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关于饮食的几种错误观点 Many primitive peoples believed that by eating an animal they could get some of the good qualities of that animal for themselves. They thought, for example, that eating deer would make them run as fast as the deer. Some savage tribes believed that eating enemies that had shown bravery in battle would make them brave. Man-eating may have started because people were eager to become as strong and brave as their enemies. 许多原始时代的人都相信，若是吃了某种动物就能得到那种动物所具备的某些优良特性。例如，他们认为，若是吃鹿肉就能跑得跟鹿一样快。某些野蛮中部落的吃人生番相信，若把在战斗中表现得很勇敢的敌人的肉吃掉了，那就会使自己变得勇敢。因为那些人很想使自己变得像敌人一样地强壮和勇敢，这才开始有了人吃人的作法。 Among civilized people it was once thought that ginger root by some magical power could improve the memory. Eggs were thought to make the voice pretty. Tomatoes also were believed to have magical powers. They were called love apples and were supposed to make people who ate them fall in love. 在开化了的人们当中，一度认为生姜的根，有种魔力可以改善人的记忆力；认为蛋类的食品能使人的嗓音变得甜美；西红柿也有些魔力，把西红柿叫做爱情苹果，人们认为吃了西红柿的人会堕入情网。 Later another wrong idea about tomatoes grew up - the idea that they were poisonous. How surprised the people who thought tomatoes poisonous would be if they could know that millions of pounds of tomatoes were supplied to soldiers overseas during World War II. 关于西红柿后来又生出来一种错误观点--西红柿有毒。在第二次世界大战期间，数百万磅的西红柿曾供应给海外的士兵食用，那些认为西红柿有毒的人们，若是知道了这一史实，他们该会大吃一惊。 Even today there are a great many wrong ideas about food. Some of them are very widespread. 即使在今天，关于饮食也有许许多多的错误观点。其中有些错误观点流传甚广。 
一种错误观点就是认为鱼是最佳的健脑食品。之所以认为鱼是一种很好的健脑食品，只是因为吃鱼对人的肌肉、皮肤和骨骼发育有好处。但是没有任何人能证明鱼对人的大脑比其他许多种食物都更加有什么好处。 Another such idea is that you should not drink water with meals. Washing food down with water as a substitute for chewing is not a good idea, but some water with meals has been found to be helpful. It makes the digestive juices flow more freely and helps to digest the food. 还有一种错误观点就是，就餐时不应该喝水，用水作为一种咀嚼的代替物而把食物冲下去到胃里并不是一个好点子。但是人们发现就餐时喝点水的确有好处，水可以使胃的消化液更加自由地流动，这有助于消化食物。 Many of the ideas which scientists tell us have no foundation have to do with mixtures of foods. A few years ago the belief became general that orange juice and milk should never be drunk at the same meal. The reason given was that the acid in the orange juice would make the milk curdle and become indigestible. As a matter of fact, milk always meets in the stomach a digestive juice which curdles it; the curdling of the milk is the first step in its digestion. A similar wrong idea is that fish and ice cream when eaten at the same meal form a poisonous combination. 有些科学家告诉我们的许多观点都是些根本没什么根据的。之所以有这些没根没据的观点都是由于各种食物的互相搭配不当所产生的。几年前有种看法很普遍，那就是在同一餐中绝不应当又喝橙汁又喝牛奶，因为橙汁中的酸性物质会使牛奶凝结成乳块因而消化不了。事实上，牛奶在胃里总会遇到胃的消化液，而这种胃液总是要把牛奶变成乳块的。把牛奶变成乳块是在消化牛奶的过程中的第一个步骤。还有一种类似的错误观点，就是在同一餐中又吃鱼肉又吃冰淇淋（甜筒）会形成一种有毒的化合物。 Still another wrong idea about mixing foods is that proteins and carbohydrates should never be eaten at the same meal. Many people think of bread, for example, as a carbohydrate food. It is chiefly a carbohydrate food, but it also contains proteins. In the same way, milk, probably the best single food, contains both proteins and carbohydrates. It is just as foolish to say that one should never eat meat and potatoes together as it is to say that one should never eat bread or drink milk. 关于搭配食物还有一种错误观点，那就是在同一餐中不能既吃蛋白质又吃碳水化合物（淀粉）。例如，很多人认为砚是碳水化合物（淀粉）食品。是的，面包里主要是淀粉，可是面包里也含有蛋白质。同理，牛奶也许是既含有蛋白质也含有淀粉的最好的一种食品了。如果说不能把肉和土豆一起吃，这正像说不能吃面包同时又喝牛奶一样，这两种说法都是同样愚蠢的。 Do animals Think? 动物也会思考吗？ 
