英媒呼吁:中国人放弃筷子用刀叉吧!

It is a battle that has divided East and West for centuries： Are chopsticks superior to the knife and fork？ Now the debate may finally be decided on environmental grounds.

With 1.4 billion people ploughing through 80 billion pairs of throwaway chopsticks each year， China has admitted its forests can no longer provide enough cutlery for its dinner tables.

“We must change our consumption habits and encourage people to carry their own tableware，” a delegate said at the National People’s Congress.

Pointing out that only 4，000 chopsticks can be carved from a 20-year-old tree， this delegate even went so far as to suggest that restaurants offered metal knives and forks instead. If his suggestion is widely adopted， it would be a dark moment in the chopstick’s 4，000-year history.

It was Da Yu， the founder of the Xia Dynasty， who is said to have first used two sticks to eat his food in roughly 2100 BC. It was an invention born of urgency. In his rush to reach a flood zone， Da Yu did not want to wait for his meat to cool， instead seizing a pair of twigs and wolfing down his meal.

Chopsticks quickly became popular around Asia. However Chinese chopsticks are longer than their Korean and Japanese counterparts in order to reach the communal dishes in the centre of the table. Koreans often use metal chopsticks because of their love of barbecue.

Today， however， China is chopping down 20 million mature trees a year to feed its disposable chopstick habit， according to the delegate.

Nor can China find enough wood in its own forests. China is now the world’s largest importer of wood and even imports chopsticks from America， where a company in Georgia realised that the state’s native gum wood would be perfectly suited to make the chopstick.

A previous estimate from China’s state forestry administration， based on statistics from 2008 to 2013， put the yearly total at 57 billion disposable chopsticks， a much lower sum.

筷子好用还是刀叉好用？这是几个世纪以来东方和西方一直有争议的一个话题。而现在从环保角度出发，这场旷日持久的辩论似乎终于可以尘埃落定了。

每年，14亿的中国人会使用800亿双一次性筷子，中国也承认因为本国的森林资源已经无法为人们的餐桌提供足够的筷子。

一位两会代表曾在两会期间建议：“我们应该改变消费习惯，鼓励人们出门吃饭时也自己带餐具。”

该代表指出，一棵20年树龄的树木只能生产出4000双筷子。他甚至还建议，餐馆应该直接使用金属制的刀叉代替筷子。如果该建议被广泛采用，中国4000多年使用筷子的历史可能就会遭遇“黑暗时刻”。

筷子的起源大约在公元前2100年，夏朝的开国之君大禹据说是第一个使用两根棍子来吃饭的人。当时大禹赶着去治水，因为时间紧迫，没时间等食物凉下来，就直接拿起两根小细枝狼吞虎咽吃完了饭。

筷子很快在亚洲地区流行起来，不过中国人使用的筷子比韩国人和日本人使用的要长，因为需要夹到桌子中间的公菜。韩国人因为爱吃烧烤，所以经常使用金属制的筷子。

根据这位代表的说法，如今中国每年要砍掉2000万棵成熟树木来满足人们使用一次性筷子的需要。

而中国的森林里如今已经没有足够的木材来满足这样的需求。中国现在是世界上最大的木材进口国，甚至还需要从美国进口筷子。乔治亚州的一家公司表示，当地的原生胶木材很适合制成筷子。

基于2008年到2013年的数据，中国国家林业局此前作出估计，中国每年的一次性筷子消费量可能会达到570亿双，这个数据比实际数据要低得多。