食物中的化學物質

The truth about how many chemicals are in everything we eat

食物中的化學物質

All foods - and everything else around us - are made up of chemicals, whether they occur in nature or are made in a lab.

我們周圍所有的食物以及其它任何物品，都是由自然或者人工合成的化學物質組成的。

The idea that there is a difference between "natural" chemicals, like those found in fruits and vegetables, and the synthetic version of those chemicals is just a bad way of looking at the world. There are many chemicals in our food's natural flavours and colours. Some of them have long, scary-sounding names, too.

那些常見於水果蔬菜裏的化學物質，不論是自然生成的還是人工合成的都沒有差別。（或者：關注化合物是人造的還是自然生成於果蔬中的，這沒有任何意義。）在那些食物的色素和香精中本就有許多化學物，其中不乏名字又長又可怕的東西。

That means everything we smell or taste is a response to chemicals. The characteristic smell of cloves, for example, comes from one chemical called eugenol. And cinnamon, which is just the dried inner-bark of specific trees, gets its aroma and flavor from the compound , both Artificial and natural flavours contain chemicals. The distinction between natural and artificial flavourings is the source of chemicals.

這意味着所有的味道都是由化學物質產生的。比如丁香般的香味，來源於一種叫丁香酚的化合物。而肉桂，一種樹的幹樹皮，其香味來自肉桂醛。無論自然還是人造香精都有化學物質，而自然和人造的區別在於這些化學物質的來源。

Natural flavours are created from anything that can be eaten, like animals and vegetables, even if those edible things are processed in the lab to create flavourings.

自然香精來源於諸如動物與植物之類可食用的物品，即使是通過實驗室中製造的也是一樣。

Artificial flavours come from anything that is inedible, such as petroleum, that is processed to create chemicals of flavourings.

人造香精來源於不可食用的物品，例如石油，能用來製造香精中的化合物。

Sometimes a chemical flavouring could be made from either natural or artificial sources - the resulting molecule is the same, but the route to making it can be different.

有些化學香精既可以來源於自然也可以來源於人造--製作過程會有不同，但最後的化合物是一樣的。

The compound vanillin, for example, is responsible for the flavour and smell of vanilla. In nature, vanillin comes from an orchid native to Mexico. But the process of extracting this pure, natural chemical is extremely lengthy and expensive. So scientists found a way to make a synthetic version of vanillin in a lab.

比如用於製作香草口味的香草醛。原本香草醛是來源於墨西哥的一種蘭花，但這種純淨自然的化合物的提取工藝既繁瑣又昂貴。因此科學家們發明了一種人工合成香草醛的方法。

In 2006, Japanese researcher Mayu Yamamoto figured out how to extract vanillin from cow poop. She was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize at Harvard University for this development.

2006年日本學者山本麻由發明了從牛糞中提取香草香精的方法。她因此在哈佛大學獲得了搞笑諾貝爾獎。

Most people don't realise that there can be as many chemicals in a food's natural flavour as its artificial counterpart. The number of chemical ingredients used to make the artificial strawberry flavour in a fast food strawberry shake, for example, is similar, chemically to the number of chemicals in a fresh strawberry.

絕大多數人沒有意識到自然香精中的化合物並不比人造的要少。例如草莓奶昔中的草莓香精，其中化學成分的種類和新鮮草莓相差無幾。

Artificial grape flavour is derived from a chemical in concord (purple) grapes - not the red or green grapes we're used to buying in supermarkets. This is why artificial grape-flavoured things like candy and soft drinks are purple and why store-bought grapes taste nothing like this fake stuff.

人造葡萄香精源自康科德紫葡萄中的化合物--這並非是那些我們從超市買的紅葡萄或者綠葡萄。這就是葡萄口味的糖果和飲料呈紫色，以及超市買的葡萄和這種合成的口味完全不同的原因。

Many people worry about "chemicals" like MSG added to their foods. The link between headaches and MSG, called "Chinese restaurant syndrome," is just a myth. Researchers think that symptoms related to eating Chinese food are caused by high amounts of salt.

許多人擔心那些諸如味精的化學物加到食物裏會有副作用。但味精導致的頭疼，即所謂"中餐館綜合徵"其實並不存在。研究者認爲那些和中國菜有關的症狀是攝入大量的鹽所導致的。