如何阅读食品标签?散养?公平贸易?

如何阅读食品标签?散养?公平贸易?

These days, shopping for eggs or coffee can feel like an ethical dilemma. Organic? Cage-free? Fair trade?

如今，买鸡蛋或咖啡可能让人感到道德上的两难。有机吗?散养吗?公平贸易?

There are good reasons to care about where our food comes from. Agriculture has enormous consequences — it can cause deforestation, destroy habitat for wildlife, pollute rivers and release greenhouse gases. But can any of us reduce those problems by buying food with an eco-label?

我们有充分的理由关心我们的食物来自哪里。农业有巨大的后果，它会导致森林砍伐，破坏野生动物的栖息地，污染河流并释放温室气体。但是，我们当中有谁能通过购买贴有环保标签的食品来减少这些问题呢?

Life Kit is here to help. We won't tell you what to buy — many of these labels, such as organic, come with a higher price tag, and some certifications may accomplish things that aren't important to you. But we can explain how to read food labels, so you know what you're actually buying.

生活工具箱在这里帮助你。我们不会告诉你该买什么，很多这样的标签，比如有机的，都有一个更高的价格标签，一些认证可能会完成一些对你不重要的事情。但我们可以解释如何阅读食品标签，这样你就知道你实际上买了什么。

Here are a few tips to separate what's meaningful from mere marketing.

这里有一些技巧来区分什么是有意义的，什么是单纯的营销。

1. Organic. It's more than just a ban on pesticides.

有机的。这不仅仅是禁止使用杀虫剂。

Organic is the label with the most specific meaning, laid out in volumes of rules that farmers and food manufacturers have to follow if they want that "USDA Organic" seal.

有机食品是最具特殊含义的标签，农民和食品制造商如果想要获得“美国农业部有机食品”的认证，就必须遵守大量的规定。

Some of those rules are well-known. They include a ban on most industrially produced pesticides, weedkillers and fertilizers.

其中一些规则是众所周知的。其中包括禁止大多数工业生产的杀虫剂、除草剂和化肥。

Instead, organic farmers fertilize their fields with composted manure. They try to control insect pests and harmful fungi with natural predators, by rotating their crops or by using chemicals that exist in nature, such as copper. Growing grains, fruits and vegetables organically typically takes more work, and the fields typically produce a little less food, which is one reason that it's more expensive.

相反，有机农民用堆肥来施肥。他们通过轮作或使用自然界中存在的化学物质，如铜，来控制害虫和有害真菌。用有机方式种植谷物、水果和蔬菜通常需要更多的工作，而田地里通常只生产少量的食物，这就是有机种植成本更高的一个原因。

Organic farmers get audited every so often to make sure they're following the rules. Occasionally, cases of fraud come to light.

有机农业的农民经常被审查，以确保他们遵守规则。偶尔也会曝光欺诈案件。

2. Beware of ill-defined labels.

小心定义不清的标签。

Some labels, unlike organic, don't mean anything specific. It's easy for food companies to print the word "natural" on their products, because there's no legal standard that defines what it means.

一些标签，不像有机的，没有任何具体的意思。食品公司在他们的产品上印上“天然”这个词很容易，因为没有法律标准来定义它的含义。

The Food and Drug Administration has stated only that products carrying the "natural" label should not contain artificial colors or synthetic flavors.

美国食品和药物管理局只表示，带有“天然”标签的产品不应含有人工色素或合成香料。

3. Non-GMO is not organic.

非转基因生物不是有机的。

"I'm going to say, offhand, that [non-GMO] is probably my least favorite label," says Rebecca Thistlethwaite, who runs a program at Oregon State University, that helps young farmers figure out how to be successful.

丽贝卡•思韦特在俄勒冈州立大学经营着一个帮助年轻农民找到成功之道的项目。她说:“我会马上说，(非转基因)可能是我最不喜欢的标签。”

GMO, which stands for "genetically modified organism," refers to varieties of crops that have been genetically modified in the lab to make them easier for farmers to grow. Non-GMO means that the food does not contain any ingredients from such GMO crops.

GMO是“转基因生物”的缩写，指的是在实验室里进行了转基因以使农民更容易种植的各种作物。非转基因食品是指食品中不含任何来自转基因作物的成分。

Companies do it to differentiate themselves, even though their product is exactly the same as everything else on the shelf.

公司这样做是为了让自己与众不同，即使他们的产品和货架上的其他产品完全一样。

4. If you care about animal welfare, look for third-party certifications.

如果你关心动物福利，那就去找第三方认证吧。

The many different labels on animal products, such as eggs, can be especially confusing. So we asked Thistlethwaite to explain. "I used to raise 5.000 laying hens on pasture, and it was also certified organic. So I know quite a bit about this," she says, laughing.

动物产品(如鸡蛋)上的许多不同标签可能尤其令人困惑。所以我们请思韦特解释。“我曾经在牧场上饲养了5000只蛋鸡，它也被证明是有机的。所以我对这个很了解，”她笑着说。

Cage-free, she explains, simply means that the hens are not in individual cages. But they're still living inside a barn, not running around the countryside.

她解释说，散养只是意味着母鸡不在单独的笼子里。但是他们仍然住在谷仓里，而不是在乡村跑来跑去。

5. Fair trade gives small farmers a little more money and power.

公平贸易给了小农场主更多的钱和权力。

Fair trade is a common label on products like coffee or chocolate that typically come from countries where farmers are often poor. Kim Elena Ionescu, chief sustainability officer for the Specialty Coffee Association, explains that the fair trade certification guarantees a minimum price to coffee producers, which, most of the time, is higher than the market price.

公平贸易是咖啡或巧克力等产品的常见标签，这些产品通常来自农民通常很穷的国家。特种咖啡协会首席可持续发展官金·埃琳娜·伊涅斯库解释说，公平贸易认证保证了咖啡生产商的最低价格，在大多数情况下，最低价格高于市场价格。

But Ionescu also says that there are limits to what fair trade can accomplish and that no one should expect that fair trade by itself will lift entire communities out of poverty. "Poverty is so much more complicated than just a price for coffee," she says. "I mean, it's possible that that producer has a very small amount of land and there is no price high enough to make that tiny plot of land a viable economic support system for the family."

但伊涅斯库也说，公平贸易所能达到的效果是有限的，没有人应该指望公平贸易本身就能让整个社区摆脱贫困。“贫困比咖啡价格复杂得多，”她说。“我的意思是，那个生产者可能只有非常少的土地，而且没有足够高的价格使那一小块土地成为家庭可行的经济支持系统。”