为什么家庭烹饪不能解决我们所有的食物问题

Gathering around the family table for a nightly dinner has never been so complicated. It seems like there's a new study every day describing rising obesity rates, the danger of ultra-processed foods, and the increasingly busy schedules of families — all of which contribute to a unique and sadly unequal food system in the U.S.

家庭聚餐从来没有像现在这么复杂。似乎每天都有一项新的研究描述了不断上升的肥胖率，超加工食品的危险，以及家庭日益繁忙的日程安排——所有这些都导致了美国独特而可悲的不平等的食品体系。

Home cooking can't solve all of our problems — but we can do something about them. (Photo: Everett Collection)

A new book from a team of sociologists, "Pressure Cooker: Why Home Cooking Won’t Solve Our Problems and What We Can Do About It," explores the relationship between food, family and health. The professors studied 168 poor and middle-class families in North Carolina, some for as long as five years, going with them to grocery stores, observing them cooking at home, and generally observing their day-to-day food habits. What they found is, well, complicated.

一个社会学家团队的新书《高压锅:为什么家庭烹饪不能解决我们的问题以及我们能做些什么》探讨了食物、家庭和健康之间的关系。教授们对北卡罗来纳州168个贫困和中产阶级家庭进行了研究，其中一些家庭长达5年之久。他们和这些家庭一起去杂货店，观察他们在家做饭，并大致观察他们的日常饮食习惯。他们的发现很复杂。

Added pressure

增加了压力

Family meals have been loaded with symbolism and sentiment since the industrial era. (Photo: ESB Professional/Shutterstock)

The book is organized around seven popular "foodie messages," ranging from "you are what you eat" to "know what's on your plate" to "the family that eats together, stays together." The authors then break down how these well-meaning messages put pressure on families (and especially women) that returning to the dinner table will create healthier kids and stronger family ties. By embedding themselves in these nine different families' homes and kitchens for years, the researchers paint a compelling picture of why we need to look outside the kitchen for answers to our collective food woes.

这本书由7条流行的“吃货信息”组成，从“你吃什么就是什么”到“知道你盘子里有什么”，再到“一家人一起吃饭，永远在一起”。然后，作者分析了这些善意的信息是如何给家庭(尤其是女性)带来压力的，即重返餐桌将创造更健康的孩子和更牢固的家庭纽带。通过在这9个不同家庭的家里和厨房里扎根多年，研究人员描绘了一幅引人注目的画面，告诉我们为什么我们需要从厨房外寻找解决集体食物问题的答案。

Taking the pressure off families to produce a home-cooked meal every night leads into their suggestion to consider other ways for people to share a meal together that don't involve burdening one individual with the labor-intensive task of preparing food. Collective solutions that help people across all income levels include universal school lunches made with fresh food, encouraging churches and daycares to share their commercial kitchens, and community suppers are all ways to bring people together while lightening the load.

为了减轻家庭每天晚上做一顿家常菜的压力，他们建议考虑其他的方式让人们一起分享一顿饭，而不是让一个人承担准备食物的劳动密集型任务。帮助所有收入水平的人们的集体解决方案包括用新鲜食物做的学校午餐，鼓励教堂和日托分享他们的商业厨房，以及社区晚餐，这些都是让人们在减轻负担的同时聚集在一起的方法。

Universal free school lunches made with healthy ingredients and diverse recipes could ease the pressure on families. (Photo: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock)

And finally, support the workers who feed us. The food that appears on our dinner table (or in our pizza box) every night doesn't get there by magic. It's a cruel irony that the staffers who work in fancy restaurant kitchens probably can't afford to eat there, or that the fruits and vegetables middle-class consumers buy to keep their families healthy are picked by farmworkers who suffer from occupational health problems. Consumers and retailers both play a part in improving workers' labor and living conditions.

最后，支持养活我们的工人。每天晚上出现在我们餐桌上的食物(或披萨盒里的食物)并不是靠魔法得到的。一个残酷的讽刺是，在高档餐厅厨房工作的员工可能买不起那里的食物，或者中产阶级消费者为了保持家庭健康而购买的水果和蔬菜，是由遭受职业健康问题困扰的农场工人采摘的。消费者和零售商都在改善工人的劳动和生活条件方面发挥了作用。

If we want to have a fair and just food system for everybody, we'll have to look outside the kitchen for answers.

如果我们想让每个人都有一个公平公正的食物体系，我们就必须走出厨房去寻找答案。