If I ask you what constitutes "bad" eating, the kind that leads to obesity¹ and a variety of connected diseases, you're likely to answer, "Salt, fat and sugar." This trilogy of evil has been drilled into us for decades, yet that's not an adequate answer.

如果我问你，什么构成“不良”饮食，你可能会回答那些导致肥胖和各种相关疾病的东西，“盐、脂肪和糖。”这个邪恶三剑客已经困扰我们几十年了。但这个答案并不充分。

We don't know everything about the dietary links to chronic² disease, but the best-qualified people argue that real food is more likely to promote health and less likely to cause disease than hyperprocessed food. And we can further refine that message: Minimally³ processed plants should dominate our diets. (This isn't just me saying this; the Institute of Medicine and the Department of Agriculture agree.)

我们对饮食和慢性病的关系还有很多不了解的地方，但是在这个问题上最有发言权的人说，相比经过高度加工的食品，真正的食物对健康更有利，不容易导致疾病。我们还可以进一步提炼这一要旨：我们的饮食主体，应该是经过极少加工的植物。（这话不只是我在说；美国国家医学院[Institute of Medicine]和农业部[Department of Agriculture]都是认同的。）

And yet we're in the middle of a public health emergency that isn't being taken seriously enough. We should make it a national priority to create two new programs, a research program to determine precisely⁴ what causes diet-related chronic illnesses (on top of the list is "Just how bad is sugar?"), and a program that will get this single, simple message across: Eat Real Food.

然而我们正在面临一个公共健康的紧急状况，并且没有给予足够的重视。我们应该设立两个新项目，这应该是国家的头等大事，一个是研究项目，要准确地判定是什么导致饮食相关的慢性病（其中最首要的问题是，“糖到底有多糟糕？”），另一个项目是要传播一个简单的讯息：吃真正的食物。

Real food solves the salt/fat/sugar problem. Yes, excess salt may cause or exacerbate⁵ high blood pressure, and lowering sodium⁶ intake⁷ in people with high blood pressure helps. But salt is only one of several risk factors in developing high blood pressure, and those who eat a diverse diet and few processed foods — which supply more than 80 percent of the sodium in typical American diets — need not worry about salt intake.

真正的食物能解决盐/脂肪/糖的问题。是的，过多的盐会导致或加剧高血压，减少钠的摄入对高血压人群是有益的。但盐只是导致高血压的几个风险因素之一，而且那些饮食种类多样、很少食用加工食品的人，不需要操心盐摄入的问题——典型的美式日常饮食中，80%以上的钠来自加工食品。

"Fat" is a loaded word and a complicated topic, and the jury is still out. Most naturally occurring fats are probably essential, but too much of some fats — and, again, it may be the industrially produced fats used in hyperprocessed foods — seems harmful. Eat real food and your fat intake will probably be fine.

“脂肪”是个含义丰富的词，也是个错综复杂的话题，至今仍悬而未决。多数自然产生的脂肪可能都是必要的，但某些类脂肪——同样，可能是那些高度加工的食品中使用的工业方法生产的脂肪——过多似乎是有害的。吃真正的食物，你的脂肪摄入大概就不会有问题。

"Sugar" has come to represent (or it should) the entire group of processed, nutritionally worthless caloric sweeteners, including table sugar, high fructose corn syrup⁸ and so-called healthy alternatives like agave syrup, brown rice syrup, reduced fruit juice and a dozen others.

“糖”已经成为（或者说应该成为）整整一类经加工、无营养、高热量的甜味料的代称，包括食糖、高果糖玉米糖浆以及一些号称健康的代糖，比如龙舌兰糖浆、糙米糖浆、浓缩果汁等等。

All appear to be damaging because they're added sugars, as opposed to naturally occurring ones, like those in actual fruit, which are not problematic. And although added fructose may be more harmful than the others, it could also be that those highly refined carbohydrates⁹ that our bodies rapidly break down to sugar — white bread, for example — are equally unhealthy. Again: These are hyperprocessed foods.

这些似乎都是有害的，因为它们是添加糖，和天然的糖不一样，比如，在真正的水果中的糖是没问题的。添加果糖可能比其他形式更糟，但是精制碳水化合物在体内可以迅速分解为糖，比如白面包，可能对健康一样没好处。同样：这些都是高度加工食品。

In sum: Sugar is not the enemy, or not the only enemy. The enemy is hyperprocessed food, including sugar.

