Steak, fried chicken, bacon, pork belly, and sausages are just the best things.

牛排、炸雞、培根、豬五花和香腸是最讚的食物。

Eating meat has become so trivial that many people don't consider something a proper meal if there's no animal involved.

吃肉本身已變得太過平凡，以至於很多人甚至認為沒有肉就不是完整的一餐。

Which is pretty amazing, since only a few decades ago, meat was a luxury product.

這其實蠻驚人的，畢竟數十年前肉還是種奢侈品，

Today you can get a cheeseburger for a dollar.

而現在，一美元就可以買到一個起司漢堡。

Paradoxically, meat is pretty much the most inefficient way of feeding humans.

矛盾的是，吃肉是餵飽人類最沒效率的方法。

If we look at it on a global scale, our meaty diet is literally eating up the planet.

如果從全球角度來看，吃肉的習慣正在吃垮整個星球。

Why is that and what can we do about it without giving up steak?

為何會如此呢？在不放棄肉食的情況下，我們又能做出什麼改善呢？

Humans keep a lot of animals for food currently about 23 billion chickens, 1.5 billion cattle and roughly 1 billion pigs and sheep.

為了吃，人類養了很多牲口，目前約有 230 億隻雞、15 億隻牛，以及各約 10 億隻豬和羊。

That's a lot of mouths to feed, so we've transformed Earth into a giant feeding ground.

有如此之多動物要養，我們將整個星球變成了一個巨大飼料箱。

83% of its farmland is used for livestock, for example, its pasture and to farm photo crops like corn and soy.

百分之 83 的農地被用於養牲口，例如，作為牧場或種植玉米、黃豆這類植物。

That's 26 percent of Earth's total land area.

而這相當於地球百分之 26 的土地。

If we include the water we need for these plants meat and dairy production accounts for 27% of global freshwater consumption.

如果將種植這些植物的水也算進去，製造肉類和乳製品的用水佔了全世界淡水消耗量的百分之 27。

Unfortunately, meat production is like a black hole for resources.

不幸的是，肉類製造就像資源黑洞。

Since animals are living things, most of their food is used to keep them alive while they grow their tasty parts.

因為動物有生命，大部分的食物主要用來讓他們活著，同時養肥出好吃的部位，

Only a fraction of the nutrients from photo crops end up in the meat we buy in the end.

只有小部分來自植物的營養最後會留在我們買的肉品中。

Cows, for example, convert only about 4% of the proteins and 3% of the calories of the plants we feed to them into beef.

以牛來說，牠們吃進去植物的營養只有百分之 4 的蛋白質和百分之 3 的熱量最後留在牛肉裡，

More than 97 percent of the calories are lost to us.

有百分之 97 的卡路里流失掉了。

To create 1kg of steak, a cow needs to eat up to 25 kilos of grain and uses up to 15,000 liters of water.

為製造一公斤牛排，一隻牛至少要吃 25 公斤穀物，並用掉一萬五千公升水。

Animal products are guzzling up tons of food, but they only make up 18 percent of the calories humans eat.

動物食品吞噬了大量食物，但卻只佔人類攝取熱量的 18%。

According to projections, we could nourish an additional 3.5 billion people if we just ate the stuff we feed to animals.

據預估，如果直接吃飼養動物用的糧食，這夠額外 35 億人吃。

To make our favorite food group even more unsustainable, about 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans are created by the meat industry,

我們最愛的食物更加不永續的另一個因素是，人為排放溫室氣體中，有百分之 15 來自肉品產業，

as much as by all ships planes trucks and cars combined.

這與所有船、飛機、卡車和汽車加總的排放量一樣。

And there's another aspect to meat: it comes from actual living beings.

肉食還有另一層面：這些肉類來自活生生的生命。

Pigs cattle and chicken are not the ones writing the history books, but if they were, humans would appear as rampant genocidal maniacs that thrive on suffering

歷史課本不是由豬、牛或雞編寫的，但如果由牠們來撰寫，人類大概會被描述成吸食其他生物痛苦維生的殺戮瘋子。

Globally, we kill about 200 million animals every day, about 74 billion a year.

全球每天大約有一億七千六百萬隻動物被人類殺害，每年約有 740 億隻。

This means that every one and a half years, we kill more animals than people have lived in the entire 200,000 year history of humanity.

這意味著，每過一年半，人類就殺掉總數比人類二十萬年歷史裡生活過的人數還多的動物。

One could argue that we're doing them a favor, after all, they wouldn't exist without us.

有人會反駁人類是在幫助這些動物，畢竟沒有我們，牠們也不會存在。

We might eat them in the end, but we also provide food and shelter and the gift of existence to them.

雖然最後還是會吃掉牠們，但是我們給了牠們食物、住所和存在。

Unfortunately, we're not very nice gods.

不幸的是，人類不算是個好造物主。

A lot of our meat comes from factory farms. Huge industrial systems that house thousands of animals.

很多肉品來自工廠化養殖，能容納上千隻牲口的大型工業系統。

Engineered to be as efficient as possible, they have little regard for things like quality of life.

為了盡可能有效率地生產，這些工廠不太看重動物的生活品質。

Most pigs are raised in gigantic windowless sheds and never get to see the sun.

大部分豬都被圈養在大型無窗棚內，一輩子沒見過太陽。

Sows are kept in pens too small to turn around where they give birth to one litter of piglets after another, until it's their turn to be turned into bacon.

母豬被飼養在小到不能轉身的棚子裡，在裡面生出一窩窩小豬，直到自己被做成培根。

Dairy cows are forced to breathe continually to ensure their milk supply, but are separated from their calves hours after birth.

