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MIT is known for developing a lot of impressive technology.
麻省理工（MIT）在研发各种炫酷科技方面是出了名的厉害。
But hidden in the kitchen of MIT's Media Lab is, perhaps, my favorite MIT invention: the FoodCam.
不过，在他们所有的发明中，我最喜欢的或许要数躲在他们媒体实验室厨房里的一个东西：FoodCam。
Okay, so it may not look like much but it's actually quite brilliant.
好吧，它看起来确实没有很厉害，但它真的是非常巧妙的一大发明。
Let's say you have some leftover food.
打个比方，你剩了点儿东西。
You put it under the camera and you hit the button.
你只要把它放到那个FoodCam下面，按下这个按钮。
FoodCam posts a photo to Twitter, Slack, and a mailing list.
FoodCam就会自动在Twitter和Slack上发一张照片，还有自动发送邮件。
All with a simple message: Come and get it!
要表达的意思很简单；快来吃！
"It looks like a pretty good box of donuts." "Yes."
“这盒甜甜圈看着不错哎。”“是的。”
"It looks yummy under FoodCam." "It does."
“FoodCam把它拍得很好吃的样子。”“谁说不是呢？”
Getting the food can actually be pretty competitive.
但要想抢到手还挺不容易的。
"By the time we got here, just 30 seconds after it was placed,
“从它被放在这儿，到我们赶过来，前后也就30s的时间，
the whole building had swarmed and all the pizza was gone."
整栋楼都蜂拥过来了，所有的披萨都被抢光了。”
"There's a mad rush of people that come from, like, every entryway in here to get the pizza."
“大家都跟疯了一样从四面八方冲过来抢这个披萨。”
"So you got to kind of move pretty quickly."
“所以得动作相当快才能抢到。”
"Yeah, it's a game — it's like the Hunger Games."
“没错，这就是一场比拼，简直就是真人版的《饥饿游戏》。”
"Where...Where did you..."
“那……那你们在哪儿……”
Will and Jon invented the FoodCam all the way back in 1999.
威尔和乔恩早在1999年就发明了FoodCam。
This was before Facebook.
那时候还没有Facebook。
Before Gmail.
没有Gmail。
Before social media as we know it.
也没有我们现在知道的那些社交媒体。
The idea came from a building-wide leftovers problem.
这个想法原本是为了解决整个大楼的剩饭问题。
And in some ways, this simple invention gets at the big problem of food waste.
从某个角度来看，这项简单的发明也解决了食物浪费这一大问题。
"I mean that's sort of the serious part of what you have done, really, right?"
“那不就是你们一直致力于解决的那种重大问题嘛。”
"There is no doubt that this completely helped reduce food waste at the lab."
“毫无疑问，有了这一发明之后，实验室食物浪费掉问题有了明显的好转。”
"Almost all of the catering people know that if they have spare food from their event,
“现在，几乎所有人到这儿用餐的人都知道，有多余吃的的话，
they can just hit the button and people will consume that food.
只需按下按钮，就会有人过去帮他们把那些吃的解决掉。
And those are not even Media Lab events that are now fueling the FoodCam."
而且，现在在推动这个项目的已经不是媒体实验室了。”
"When we picture the stuff that's hurting our planet, what do we think of?
“如果让大家想想正在破坏我们的星球的东西，大家会想到什么？
We think of, like, smokestacks, cars, oil spills.
我们会想到烟囱，汽车，石油泄漏。
We don't really think about all the food we throw away."
但我们很少会想到被我们扔掉的那些食物。”
In the US, roughly 40% of the food we produce never gets eaten.
在美国，我们生产的食物有大约40%都没有被食用。
That's over 365 million pounds of food each day.
相当于每天有超过3.65亿磅的食物没有被食用。
While that's happening, about one in eight Americans still don't have a steady supply of food to their tables.
尽管如此，仍有大约1/8的美国人一日三餐没有保障。
And all of this wasted food is a huge contributor to climate change.
不仅如此，这些浪费掉的食物也是气候变化的一大帮凶。
"If global food waste were a country,
“如果全球的食物浪费也是一个国家，
it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, just behind China and the United States.