总而言之：糖不是敌人，或者说不是唯一的敌人。真正的敌人是高度加工食品，包括糖。

In the United States — the world's most obese¹⁰ country — the most recent number for the annual cost of obesity is close to $200 billion. (Obesity-related costs are incalculable but could easily exceed $1 trillion annually¹¹. Wanna balance the budget? Eat real food.) The amount the National Institutes of Health expends¹² for obesity-related research is less than $1 billion annually, and there is no single large, convincing study (and no small study will do) that proposes to solve the underlying¹³ causes of obesity. If the solution were as simple as "salt, fat, sugar" or the increasingly absurd-sounding "calories in, calories out," surely we'd have made some progress by now.

在美国这个全球最肥胖的国度里，最新数据显示每年在肥胖问题上的花销达到2000亿美元（约合1.2万亿元人民币）。（肥胖相关的支出无法计算，但每年超过1万亿美元应该不成问题。想财政收支平衡？吃真正的食物。）国家医学院每年用在肥胖相关研究上的经费不到10亿美元，而且没有一个有说服力的大型研究（在这个问题上小型研究是没用的）能提出解决肥胖潜在成因的办法。如果解决方案就“盐、脂肪、糖”这么简单，或者是那个越听越荒唐的“卡路里进，卡路里出”(calories in, calories out)，我们现在应该已经有一些进展才对。

We know that eating real food is a general solution, but a large part of our dietary problems might stem from something as simple as the skyrocketing and almost unavoidable consumption of caloric sweeteners and/or hyperprocessed carbs, which are in 80 percent of our food products.

我们知道，吃真正的食物只是一个笼统的解决办法，但我们的饮食问题，可能在相当程度上是源于高热量甜味料和（或）高度加工碳水化合物的摄入，而这两者在我们的饮食中几乎是不可避免的，且摄入量在飞涨。在我们的食物产品中，有80%含有这些东西。

Or it could be those factors in tandem¹⁴ with others, like the degradation¹⁵ of our internal networks of bacteria, which in turn could be caused by the overuse of antibiotics¹⁶ or other environmental issues. Or it could be even more complex.

或者也有可能是和其他因素共同作用的，比如我们体内的细菌网络在退化，而这个问题本身可能是过量使用抗生素或其他环境问题造成的。或者可能比这还要更复杂。

The point is we need to know for certain, because until we have an actual smoking gun, it's difficult to persuade lawmakers to enact¹⁷ needed policies. (Smoking gun studies are difficult in the diet world, but throwing up our hands in the face of complexity¹⁸ serves the interests of processed-food pushers.) Look no further than the example of tobacco.

关键在于我们需要有确凿的了解，因为只有攥着如山的铁证，才有可能说服议员们去实施必要的政策。（在饮食的领域，寻找铁证是很困难的，但是如果我们被这些困难吓倒，那就是正中加工食品贩子下怀了。）这方面只需要看看烟草的前车之鉴。

Meanwhile, if we had to pick one target in the interim¹⁹, caloric sweeteners are unquestionably it; they're well correlated with weight gain (and their reduction equally well correlated with weight loss), Type 2 diabetes²⁰ and many other problems. How to limit the intake of sugar? A soda²¹ tax is a start, proper labeling would be helpful, and — quite possibly most important, because it's going to take us a generation or two to get out of this mess — restrictions²² on marketing²³ sweet "food" to children.

与此同时，如果我们在此期间一定要找一个目标，毫无疑问应该是高热量甜味剂；它们跟体重增加、II型糖尿病等等问题是有明显关联的（而减少摄入也明显和体重下降有关）。如何限制糖的摄入？首先可以征收汽水税，进行妥善标注也是有帮助的，此外还有限制向儿童推销甜的“食物”——这很有可能是最重要的，因为要走出这片泥沼需要一代甚至两代人的时间。

There's no reason to delay action on those kinds of moves. But let's get the science straight so that firm, convincing, sound, evenhanded recommendations can be made based on the best possible evidence. And meanwhile, let's also get the simple message straight: It's "Eat Real Food."

这些举措都没有理由再拖了。但是让我们先从科学入手，找到尽可能充分的证据，得出坚实、可信、明智、公正的建议。同时，我们还要明确传达一个要旨，那就是“吃真正的食物”。