Up to half of the food the world produces is never eaten. It is instead thrown away. Experts say food is wasted in both rich and poor countries, but for different reasons.
全球生产的食物中有多达一半没有被吃掉，而是被浪费掉了。专家表示，国家无论穷富都在浪费食物，但是原因却有所不同。
Elliot Woolley teaches about sustainable manufacturing at Loughborough University in Britain. He spoke at the Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing, held earlier this month in Vietnam.
埃利奥特·伍利（Elliot Woolley）在英国拉夫堡大学从事可持续生产方面的教学活动。他在本月初越南举行的全球可持续生产会议上做了发言。
Mr. Woolley says in poor countries, food is usually lost while it is still in the field or during storage and transportation. He says that is because food producers there are inefficient. These businesses are unable to operate effectively without wasting materials, time or energy. But he adds that once food is sold in developing countries, people usually eat everything they buy.
伍利先生表示，在贫穷国家，食物通常损失在田间或是储运过程中。他说，这些因为食品生产商效率低下。这些企业无法在不浪费材料、时间和能源的前提下有效地运作。但他补充说，食物在发展中国家一旦被售出，人们通常就会全部吃完。
However, people in the United States and other developed countries throw away as much as half of the food they purchase. The British researcher called this custom "a disgrace."
然而，美国和其它发达国家的人们扔掉了多达一半他们所购买的食物。伍利先生把这种习惯称之为耻辱。
Elliot Woolley has created a smartphone app that he says shows users what food they have bought and when the food is about to become unsafe to eat. It also gives information on how people can combine the foods they have to make a meal. The software program is called the "Pantry App."
伍利先生创建了一个智能手机应用程序，他说这个程序可以向用户展示他们已经购买了什么食物，什么时候这些食物即将会过期无法安全食用。它还教用户如何用这些他们已经购买的食物做一顿大餐。该软件程序被命名为Pantry App。
Mr. Woolley said that people who used the app reduced the amount of food they wasted by a third. But this result came from a limited experiment -- users only followed their food use for a week.
伍利先生表示，使用该应用程序的人们减少了三分之一的食物浪费量。但是这一结果源于一项有限的实验，用户只进行了一周的实验。
Jeremy Bonvoisin is a student at the Technical University of Berlin. He attended the recent conference in Vietnam. He said one way to solve the problem of wasted food is to take steps to persuade people to stop buying so much food in the first place. He said people buy more food than they need because it is becoming less costly. They waste so much food because they bought more than they needed.
杰里米·波瓦詹（Jeremy Bonvoisin）是柏林科技大学的一名学生。他参加了最近这次在越南举行的会议。他说，解决食物浪费问题的办法之一首先是采取措施说服人们不要一次购买这么多食物。他说人们购买超过自己所需的食物是因为这样会越来越便宜。他们浪费这么多食物是因为他们购买了超过自己所需的食物。
He says the new app could help those who already want to change the way they use the food they buy. But he is also worried that it could get people to waste more food because they no longer have to pay attention to how much they have bought.
他说，这款新的应用程序可以帮助那些希望改变自己购买食物的方式的人们。但他也担心这可能会让人们浪费更多食物，因为他们不再需要留意自己已经购买了多少食物。
I'm Bob Doughty.
我是鲍勃·道蒂。(51VOA.COM对本文翻译保留全部权利，未经授权请勿转载，违者必究！)