为什么你今天要考虑食物浪费

为什么你今天要考虑食物浪费

The 29th of September is the first-ever International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste (IDAFLW). It was named as such last winter by the United Nations General Assembly, which simultaneously designated 2021 as the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables. IDAFLW is a mouthful of a name (and an acronym) for a day that is meant to inspire changes to our everyday actions at home in the kitchen, but we'll happily put up with that because the message is so important.

9月29日是第一个国际粮食损失和浪费意识日。去年冬天，联合国大会将2021年命名为“国际水果和蔬菜年”。IDAFLW是一个很长的名字(也是一个首字母缩写)，它的意思是激励我们改变家里厨房里的日常行为，但我们会很高兴地忍受，因为这个信息是如此重要。

A man looks for food in a dumpster in Bogotá, Colombia, in April 2020. VIEW press / Getty Images

Food waste is an enormous global problem. Non-profit organization Project Drawdown has said that if it were a standalone country, it would place third after the United States and China in terms of impact on global warming. Striving to reduce food waste is, to quote Project Drawdown's vice-president and research director Chad Frischmann, "one of the most important things we can do to reverse global warming."

食物浪费是一个巨大的全球性问题。非营利组织Project Drawdown表示，如果它是一个独立的国家，它对全球变暖的影响将排在美国和中国之后，位列第三。努力减少食物浪费，用Drawdown项目副总裁兼研究主任Chad Frischmann的话来说，“是我们逆转全球变暖所能做的最重要的事情之一。”

Estimates for how much food gets wasted range from 14% to 40% of total calories raised for human consumption, contributing 8% (or 3.3 gigatonnes) of global greenhouse gas emissions. Much of the waste occurs before food arrives at the grocery store, as it's moving through a vast and complex supply chain (a.k.a. the cold chain, explained in more detail here by Treehugger's Lloyd Alter).

据估计，食物浪费的总量占人类消耗的总热量的14%到40%，占全球温室气体排放的8%(33亿吨)。大部分的浪费发生在食物到达杂货店之前，因为它在一个巨大而复杂的供应链(又称冷链，这里由环保公司的劳埃德·奥尔特详细解释)中移动。

As part of its Sustainable Development Goals, the UN has said it wants to halve global food waste by 2030 at the retail and consumer levels and "reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses." Designating a special day to talk about and bring attention to this issue is part of its plan. An online event will take place on September 29, including presentations by various agriculture ministers and celebrity chefs.

联合国表示，作为其可持续发展目标的一部分，它希望到2030年在零售和消费层面将全球粮食浪费减少一半，并“减少生产和供应链上的粮食损失，包括收获后的损失。”指定一个特别的日子来讨论和关注这个问题是其计划的一部分。9月29日将举行网上活动，包括多位农业部长和名厨的演讲。

What Can We Do?

我们能做什么?

While ordinary citizens may not have the power to effect significant changes in the global food supply chain, we can do our part to fight food waste by making careful and conscientious choices in our own lives. Not buying more than we can eat, planning meals in advance, committing to eating leftovers, storing food properly, and learning how to preserve food are valuable skills that can go a long way toward cutting down on personal food waste (not to mention saving money).

虽然普通公民可能没有能力对全球食品供应链产生重大影响，但我们可以通过在自己的生活中做出谨慎和认真的选择，为抗击食品浪费尽自己的一份力量。不买我们吃不完的食物，提前规划餐，承诺吃剩饭剩菜,正确储存食物，并学习如何保存食物是有价值的技能，可以减少个人食物浪费(更不用说省钱)。

Choosing to buy perishable foods on a more regular basis and supporting local growers whose foods do not have to travel so far to your table (and thus are less likely to be wasted) are additional strategies.

选择定期购买易腐烂的食物，支持当地的种植者，他们的食物不用走那么远就能送到你的餐桌上(因此也就不太可能被浪费)，这些都是额外的策略。

You can find many more food waste-reducing tips at the NRDC's Save The Food campaign and Canada's equivalent, Love Food, Hate Waste.

你可以在自然资源保护委员会的“拯救食物运动”和加拿大的“爱食物，恨浪费”中找到更多减少食物浪费的小贴士。