乳牛被迫不斷繁殖，以確保能提供源源不絕的牛奶，但小牛出生不過幾小時就會被帶離。

To fatten up beef cattle for slaughter, they're put in feedlots, confined pens where they can't roam and put on weight more quickly.

為了把牛養得夠胖，牛被塞進一格格的飼養棚，無法移動，以便快速增重。

To make it possible to keep them so tightly together without dying of diseases, the majority of antibiotics we use are for livestock, up to 80% in the US.

為避免牠們因為過度擁擠而死於傳染病，人類使用的抗生素有一半用在牲口，在美國更高達百分之 80。

Which helps in the short term, but also fuels antibiotic resistances.

短期內雖然有效，但也加速微生物發展抗藥性。

But the ones that may have got the worst deal are chickens.

最慘的非雞莫屬。

In factory farms, they're kept in such vast numbers and so close to each other that they can't form the social structures they have in nature.

在養殖場，因為一次養的數量太多，加上過度擁擠，牠們根本無法形成天然社會結構。

So they start attacking each other.

因此牠們開始互相攻擊，

To stop that, we cut their beaks and claws.

為阻止此情況，人類把雞的喙和爪子剪掉。

Male chickens are deemed worthless, since they can't lay eggs and are not suitable for meat production.

公的雞被視為毫無價值，因為他們無法產蛋，而且也不適合用來製成肉品，

So within minutes after birth, they're usually gassed and shredded and grinders.

所以在出生不到幾分鐘內，牠們就會被毒死和切碎了。

Several hundred million baby chickens are killed this way each year.

每年有數以億計的小雞因此而死。

Even if you had a personal score to settle with chickens, how we treat them is beyond broken.

就算人類對雞有什麼私仇，這種對待方式也已超越「正常」範疇了。

So better buy organic meat where animals are treated nicely, right?

所以，我們應該買動物友善有機食品，對吧？

Organic farming regulations are designed to grant animals a minimum of comfort.

有機飼養的規範保障動物享有最低限度的舒適，

The problem is that organic is an elastic term.

問題是「有機」本身就是一個很彈性的詞彙。

According to EU regulations, an organic hen still might share one square metre of space with five others.

根據歐盟規範，有機飼養的雞還是有可能要跟其他五隻共享一平方公尺的空間，

That's a long way off from happy farmyard chickens.

這跟快樂飼養雞差得可遠了。

Farms that sincerely do their best do exist, of course, but meat is still a business.

當然還是有盡力善待動物的農夫，但畜牧畢竟還是商業。

An organic label is a way to charge more money and countless scandals have revealed producers looking for ways to cheat the system

有機的名號可以讓商品賣得更貴，而且已發生過許多製造商試圖瞞天過海的醜聞了。

And while organic meat might be less cruel, it needs even more resources than conventional meat production.

雖然有機生產對動物較不殘忍，但比起傳統生產方式，這會耗費更多能源。

So buying organic is still preferable, but does not grant you moral absolution.

所以購買有機食品雖然是較好的選擇，但也無法保證絕對道德。

The truth is, if suffering were a resource, we would create billions of tons of it per year.

事實上，如果折磨是種資源，我們每年都能生產數十億噸。

The way we treat animals will probably be one of the things future generations will look down on in disgust.

我們對待動物的方式可能會成為後代因此鄙視我們的原因之一。

While all these things are true, something else is true too:

除以上事實之外，還有一點也是真的：

Steak is amazing; burgers are the best food; chicken wings taste great.

牛排很好吃、漢堡是最棒的食物、雞翅很可口。

Meat satisfies something buried deep in our little brain.

肉滿足了埋藏在我們腦袋深處的慾望。

We hardly ever see how our meat is made, we just eat it and love it.

我們幾乎看不到我們的肉是如何製作的，只會吃還有喜歡它。

It creates joy, it brings us together for family meals and barbecue parties.

肉類帶來快樂，在家庭聚會還有烤肉派對時將我們凝聚在一起。

Eating meat doesn't make you a bad person; not eating meat doesn't make you a good one.

吃肉不會讓你成為壞人，不吃肉也不會讓你成為好人。

Life is complicated and so is the world we've created.

生命很複雜，我們創造出的世界也是。

So how should we deal with the fact that meat is extremely unsustainable and a sort of horrible torture ?

那麼該如何應對肉類非常不永續，而且生產過程殘酷這個問題呢？

For now, the easiest option is opting out more often.

目前，最簡單的選擇是減少吃肉頻率。

Taking a meat-free day per week already makes a difference.

每週一天不吃肉就能帶來很大改變。

If you want to eat meat produced with less suffering, try to buy from trusted producers with a good track record, even if it costs more.

如果你想吃製造過程及不殘忍的肉類，試著跟有良好記錄的可信賴生產商購買，即便那裡價格較高。

To make an impact on the environment, go for chicken and pig rather than lamb and beef as they convert their feed more efficiently into meat.

為了環境，選擇雞肉、豬肉，而非羊和牛，因為其生產過程中耗費的資源較少。

And if you're going to have your steak you should eat it too.

如果想吃牛排，就吃吧。

An average American throws out nearly a pound of food per day, a lot of which is meat.

美國人平均每天扔掉近一磅食物，其中肉類居多。

In the future, science could get us clean meat.

在未來，科學可以讓我們吃到乾淨的肉。

Various startups have successfully grown meat in labs and are working on doing so on a commercial scale.

各種新創公司已經在實驗室成功培育出肉類，並正在努力將其商業化。

But solutions like this are still a few years away.

但是像這樣的解決方案還需要花上幾年的時間。

For now, enjoy your steak, but also respect it.

現在，請享用你的牛排，但也要尊重它。

And if you can, make it something special again.

如果可以，試著讓它再次變得特別吧。