第2758期:The science of making fruits and veggies last longer(1)

When you pick a piece of fruit off a tree, it's like a ticking time bomb. It's literally this living and breathing thing that's slowly cannibalizing its own stores of energy and nutrients, just trying to stay alive until it ultimately gets eaten by microbes or some other animal, like us. Have you ever wondered why that is and what could be done about it?↳当你从树上摘下一颗水果时，它就像一颗正在倒计时的定时炸弹。它实际上是一个还在“呼吸”的生命体，会慢慢吞噬自己储存的能量和养分，只为了尽可能维持生存，直到最终被微生物或其他动物（比如我们人类）吃掉。你有没有想过这是为什么？以及对此能做些什么？

My journey in trying to figure that out started in the spring of 2013. I'm finishing up my postdoctoral research in chemistry at the University of Santa Barbara, California. And all that really means is I’m a huge nerd and I've been in school for way too long. And I'm trying to figure out how to put all that training to meaningful use. So two of my lab mates, James Rogers and Louis Perez, invite me to dinner. But it turns out to be a pitch disguised as dinner, and they opened by totally flooring me with some staggering stats.我试图弄清这个问题的旅程开始于2013年春天。那时我正在加州圣塔芭芭拉大学完成化学博士后的研究。说白了，就是我这个超级书呆子在学校里待得太久了，现在在思考如何把这些年接受的训练用在真正有意义的事情上。于是，我的两个实验室伙伴詹姆斯·罗杰斯和路易斯·佩雷斯邀请我共进晚餐。但事实证明，那顿饭其实是伪装成晚餐的“推销会”，而他们一开口就用一些惊人的数据震撼了我。

A third of the food that we produce worldwide is lost or wasted before it ever has a chance to be eaten. For fresh fruits and vegetables, that number is a half. And waste is a problem at every single step of the supply chain. From the farm, trying to get it to market, in stores, restaurants and in our homes. And it's not just a waste of the food. It's a waste of the land, water, fertilizers, labor, energy, fuel, packaging and money out of farmers' and our pockets. If global food waste was a country, it'd be the third-highest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the US.↳全球所生产的食物中，有三分之一在被吃掉之前就已经损失或浪费了。而在新鲜水果和蔬菜方面，这个比例更是高达二分之一。而浪费的问题存在于供应链的每一个环节：从农场，到运输市场，再到商店、餐厅，甚至是我们的家庭。而这不仅仅是食物的浪费，更是土地、水资源、化肥、劳动力、能源、燃料、包装，以及农民和我们自己口袋里的金钱的浪费。如果把全球食物浪费看作一个国家，那么它的温室气体排放量将位居世界第三，仅次于中国和美国。

For decades, all around the world, we've relied heavily on a surprisingly small number of ways to help fruits and vegetables last longer after harvest. These have gotten us a really long way, but they also have their challenges. Refrigeration is a massive energy suck, a significant source of emissions, and it's expensive. It's unfortunately why a lot of places around the world don't have access to refrigeration. Designer pesticides aren't great for our long-term health or the environment. Waxes, some can be plant-based, but a lot of them are also animal-derived or petroleum-derived, and they help make produce look better but not really meaningfully extend their life and quality. And packaging, that's just adding to our problems with single-use plastics and microplastics.几十年来，全世界主要依赖数量极少的几种方法来延长水果和蔬菜的保鲜期。这些方法确实在一定程度上帮助了我们，但也带来了挑战。冷藏消耗巨大的能源，是温室气体的重要排放源，而且成本高昂，这也是为什么世界上很多地方至今无法普及冷藏。至于人工合成的农药，对人类的长期健康和环境都并不友好。蜡涂层方面，有些是植物基的，但更多是动物性或石油提取的，它们能让农产品外观看起来更好，却不能真正有效地延长其保质期和品质。而包装，则让一次性塑料和微塑料的问题更加严重。