双语新闻：百胜餐饮集团的食品安全风波

2014-08-14 14:38:21来源：可可英语

　　But China’s systemic food safety failures aren’t without precedent: if you go back a century,Britain and the U.S. overcame the same abysmal food records.

　　不过，类似中国这样系统性的食品安全问题并非没有先例：早在一个世纪以前，英国和美国也曾遭遇过同样糟糕的食品安全问题。

　　Britain’s rapid urbanization in the 1800s meant getting food into cities took precedent overquestions of whether the stuff was fit for consumption. Britain also went through its own milkscandal linked to infant deaths in the early 1900s. At the same time, U.S. writer Upton Sinclairshed light on the grim practices in Chicago’s meatpacking district supporting the country’sskyrocketing meat consumption and meat exports—reports that led to Europe occasionallybanning U.S. meat and enacting burdensome inspection standards.

　　十九世纪，英国的快速城市化，意味着食物能否进入城市，比是否适合消费更加重要。此外，二十世纪初，英国也经历过造成婴儿死亡的牛奶丑闻。与此同时，美国作家厄普顿o辛克莱揭露了芝加哥肉类加工业令人毛骨悚然的做法。当时，芝加哥的肉类加工业支撑着美国急速上涨的肉类消耗和出口。辛克莱的报告导致欧洲不定期禁止进口美国肉类，并且制定了繁琐的检验标准。

　　The latest scandal in China in many ways closely follows previous scandals there, maybe mostclosely with the “pork powder” incident in 2011. Then, Chinese journalists exposed theroutine addition of previously banned additives clenbuterol and ractopamine by China’slargest pork producer. It was a case of local managers acting in their own self-interest insteadof the interests of their customers. Managers from the local subsidiary, inspectors, farmersand traders were all in on the scandal even through the company’s bosses had banned theadditives.

　　中国最近曝出的食品丑闻，在很多方面与之前的丑闻密切相关，其中，联系最密切的可能要属2011年的“瘦肉精”事件。当时媒体曝光了中国最大的猪肉生产商大量原料添加了之前被禁用的添加剂克伦特罗和雷托巴胺。在此事件中，地方管理者只考虑自身利益，而罔顾消费者的利益。虽然公司高层禁止使用上述添加剂，但地方分公司的管理人员、检验人员、农民和中间商依旧我行我素，最终酿成了丑闻。

　　At its core, food safety is about verification. Food companies must verify their suppliersaren’t cutting corners; restaurants must verify the food companies are upstanding; andgovernment regulators must verify that every step is followed.

　　食品安全的核心在于监督。食品公司必须检查供应商是否有投机取巧的行为;餐厅必须监督食品公司是否正直守法;政府监管部门必须监督企业是否遵守了每一个步骤。

　　In China today, each stage of verification is lacking. Large food processors find it difficult toverify that hogs and chickens from small farms across China are raised according to standards;restaurants like McDonald’s, KFC, Starbucks, and others aren’t doing enough to inspect thoseprocessors; and China’s food officials are so lacking in numbers that the government can’t itselfverify the steps.

　　在当今中国，每一个监督环节都存在缺失。大型食品加工商发现很难确认全国各地小农场供应的猪和鸡是否按照标准饲养;麦当劳、肯德基、星巴克(Starbucks)和其他餐厅则没有对食品加工商进行充分的监督;而中国食品监督官员人手不足，仅靠政府力量很难对所有步骤进行监督。

　　“If food safety were simply an engineering problem, the scientific discoveries and techniquesdeveloped over the past two centuries would shield consumers of China’s food from thehazards experienced by earlier generations,” wrote H. Frederick Gale and Dinghuan Hu of theU.S. Department of Agriculture and Wageningen University Office in China, in an academicpaper.

　　来自美国农业部(U.S. Department of Agriculture)和荷兰瓦赫宁根大学中国代表处(WageningenUniversity Office in China)的Ho弗雷德里克o盖尔与胡定寰在一份学术论文中写道：“如果食品安全只是一个简单的工程问题，那么，过去两个世纪的科学发现和技术，足以保护中国食品消费者避免前人经历过的危险。”

　　But food safety is about more than advanced science, say the researchers. “While China hasaccess to advanced laboratory and sanitation equipment, organizational improvements thatplayed an often-overlooked role in achieving food safety have been difficult to implement inChina.”

　　但两位研究者认为，食品安全不仅与先进科技有关。“虽然中国拥有先进的实验室和卫生设备，但中国很难对组织结构进行完善。在实现食品安全的过程中，完善组织结构所带来的作用，往往会被忽视。”

　　You could chalk it all up to China’s learning curve and conclude these are painful incidents thecountry has to experience after only opening its economy to the world 35 years ago. Exceptthat what goes on in China affects the world: China is the world’s largest exporter of seafood;more than 70% of apple juice imported by the U.S. comes from China; the country ranks in theworld top 10 of vegetable and fruit exports. In other words, what happens in the Chinese foodindustry is a direct concern for consumers around the world.

　　你可以将问题归咎于中国的学习曲线，认为这是在35年前经济对外开放之后，中国必须要经历的痛。但中国出现的问题也在影响着整个世界：中国是世界最大的海产品出口国;美国进口的苹果汁，超过70%来自中国;中国是世界十大蔬菜水果出口国之一。换言之，中国食品行业发生的问题，将直接引起全球消费者的担忧。

　　Meanwhile, the U.S. restaurants in China face uncertain prospects.

　　同时，美国餐厅在中国面临着不确定的前景。

本文关键字: 双语新闻百胜餐饮集团的食品安全风波