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Our Taste for Flesh Has Exhausted the Earth
爱吃肉已经耗尽了地球的资源
Our earliest forebears trapped or hunted what meat they ate. When we learned to domesticate animals, we raised them on our land, or we roamed the land with our herds.
我们最早的祖先靠设置陷阱或捕猎获取肉食。当我们学会驯化动物时，我们在自己的土地上饲养它们，或者带着畜群在土地上游牧。
No matter which tribe we belonged to, whether farmers or pastoralists, our animals were our assets. We ate their flesh in small portions, and we ate almost every bit of them, especially the poorest among us. Guts, feet, heart.
无论我们属于哪个部落，无论是农民还是牧民，牲畜都是我们的资产。我们把它们的肉分成小块吃掉，尤其是最穷苦的人，把肉吃得几乎一点都不剩。内脏、脚、心脏都吃掉。
The Industrial Revolution changed meat. In the 19th century, refrigeration enabled meat to be trucked in from far away, or shipped from even further away, which eventually led to the razing of forests in places like Brazil.
工业革命改变了肉。在19世纪，冷藏技术使人们可以用卡车从远方运输肉，或者用轮船从更远的地方运输肉，这最终导致了巴西等地的森林被砍伐。
Production became more efficient. By the late 1940s, antibiotics became routine in chicken feed. By the late 1990s, genetically modified corn and soy brought bumper crops of animal feed.
生产变得更有效率。到1940年代末，在鸡饲料中加抗生素成为常规做法。到了1990年代末，转基因玉米和大豆带来了丰盛的动物饲料。
Animals were bred to be bigger and faster-growing. In the U.S., government subsidies helped: free groundwater, federally backed loans, price guarantees for feed crops. And meat went big.
动物被养育得更大、生长更快。在美国，政府补贴提供了以下帮助：免费的地下水、联邦政府支持的贷款、饲料作物的价格保证。于是肉类产业规模变大。
Today the $1 trillion global meat industry is dominated by a handful of corporations, including JBS, Cargill, and Tyson. Since 1961, meat production has quadrupled, dwarfing the growth in the human population, which merely doubled.
如今，价值1万亿美元的全球肉类行业由少数几家公司主导，包括巴西的肉食加工商JBS、嘉吉食品公司和泰森食品公司。自1961年以来，肉类产量已变为原来的四倍，人口增长与之相形见绌，仅变为原来的两倍。
Meat went from being special to being an everyday entitlement. The more we prospered, the more flesh we ate. China's meat consumption jumped sharply, from about 6.6 pounds per capita in 1961 to more than 140 pounds in 2021.
肉从特殊食品变成了日常应有的食品。我们生活越繁荣，吃的肉就越多。中国的肉类消费量急剧上升，从1961年的人均约6.6磅增加到2021年的人均140多磅。
But the United States became the lions of Planet Carnivore. On average, Americans went from eating around 207 pounds of meat in 1961 to 280 pounds, in 2021, and chicken came to dominate.
但美国成为了食肉动物星球上的狮子。平均而言，美国人的肉类消费量从1961年的约207磅增加到了2021年的280磅，其中鸡肉占据了主导地位。
It wasn't just chicken consumption that changed. It was the bird itself. Follow, as I have, a chicken truck to the slaughterhouse -- birds crammed into cages, feathers flying across the road -- and you realize how profoundly we have altered the nature of the animal.
不仅仅是鸡肉的消费发生了变化。鸡本身也发生了变化。如果你像我一样跟着运活禽的卡车去屠宰场----鸡被塞进笼子里，羽毛在路上飞得到处都是----你就会意识到我们多么深刻地改变了动物的本性。
Thanks to feed and breeding, an 8-week-old chicken today is about four times heavier than an 8-week-old chicken was 60 years ago. Their breasts are so large that they can have a hard time standing.
由于饲料和育种，如今一只8周大的鸡的体重是60年前一只8周大的鸡的体重的四倍左右。这些鸡的胸部太大，以至于它们站都站不住。
