Food Fight中英对照

I. Reading Task A

Pre-reading questions:

1.Have you heard of genetically engineered food? If yes, how?

2.Do you think it is a good thing or a bad thing? Why?

3.Do you know who are more interested in genetically engineered food?

一、阅读任务

预阅读问题：

1.你听说过转基因食品吗？如果听说过，是怎么听说的？

2.你认为这是一件好事还是坏事？为什么？

3.你知道谁对转基因食品更感兴趣吗？

Food Fight1

食物大战

1 The folks at McDonald's could not have expected an especially warm reception in France, but the manure in the parking lots still must have taken them by surprise. For the past three weeks it's been hard to visit a McDonald's anywhere in France without running the risk of encountering mountains of fresh manure —as well as not-so-fresh fruits and vegetables —dumped in front of the restaurants by protesting farmers.

在法国，麦当劳里的人们并不指望在法国受到特别热烈的欢迎，但停车场的粪便肯定还是让他们大吃一惊。在过去的三个星期里，去法国任何地方的麦当劳而不承担遇到堆积如山的新鲜粪便的风险是很难的——以及不那么新鲜的水果和蔬菜——被抗议的农民倾倒在餐馆前。

2 There's a lot about McDonald's that angers the farmers — its sameness, its blandness, the culinary hegemony it represents — yet at the outset the demonstrations were remarkably genteel, with protesters occupying restaurants and offering customers an alternative meal of baguettes stuffed with cheese or foie gras2. But lately things have turned nasty. Protesters are finding ever more to dislike about the uniquely American food — especially the very genes that make the McDonald's beef or bun or potato what it is.

麦当劳店的许多方面都让农场主们愤怒——它的雷同，它的毫无特色，以及它所代表的餐饮霸权。然而，开始时，示威还很温和，抗议者占领餐馆，给顾客提供一种里面塞着奶酪或鹅肝的面包作为替代食物。但后来情况就非常糟糕了。抗议者发现越来越不喜欢这种典型的美国食物，特别是使麦当劳的牛肉，小面包和土豆成为现在这个样子的基因。

3 Around the world people are taking a closer look at the genetic make-up of what they're eating —and growing uneasy with what they see. Over the past decade, genetically modified (GM) food3has become an increasingly common phenomenon as scientists have rewoven the genes of countless fruits and vegetables, turning everyday crops into uber-crops able to resist frost, withstand herbicides and even produce their own pesticides. In all, more than 4,500 GM plants have been tested, and at least 40 —including 13 varieties of corn, 11 varieties of tomatoes and four varieties of soybeans —have cleared government reviews4.

全世界的人们都在密切关注他们所食用食品的基因构成，并且对他们所看到的一切变得越来越不安。在刚刚过去的十年中，科学家们改变了无数蔬菜和水果的基因，把这些日常食用的作物变成了超级作物，能够防霜冻，抗除草剂，甚至本身就能杀虫，因此转基因食物已越来越成为普遍现象。在总共测试的4500多种转基因植物中，至少40种通过了政府复审，包括13种谷类，11种西红柿和4种大豆。

4 For biotech companies such as Monsanto, based in the U.S., and Novartis AG, based in Switzerland, the rise of GM technology has meant boom times. Sales of GM seeds rose in value from $7

5 million in 1995 to $1.5 billion last year, and the crops they produce are turning up not only on produce shelves but also in processed foods from cookies to potato chips to baby food.

对于一些生物科技公司，如生产基地位于美国的蒙生特公司和位于瑞士的那瓦特斯公司，基因技术的兴起意味繁荣时期的到来。基因作物种子售出的总值从1995年的七百五十万增加到去年的十亿五千万，并且他们生产的作物不仅出现在直接生产的产品中，而且出现在从饼干、薯条到婴儿食品的加工食品中。

5 But many people question whether it's a good idea for fallible human beings to go mucking about with the genes of other species. It's one thing if a scientific experiment goes wrong in a lab, they say, but something else entirely if it winds up on your dinner plate. To date, there's nothing to suggest that re-engineered plants have ever done anyone any harm. Nonetheless, the European Union has blocked the importation of some GM crops, and since 1997 has required that foods that contain engineered DNA must be labeled as such. Plenty of trade watchers in Washington see the European actions as one more tweak from an increasingly powerful E.U. no longer intimidated by U.S. economic might. While that may be, the fact remains that the U.S. Congress may address a labeling bill of its own later this year, and some private groups are threatening lawsuits to force the issue. Even without legal action, public opinion is turning a more skeptical eye on GM technology. "The farmers in France are right," observes Dennis Democrat from Cleveland, Ohio, who stumbled across the GM-food issue this year, and is turning it into something of a cause. "There's nothing more personal than food."

但是，许多人提出疑问，让容易犯错的人类摆弄其他物种的基因是否是个好主意。他们说，如果实验室里的科学实验做错了，那是一回事。但如果它最终出现在你的饭桌上，那又是另外一回事。到目前为止虽然还没有什么表明转基因植物对谁有什么害处，但不管怎么说，欧盟已停止进口一些转基因作物，并且从1997年就开始要求含有重组DNA的食物必须如实标注。许多华盛顿贸易观察家都看出，欧盟这一举动是日益强大的欧盟不再害怕美国经济威胁的又一次回击。也许是这样，但事实是美国国会今年晚些时候会制定他们自己的商标法案，而一些民间团体正在威胁要诉诸法律迫使制定这一法案。即使没有立法行为，舆论对转基因技术也持更加怀疑的态度。俄亥俄州克利夫兰的丹尼丝·德莫克利特说，“法国的农民是对的，没有什么比食物跟人类的关系更密切。”他今年碰到了转基因食物这件事，正把它当成一件事业来做。

6 If the outcry in France indeed portends global trouble, it's by no means clear whether it ought to. For all the controversy that GM technology is causing, the fact is that biotech companies have succeeded in dreaming up some extraordinary plants. Monsanto, which produces the hugely popular herbicide Roundup, has made just as big a hit with its line of genetically modified crops that are immune to the Roundup poison — thanks to a gene that company scientists tweezed out of the common petunia and knitted into their food plants. Other GM crops have been designed to include a few scraps of DNA from a common bacterium, rendering the plants toxic to leaf-chewing insects but not to humans.

如果说法国的抗议确实预示着全球性的麻烦，事情是不是应该如此，则完全不清楚。尽管转基因技术引起这些争论，事实是，一些生物科技公司已经成功地创造出一些奇异的植物。蒙生特公司生产了颇受大众欢迎的除草剂Roundup，他们的转基因作物的生产线也非常轰动，因为这种转基因作物对Roundup毒有免疫作用。这多亏了该公司的科学家，他们从普通的喇叭花中提取一种基因，并将这种基因编织进他们的食用作物中。设计的其他转基因作物，含有来自普通细菌的DNA成分，使作物对吃树叶的昆虫有毒而对人类无害。