?？煽诳蓸泛桶偈驴蓸氛τ谕其N更健康的飲料，如瓶裝水。然而，他們仍舊努力推動碳酸飲料事業的發展，試圖在維持短期利潤的同時，努力克服長期以來的威脅。
Ms Nestle is impatient. To the casual reader, her suggestions can seem extreme. She writes enthusiastically about adorning soda cans with warning labels, such as pictures of a diabetic's foot ulcer. She suggests that parents should teach their children about fizzy drinks by gently boiling down a Coke or a Pepsi into sludge, which sounds rather fun, and asking them to calculate the precise length of grocery shelves bearing sodas, which sounds less so. This zeal threatens to overshadow her stronger points: fizzy drinks offer no nutritional benefit and impose clear costs—on individuals' health and on society.
奈斯特女士可沒那么好的耐心。對于一般的讀者，她給的建議似乎很極端。在書中她強烈建議碳酸飲料瓶上面必須貼有糖尿病患者腳部潰爛諸如此類的警示標志。她建議父母們在向孩子們介紹碳酸飲料時，將可口可樂和百事可樂說成是垃圾，這看上去頗為有趣，并要求孩子們去算算雜貨店擺滿碳酸飲料的貨架究竟有多長，這聽上去似乎沒那么好笑了。這份熱情讓斯耐特關于碳酸飲料的觀點顯得不那么重要了：碳酸飲料沒有任何營養價值，對個人的健康沒有好處，而且還增加了社會的負擔。
