垃圾食品折射社會(huì)等級(jí)

Ｊｏｈａｎｎ　Ｈａｒｉ

It has always seemed depressing to me that the people who claim to sympathise with the working classes have such contempt for their culinary habits. I saw a demo outside a McDonald's this summer that seemed to be based entirely on the fact that the food is "disgusting". Enough with the aesthetic arguments against junk food: plenty of people enjoy it, and to dismiss them all as thick or vulgar is offensive.

一些人自稱同情勞動(dòng)階級(jí)卻如此鄙視勞動(dòng)階級(jí)的飲食習(xí)慣，我常為此感到沮喪。今年夏天我看到一家麥當(dāng)勞門口的一個(gè)抗議活動(dòng)似乎完全基于這樣一個(gè)事實(shí)：這些食物“令人惡心”。受夠了從美學(xué)角度針對(duì)垃圾食品的爭(zhēng)論：很多人喜歡垃圾食品，如果因此認(rèn)為他們愚蠢或庸俗實(shí)屬冒犯。

If people want to abuse their own bodies, they should be free to do so. Smoking, drinking, over-eating, under-exercising? It's your own business - provided you are aware of the risks and you have genuine choices. It's the job of the government to make sure you understand what you're doing to yourself, and to make sure alternatives are available if you want to stop.

如果誰(shuí)想虐待自己的身體，他們大可以自行其便。抽煙、喝酒、暴食、懶于運(yùn)動(dòng)？這是你自己的事情——只要你知道其中的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，并且自愿做出這些選擇。使你明白自己在對(duì)自己干什么，確保如果你想停止下來(lái)的話，還有選擇的余地，這些都是政府的職責(zé)。

At first, the idea of the government warning you about the risks involved in a poor diet sounds patronising. Everybody knows non-stop kebabs are bad for you? But how many of us know that even a healthy sounding breakfast cereal can be as full of sugars and salts and fats as a quarter-pounder with cheese? How many of us know that fruit juices can often be more sugary and bad for you than a can of Coke? Tons of research shows that people often assume their diet is far more healthy than it actually is. That's what happens in a raw, unhindered market: unclear and even deceptive labelling.

起初，政府告誡你不良飲食會(huì)帶來(lái)不良后果，這聽上去似乎認(rèn)為我們都很無(wú)知。但誰(shuí)都知道無(wú)節(jié)制地吃烤肉串對(duì)你有害嗎？而我們當(dāng)中有多少人知道，一份聽上去有益健康的早餐麥片粥與四分之一磅的奶酪相比，它們的糖份、鹽份和脂肪的含量都一樣多呢？有多少人知道，與一罐可樂相比，果汁的含糖量通常更高，更不利于你的健康？大量研究結(jié)果顯示，人們通常認(rèn)為自己的飲食很健康，但事實(shí)并非如此。不規(guī)范的市場(chǎng)常常出現(xiàn)這樣的情況：產(chǎn)品的標(biāo)簽含糊甚至具有欺騙性。

This becomes clear when you look at specific examples from the real world. Class is the flabby elephant in the room in this discussion. All the research indicates that poor people are disproportionately fat, and it's not because they are somehow congenitally lazy or greedy. The reality is that many poor people are trapped in what sociologists call "food deserts". Since very few poor people have cars and most of them have kids who can't be dragged on 10-mile bus journeys with piles of shopping bags, they are dependent on the nearest food retailers. In disadvantaged areas, the nearest food store is usually a corner shop with no fresh food. The rise of out-of-town supermarkets has made these nutrition-free zones even larger and decent food even harder to get to.

當(dāng)你觀察到現(xiàn)實(shí)生活中的一些具體實(shí)例時(shí)，一切變得很明了。在這個(gè)討論中，等級(jí)的存在是眾目昭彰卻避而不談的事實(shí)。所有研究結(jié)果指出，窮人畸形肥胖不是因?yàn)樗麄兲焐贸詰凶?。事?shí)上是因?yàn)楹芏喔F人陷入了社會(huì)學(xué)家所謂的“食物沙漠”。因?yàn)橹挥猩贁?shù)窮人有車，而大部分窮人的孩子們都還太小，大人不方便提著大堆購(gòu)物袋帶著孩子乘坐公共汽車長(zhǎng)途顛簸，他們只好依賴最近的食品零售商。在欠發(fā)達(dá)地區(qū)，最近的食品商店通常是不能提供新鮮食物的坐落在角落里的小店。市外超市的出現(xiàn)使這些無(wú)營(yíng)養(yǎng)食品的覆蓋面更廣，人們更難獲得健康的食物。

I've seen this where many of my relatives live. If you can't afford a taxi back from the supermarket miles away, it's literally impossible to do any decent shopping; there just isn't any fresh food on sale within travelling distance, so you settle for stacks of frozen and tinned food from the local corner-shop. It's like being trapped in a sea of lard. You go and live there and try to stay thin.

我在很多親戚居住的地方見到過(guò)這樣的情況。如果你承擔(dān)不起從數(shù)英里以外的超市打車回家，那你的確無(wú)法進(jìn)行滿意的購(gòu)物；在一定路程內(nèi)，沒有任何新鮮食物可以提供，所以你只好滿足于角落小店里買來(lái)的成堆的冷凍食品和罐頭食品。這就像掉進(jìn)一個(gè)豬油溝，你前往那里，在那里生活，然后努力保持身材。

This is the old story of what happens when markets are not properly regulated: they screw the poor. How is that a meaningful form of libertarianism? In this instance, markets deny the choice of healthy food to the very people who need it most.

在市場(chǎng)沒有得到良好整頓的時(shí)候以下事情屢見不鮮：窮人受苦。這種“有意義的自由主義形式”你怎么看待？在這種情況下，市場(chǎng)使最需要健康食物的人們別無(wú)選擇。