第1537期:Why some vegetarian foods imitate meat

The veggie burger: this humble non-meat burger substitute is a staple of many a vegetarian meal. Though vegetarianism has a long history that reaches as far back as Egyptian times, and while many a vegetable-only stand-in patty is likely to have been used in the interim, the term veggie burger is commonly attributed to a Gregory Sams of London, who in 1982 created the 'Vegeburger'.

素食汉堡：这种不起眼的非肉类汉堡替代品是许多素食餐的主食。尽管素食主义有着悠久的历史，可以追溯到埃及时代，虽然在此期间可能已经使用了许多纯蔬菜替代肉饼，但素食汉堡一词通常归因于伦敦的 Gregory Sams，他在 1982 年创造了“素食汉堡”。

So what is a veggie burger? Well, a hamburger is a meat patty between two halves of a bun. A veggie burger is similar, except the patty is a meat-free equivalent, commonly made from ingredients such as beans, tofu, nuts, grains and mushrooms. In many cases, the differences between the meat patty and vegetarian surrogate are clear, but Impossible Foods of Silicon Valley hope to put an end to that.

那么什么是素食汉堡？嗯，汉堡包是两个半面包之间的肉饼。素食汉堡与此类似，只是肉饼是不含肉的，通常由豆类、豆腐、坚果、谷物和蘑菇等成分制成。在许多情况下，肉饼和素食替代品之间的区别是显而易见的，但硅谷的 Impossible Foods 希望结束这种情况。

The Impossible burger is made of a plant-based iron-containing molecule that resembles blood. It's called 'heme' and it's a key ingredient in their wheat, coconut and potato-based meat duplicate. It apparently looks, smells and even bleeds like meat – but it's grown in a lab using biochemistry. This replicated burger is indistinguishable from meat 47% of the time in tests conducted among meat lovers, Impossible claims.

Impossible burger 由一种类似于血液的植物基含铁分子制成。它被称为“血红素”，是他们的小麦、椰子和马铃薯肉类复制品中的关键成分。它显然看起来、闻起来甚至像肉一样流血——但它是在实验室使用生物化学方法培育出来的。Impossible 声称，在肉类爱好者进行的测试中，这种复制的汉堡在 47% 的情况下与肉类无法区分。

There are many non-meat alternatives that are designed to closely imitate meat and many non-vegetarians might wonder why.  Marketing is one good reason: faux-meat products appeal to meat-lover and vegetarian alike due to their alleged health benefits. If you can have the food you love at a lower health cost, why wouldn't you?  

有许多非肉类替代品旨在密切模仿肉类，许多非素食者可能想知道为什么。营销是一个很好的理由：人造肉制品因其所谓的健康益处而吸引了肉食爱好者和素食者。如果你能以更低的健康成本吃到你喜欢的食物，你为什么不呢？

Another reason is more ethical. Many people stop eating meat for moral reasons rather than dietary ones. They may seek to reduce animal suffering by boycotting meat products or wish to reduce the meat industry's large environmental impact. Livestock production is responsible for 18% of total greenhouse gases, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). However, they may still miss the taste of meat. Therefore pseudo-meat is a nice fill-in.

另一个原因是更道德。许多人出于道德原因而不是饮食原因停止吃肉。他们可能会寻求通过抵制肉制品来减少动物的痛苦，或者希望减少肉类行业对环境的巨大影响。根据联合国粮食及农业组织（FAO）的数据，畜牧生产占温室气体总量的 18%。然而，他们可能仍然怀念肉的味道。因此，伪肉是一个很好的填充物。

Finally, "there are associated feelings and memories that go with certain foods," says Thomas Banks, BBC Learning English producer and 15-year vegetarian. "I didn't grow up a vegetarian and sometimes I miss my family's cooking. Replica meat allows me to have a good home-cooked meal that's just like mum used to make." Who can argue with that?

最后，“某些食物会产生相关的感受和记忆，”BBC 学习英语制作人、从事 15 年素食工作的托马斯班克斯说。“我从小不是吃素的，有时我会想念家人做的菜。仿肉让我能吃到像妈妈以前做的一样美味的家常菜。”谁能与之争辩？

词汇表

substitute 替代物
stand-in 顶替品
similar 相似的
equivalent 等同（的东西）
surrogate 替代的
resemble 看起来像，与…相似
duplicate 复制品
replicated 被复制的
indistinguishable 难以分辨的
alternative 供选择的物品
imitate 模仿
faux 假的
pseudo-（前缀）假的
fill-in 代替者
replica 仿造的