那它就是世界第三大温室气体排放国，排名仅次于中国和美国。
So it really is an enormous problem and one of the easiest ways to address climate change."
所以，食物浪费真的是一个非常严重的问题，但也是解决气候变化最简单的办法。”
It takes a ton of resources to produce food.
生产食物需要消耗大量的资源。
On top of that, you have all of the energy it takes to keep it cold and transport it around the country.
更重要的是，低温保存和运输也会消耗巨大的能量。
And when food decomposes, it isn't just stinky.
而且，食物腐烂的时候，不仅会变得臭气熏天。
It releases potent greenhouse gases.
还会释放大量的温室气体。
"Basically, we're trashing our planet to grow food that no one eats.
“说白了，我们以破坏我们的星球为代价种植出来的是根本就没吃到我们嘴里的食物。
But here's the thing: No one actually likes wasting food.
但问题是：没有人真的喜欢浪费食物。
It's just something that we haven't been paying much attention to."
我们只不过是没怎么关注这个问题。”
"Of all of the challenging problems out there,
“在我们面临的所有棘手的问题中，
reducing the amount of food we're wasting is one of the easiest."
减少食物浪费算得上是最容易解决的问题。”
In the US, consumers collectively make up the largest portion of food waste.
在美国，消费者这一群体构成了食物浪费主体的最大人群。
A family of four spends about $1,500 on food that they never eat.
一个四口之家每年浪费在他们最后并没有吃掉的食物上的钱为1500美元左右。
"Meat is less as a percentage of what we buy,
“在我们购买的所有商品中，肉类所占的比例是比较低的，
but when you consider it in particular, as a greenhouse gas intensive product,
但细细追究的话，由于肉类是一种温室气体密集型产品，
meat waste actually has the highest greenhouse gas impact."
肉类浪费对温室气体排放造成的影响其实是最大的。”
"And you don't have to be an expert to understand why food is going to waste in our homes.
“即便不是专家，大家也不难理解食物为什么会在我们家里被浪费掉。
We're all busy and on the go.
因为大家都很忙。
Sometimes I buy food without thinking, 'Do I really need that?'"
有时候买吃的我根本就没有过脑子，根本就没想‘我是否真的需要这个东西？’”
"There's even been a little bit of research to show that once something goes in the refrigerator it's actually worth less to us than before."
“甚至还有研究表明，一旦某个东西被我们买回家放进冰箱了，它在我们眼里的价值就会打折。”
"Researchers asked people how they would feel if they got home from the grocery store and dropped a carton of eggs."
“研究人员问大家如果他们在逛完超市回家的路上把一盒鸡蛋打碎了会是什么感觉。”
"And then they asked, well if your eggs sat in your refrigerator for six weeks and then you didn't use them, how would you feel about that?
“接着他们又问，如果他们把鸡蛋放在冰箱放了六周一直没吃，又会是什么感觉？
And people felt a lot less remorse.
后一种情况大家的懊悔感会减轻很多。
I think a lot of the waste in our society does come down to choice
在我看来，社会上的很多浪费其实都来源于选择，
and wanting to have the option to eat something at any time, whether or not we use it."
来源于我们想随时都能有东西吃，无论我们是否真的会吃。”
"Part of the reason we over-buy food is that we've got tons of space to store it in.
“我们之所以会多买食物，部分原因在于我们有很多空间可以存放食物。
Refrigerators have grown about 15% since the 1970s."
自1970年代以来，冰箱的容量增加了15%左右。”=
"One of the things we found in our research is that people are uncomfortable with white space when it comes to food.
“我们在研究中发现的问题之一就是在食物这个问题上，大家对空缺是很不习惯的。
So we love it in buildings, or in design,
我们喜欢在建筑里留白，在设计上留白，
but when it comes to food, we do not want to see empty space in our refrigerators, on our plates,
但到了食物面前，我们就不喜欢冰箱空空的，盘子空空的，
and so I really believe that in some subliminal way we're just filling everything.
所以，我真的觉得，我们会下意识地把所有东西都塞满。
And if we had smaller refrigerators, that let us see everything that was in there,
如果我们的冰箱比较小，而且从外面就能看见里面所有的东西的话，
that in itself would lead to quite a bit less waste in our homes."
我们家里的浪费就能少不少。”
