How Your Weekly Shop Could Help Prevent a Mass Extinction
All around the world, the way in which we produce, buy and eat food has never been more similar. You may think you have more choices than your parents or grandparents ever did, and on one level that is true. Wherever you are, you can eat various foods all in a single day.
What we’re being offered appears at first to be diverse, until you realise it is the same kind of “diversity” that is spreading around the globe in the same way; what the world buys and eats is becoming more and more the same. Of the 6,000 plant species humans have eaten over time, we now mainly grow and eat just nine. What’s less well known is that for each of the crops, we’re eating from a smaller number of varieties. Thousands of different wheats exist, but less than 10 make it onto the “recommended list” issued to British farmers. It’s a similar story with the meat we eat.
This relatively recent phenomenon (现象) of eating from such a narrow selection of plants and animals, and just a few varieties of these, has resulted in a serious loss of diversity in farmers’ fields and in our diets and a great loss of biodiversity.
In the 20th century, efforts were made to produce more calories (卡路里) to feed growing populations, but in search of quantity, we gave up diversity. Crops and farm animals unique to their part of the world became endangered; some even went extinct (灭绝). When a food is lost, we risk not only losing a special flavour, but also a way of life and part of a culture. We also lose choices for the future.
Faced with the growing impact of climate change and extreme weather events, we can add greater resilience (快速恢复能力) to our food system by saving diversity. But as the world farms and eats in increasingly similar ways, more foods are at risk of disappearing. We all have a part to play in preventing this from happening, wherever we are in the world, and it starts with what we put in our shopping baskets.
Still unsure where to start? Focus on one of your favourite foods and start to explore it in all its diversity. Whether that’s chocolate, coffee, cheese or wine, find as much variation as you can, set off on a flavour adventure and help save something from extinction.
23. According to the passage, people may believe that ________.
A.our choices of food are more than those of early generations |
B.our ways of food production are never similar to one another |
C.what we plant stays the same around the world |
D.what we eat is becoming increasingly popular |
24. How does the writer prove his idea in Paragraph 2?
A.By using data. | B.By describing a scene. |
C.By telling a story. | D.By sharing experiences. |
25. According to the writer, what might be the cause of the loss of biodiversity?
A.Climate. | B.Business. | C.Population. | D.Technology. |
26. What is the last paragraph mainly about?
A.Why to start. | B.Where to shop. | C.What to eat. | D.How to help. |