BBC Take Away English (Could you

你能不能少吃肉、多吃蔬菜和水果来保护环境？一种叫做 “弹性素食主义” 的新概念近两年来逐渐流行起来，据说这种饮食有助于减缓地球气候变化，而且对人们的健康也有好处。我们一起讨论一下饮食新时尚 - 弹性素食主义。

flexitarian
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What kind of food do you eat? Are you conscious of the types of food you consume or do you stuff yourself silly with whatever is available? Today, we are constantly bombarded with media reports about research on the right diet to follow to help us maintain a healthy lifestyle or lose weight - but it's hard to know which one to pick and, once chosen, it's harder still to stick to it. And now there's another choice to get our teeth into.

A flexitarian diet involves eating plant-based foods and only occasionally eating meat and fish. You might think this is a halfway house to being a vegetarian by not completely abstaining from meat. But if vegetarianism is hard to swallow and you fancy chomping on the occasional lean steak, then this could be the choice for you.

This eating style allows you to supplement some ingredients that you wouldn't get in a stricter vegan diet – another trend growing in popularity. And like veganism, flexitarianism isn't about eating carefully to help you lose a few pounds - it's something people choose for ethical reasons, to help the planet. And a study into the global food system and how it affects the climate, has found that eating mainly plant-based foods is one of three key steps towards a sustainable future for all by 2050.

This research found that food waste will need to be halved and farming practices will also have to improve to achieve this. But without a single solution, a combined approach is needed. Dr Marco Springmann from the University of Oxford was one of the lead authors of the report. He told the BBC "We really found that a combination of measures would be needed to stay within environmental limits and those include changes towards healthier more plant-based diets."

But whereas vegans think it's wrong for animals to be killed for food, flexitarians believe eating meat once in a while is acceptable. And Dr Springmann agrees - as long as we "treat it as a luxury, it’s probably OK but you shouldn’t have more than one serving of red meat, which includes beef and pork, per week." And here's another fact to digest: If we moved to this type of diet, the study found that greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture would be cut by more than half.

vocabulary

stuff yourself 大吃大喝
diet 日常饮食
get your teeth into something 专注做某事
flexitarian 弹性素食者
plant-based 植物性的，基于植物的
a halfway house 过渡教习所; 折中方案，妥协办法
vegetarian 素食者
abstain 节制
hard to swallow （双关语）难以下咽，令人难以接受
chomp 大声地咀嚼
lean （肉）瘦的
supplement 补充，增加
ingredient （食品的）成分，食材
vegan 纯素食主义者（不食用、不使用任何动物产品）
veganism 纯素食主义
flexitarianism 弹性素食主义
ethical 道德的
food waste 食品浪费
serving （饭食的）一份
red meat 红肉（由指牛肉、猪肉、羊肉）
digest （双关语）消化，理解
greenhouse gas emissions 温室气体排放

make sentences

1. It took a while to digest the news about his grandfather's death.

2. I've not been very good at eating healthily so I'm taking some vitamin tablets to supplement my diet.

3. I found her story about wrestling a grizzly bear hard to swallow.

4. My doctor says I need to eat more healthily and cut red meat from my diet.

5. I'm going 'dry' this month and abstaining from drinking any alcohol.

question

According to the study, what is the benefit of eating mainly plant-based food?

answer

The study found that eating mainly plant-based foods is one of three key steps towards a sustainable future for all by 2050.