人们会经常问到这样的问题：动物会思考吗？我想念有些动物很会动脑筋思考的。很多动物玩起来像小孩子们是一样的。我们注意到，这一点就猫狗说确实真是这样的，而对其他一些动物来说也是如此。 Some birds are very lively in their sports; and the same is true with some insects. The ants, hardworking as they are, have their times for play. They run races; they wrestle; and sometimes they have mock fights together. Very busy must be their thoughts while engaged in these sports. 有些鸟类在玩起来的时候是很活跃的，有些昆虫类也是如此。蚂蚁，虽然干起活来很勤奋，可是它们也能抽出时间来玩。蚂蚁参加各种赛跑，摔跤，有时还在一起模拟战斗。在蚂蚁从事这些活动的时候，他的思想肯定很活跃。 There are many animals, however, that never play; their thoughts seem to be of the more sober kind. We never see frogs engaged in sport. They all the time appear to be very grave. The same is true of the owl, who always looks as if he were considering some important question. 可是，也有些动物从来也不玩耍，它们的思想性格令人觉得好像是属于比较严肃冷静的那种类型。我们从来没见过蛙类在一起玩耍。蛙类总是令人觉得很严肃的样子。猫头鹰也是这样：总让人看起来好像猫头鹰老是在考虑很重要的问题的样子。 Animals think much while building their houses. The bird searches for what it can use in building its nest, and in doing this it thinks. The beavers think as they build their dams and their houses. They think in getting their materials, and also in arranging them, and in plastering them together with mud. Some spiders build houses which could scarcely have been made except by some thinking creature. 动物在筑巢或垒窝的时候就会考虑得比较多。鸟在筑巢时就要搜索它能用得上的材料，在做这类工作时，鸟儿就在动脑筋。河狸在修水坝或垒窝的时候也会动脑子。河狸在寻找建筑材料，在把撒谎到的材料考虑怎样安放以及用泥土把这些材料粘合到一起时都在动脑子思考。有些种类的蜘蛛所垒的窝，除了有些思想的动物而外，是很少有什么动物能垒成的。 As animals think, they learn. Some learn more than others. The parrot learns to talk, though in some other respects it is quite stupid. The mocking bird learns to imitate a great many different sounds. The horse is not long in learning many things connected with the word which he has to do. The shepherd dog does not know as much about most things as some other dogs, and yet he understands very well how to take care of sheep. 动物不但会思考，而且也会学习。有些动物比其他动物更关于学习。鹦鹉虽然在别的方面很蠢，可是会学说话。美国南方的模仿鸟会模仿很多不同的音响。马不用很长时间就能学会跟让它干的活儿有关的许多东西。虽然牧羊犬不懂得基他种狗所懂的绝大部分事物，可是牧羊犬却精通于怎样看护好羊群。 
虽然动物会思考也会学习，可是却不能像人那样，对学会的事物作出任何真正的改革。每种鸟都有自己的筑巢方法，但总是用的同样的方式，互相之间也不学习。可是，你知道，人类就不是这样，人类总是要寻求新的盖房子的方式，人类总是要改进作一些事情的方式方法。 Many of the things that animals know how to do they seem to know either without learning, or in some way which we cannot understand. They are said to do such things by instinct; but no one can tell what instinct is. It is by this instinct that birds build their nests and beavers their dams and huts. If these things were all planned and thought out just as men plan new houses, there would be some changes in the fashions of them, and some improvements. 有许多事情，似乎是动物都知道怎么做。它们秘书科不用学就会或者是用我们还没了解到的方法就掌握了。据说它们都是凭着本能去做这类事情，都能像人类设计新房子那样，动物也能有周密的计划和仔细的考虑，那么动物的巢穴在式样上也会有所变化和改进的。 I have spoken of the building instinct of beavers. An English gentleman caught a young one and put him at first in a cage. After a while he let him out in a room where there was a great variety of things. As soon as he was let out he began to exercise his building instinct. He gathered together whatever he could find, brushes, baskets, boots, clothes, sticks, bits of coal, etc., and arranged them as if to build a dam. Now, if he had had his wits about him, he would have known that there was no use in building a dam where there was no water. 我提到了河狸的建筑上的本能。一位英国先生抓到了只小河狸，起先把它放到一只笼子里了，过了一会儿又把它放出来，放进了一间里面有很多种不同的东西的房间里。刚把这只小河狸放出来，它就开始施展了它筑坝的本能。它把凡是能找到的东西：刷子、筐子、靴子、衣服、棍子、煤块等等都集中到一起，然后来安排这些东西，好像要筑水坝似的。那么，如果它真的有头有脑的话，它就该知道，在这没有水的地方筑水坝是根本没用的。 It is plain that, while animals learn about things by their senses as we do, they do not think nearly as much about what they learn, and this is the reason why they do not improve more rapidly. Even the wisest of them, as the elephant and the dog, do not think very much about what they see and hear. Nor is this all. There are some things that we understand, but about which animals know nothing. They have no knowledge of anything that happens outside of their own observation. Their minds are so much unlike ours that they do not know the difference between right and wrong. 道理很明显，当动物像我们人一样在凭各种感官学习事物时，动物对所学的事物几乎不多加考虑，这就是之所以动物不能较迅速地提高的原因。即使是像大象和小狗这样最聪明的动物，也不能对它们的所见所闻加以思考。事情还远不止如此。有些事情我们能懂，而这些事情，动物根本一窍不通。动物对于发生在自己的视野之外一切事物一无所知。动物的头脑与我们人类的头脑是很不相同的，所以动物的头脑就分辨不出真伪或对错。
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