Stew1 Your Meat
宋德富选注
Many food authorities now carry out rigorous2 tests on foods containing additives3 But are they, in fact, ignoring poisons which are present in our food naturally?
In 1986 experiments were carried out on schoolchildren in the USA. Those who ate additive-free food4 achieved an 11 percent improvement in their performance in aptitude test5. Those who ate food containing additives showed only a 3 percent improvement.
Tests like this confirmed fears that many people had, that man-made chemicals used as flavouring and preservatives may be harmful6. As a result many government authorities carry out rigorous tests on additives.
However, Dr Robert J. Scheulein, a representative of ‘the US Food and Drug Administration', has put forward another viewpoint. The average American diet8 consists of 0.1 percent cancer-causing substances9 and he claims that a large proportion of these come from so called natural substances. An average day's protein, he says, can be as harmful as smoking five cigarettes.
Professor Ronald Walker, a British scientist, claims that we must be careful how we cook meat. If we grill10, fry or roast it we may damage protein molecules on the surface of the meat. These molecules can then react with other substances in our diet, and cause cancer.
Even some of the natural foods we consume would be poisonous if we ate them in large quantities. For example, beans that have not been cooked thoroughly, and potatoes that have turned green contain a highly cancerous chemical. In the third world, liver tumours11 can be caused by substances which are produced by fungi12 which infest13 cereals14 and peanuts kept in storage.
from BBC English
Notes: 1. 炖，煮。2.严格的。3. 添加剂。4.无添加剂食品 5. 查考受测对象适于学习何种专业或从事何种技术工作的能力倾向测验。6. 后一个that引出一个同位语从句说明fears的具体内容，请注意它和前面的that many people had中的that关系代引出定语从句，简称FDA 8. 饮食 9. 致癌物质。10. 烤炙 11. 肝肿瘤 12. Fungi n. (pl.) 真菌类，它的单数形式为fungus. 13. 寄生于 14. 谷物食品
北京航空航天大学《大学英语》编辑部
大学英语4/1993
