About a year ago, I asked myself a question: "Knowing what I know, why am I not a vegetarian?" After all, I'm one of the green guys: I grew up with hippie parents in a log cabin. I started a site called TreeHugger -- I care about this stuff. I knew that eating a mere hamburger a day can increase my risk of dying by a third. Cruelty: I knew that the 10 billion animals we raise each year for meat are raised in factory farm conditions that we, hypocritically, wouldn't even consider for our own cats, dogs and other pets. Environmentally, meat, amazingly, causes more emissions than all of transportation combined: cars, trains, planes, buses, boats, all of it. And beef production uses 100 times the water that most vegetables do.
大約在一年以前, 我問自己一個問題: 「既然我知道這麼多環保概念, 我為什麼不吃素?」 畢竟,我可是支持綠能生活的人。 我的父母是嬉皮,我從小在木造的小屋裡長大, 我架設了一個「擁抱樹木(Treehugger)」的網站, 我關心這一類議題。 我知道,就算一天只吃一個漢堡, 也會讓我增加三分之一的死亡機率。 殘忍的事實是,我知道 人類每年飼養100億隻動物做為食物, 他們居住在類似工廠的農場裡, 我們絕對不會把我們的狗、 貓或其他寵物飼養在那種環境裡。 對環境來說, 動物所排放的氣體 比所有交通工具加起來還要多, 包括車子、火車、飛機、公車和船等。 生產牛肉所需要耗用的水量, 要比一般植物所需用水高上100倍。
I also knew that I'm not alone. We as a society are eating twice as much meat as we did in the 50s. So what was once the special little side treat now is the main, much more regular. So really, any of these angles should have been enough to convince me to go vegetarian. Yet, there I was -- chk, chk, chk -- tucking into a big old steak.
我知道我不是唯一吃肉的人, 現在的人 吃肉的份量, 是50年代的二倍。 以前視為很珍貴、只能提供一小盤的食物, 現在變成了主食,而且幾乎是每天的主食。 說真的,這麼多分析 都在告訴我們該改變自己成為素食者, 但是,我還在嗑..嗑..嗑.. 往嘴裡塞進一份大牛排。
So why was I stalling? I realized that what I was being pitched was a binary solution. It was either you're a meat eater or you're a vegetarian, and I guess I just wasn't quite ready. Imagine your last hamburger. (Laughter) So my common sense, my good intentions, were in conflict with my taste buds. And I'd commit to doing it later, and not surprisingly, later never came. Sound familiar?
我為什麼遲遲無法決定? 我發現我面對的是 一個二極的選擇, 要不做一個肉食主義者, 要不然就做個素食主義者。 但我覺得我還沒有準備好。 想想看你最近一次吃的那份漢堡。 (笑聲) 所以我的理智、 我的良心 都在和我的味蕾戰鬥, 所以我決定「以後」再吃素, 你也知道,「以後」就表示「永遠不會」, 對吧?
So I wondered, might there be a third solution? And I thought about it, and I came up with one. I've been doing it for the last year, and it's great. It's called weekday veg. The name says it all: Nothing with a face Monday through Friday. On the weekend, your choice. Simple. If you want to take it to the next level, remember, the major culprits in terms of environmental damage and health are red and processed meats. So you want to swap those out with some good, sustainably harvested fish. It's structured, so it ends up being simple to remember, and it's okay to break it here and there. After all, cutting five days a week is cutting 70 percent of your meat intake.
所以我在想, 有沒有第三種選擇? 我深入思考之後,讓我想到了一個方法, 我從去年就已經開始這麼做了,我覺得還不賴。 我把它叫做「上班日吃素」, 從名字就可以知道它的意思。 星期一到星期五不吃肉, 週末的時間自己決定。 很簡單吧! 如果你想要再更進一步, 請記得 對環境及健康破壞最深的 就是紅肉和加工肉品, 你可以用品質良好、 人工飼養的魚類來替代。 這樣做下來, 既簡單又好記。 你可以在週末的時候放鬆一下, 反正每週有五天不吃肉, 就可以減少百分之七十的肉類攝取。
The program has been great, weekday veg. My footprint's smaller, I'm lessening pollution, I feel better about the animals, I'm even saving money. Best of all, I'm healthier, I know that I'm going to live longer, and I've even lost a little weight.
「上班日吃素」這個方法還不錯, 我的腳步變輕盈了、 我減少了污染、 我覺得對得起動物、 還省了一些錢, 最好的是,我變得更健康了, 我知道我會活得更長壽, 而且還減少了一些體重。
So, please ask yourselves, for your health, for your pocketbook, for the environment, for the animals: What's stopping you from giving weekday veg a shot? After all, if all of us ate half as much meat, it would be like half of us were vegetarians.
所以,問問自己, 為了你的健康、 你的錢包、 環境、動物等著想, 你還有什麼理由不試一下「上班日吃素」? 畢竟,如果我們所有人 都能減少一半的肉類攝取量, 就好像有一半的人 在吃素一樣。
Thank you.
謝謝!
(Applause)
(掌聲)