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The truth about how many chemicals are in everything we eat
食物中的化学物质
All foods - and everything else around us - are made up of chemicals, whether they occur in nature or are made in a lab.
我们周围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学物质组成的。
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.
那些常见于水果蔬菜里的化学物质，不论是自然生成的还是人工合成的都没有差别。（或者：关注化合物是人造的还是自然生成于果蔬中的，这没有任何意义。）在那些食物的色素和香精中本就有许多化学物，其中不乏名字又长又可怕的东西。
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 cinnamaldehyde.So, both artificial and natural flavours contain chemicals. The distinction between natural and artificial flavourings is the source of chemicals.
这意味着所有的味道都是由化学物质产生的。比如丁香般的香味，来源于一种叫丁香酚的化合物。而肉桂，一种树的干树皮，其香味来自肉桂醛。无论自然还是人造香精都有化学物质，而自然和人造的区别在于这些化学物质的来源。
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.
自然香精来源于诸如动物与植物之类可食用的物品，即使是通过实验室中制造的也是一样。
Artificial flavours come from anything that is inedible, such as petroleum, that is processed to create chemicals of flavourings.
人造香精来源于不可食用的物品，例如石油，能用来制造香精中的化合物。
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.
有些化学香精既可以来源于自然也可以来源于人造--制作过程会有不同，但最后的化合物是一样的。
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.
比如用于制作香草口味的香草醛。原本香草醛是来源于墨西哥的一种兰花，但这种纯净自然的化合物的提取工艺既繁琐又昂贵。因此科学家们发明了一种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年日本学者山本麻由发明了从牛粪中提取香草香精的方法。她因此在哈佛大学获得了搞笑诺贝尔奖。
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.
绝大多数人没有意识到自然香精中的化合物并不比人造的要少。例如草莓奶昔中的草莓香精，其中化学成分的种类和新鲜草莓相差无几。
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--这并非是那些我们从超市买的红葡萄或者绿葡萄。这就是葡萄口味的糖果和饮料呈紫色，以及超市买的葡萄和这种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.
许多人担心那些诸如味精的化学物加到食物里会有副作用。但味精导致的头疼，即所谓"中餐馆综合征"其实并不存在。研究者认为那些和中国菜有关的症状是摄入大量的盐所导致的。
译文属可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载
