Vocabulary: bread英語學習點: 麵包詞語和成語

Can you imagine what 680,000 tonnes of food looks like? That's the amount wasted in Britain each year, and at the top of the list of wasted foods is... bread.

One of the staples in the British diet, bread is toasted for breakfast, used for sandwiches for lunch and dipped in soups at dinner. Almost everyone in Britain buys bread – from people in the upper crust of society to regular breadwinners who don't have much dough.

Bread is so important to Brits that we use the slang word 'bread' to mean 'money' and the word 'loaf' to mean 'head'. So let's use our loaves to understand why so much bread is wasted!

A staple in the English die

Even though bread is still selling like hot cakes, the packets are opened but not finished. We often say that half a loaf is still better than none, but it seems people are simply buying much more than they need.

Baker Chris Young suggests that the British aren't using every last crumb because bread is no longer respected: "None of the bread that is thrown away is 'real' bread, homemade or artisan bread."

Eco-campaigner Mark Boyle agrees. "If you make something yourself (…) you don't waste that bread because you know how much energy you've put into it." But although home baking is a nice idea, for many it's biting off more than they can chew. People work such long hours to put bread on the table and simply don't have the time.

Perhaps we British should just invest a little more of our hard-earned bread in buying better loaves. These would make our diet healthier and our bins lighter: healthy, artisan loaves might just be the best thing since sliced bread.


Glossary 词汇表

a staple主食
the upper crust上等階層
breadwinner家裏主要掙錢的人
dough面，此處的意思是錢
loaf 一條（麵包），也可以指人的頭
to sell like hot cakes熱銷
half a loaf is still better than none（成語）半塊麵包總比沒有好

every last crumb（短語）剩餘的一點點
artisan精工細作的
eco-campaigner環保活動人士
baking烤（麵包）
to bite off more than one can chew貪多嚼不爛
to put bread on the table（成語）拿回家
the best thing since sliced bread（常用成語）精彩的/很棒