英媒呼吁：中國人放棄筷子用刀叉吧！

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.

筷子好用還是刀叉好用？這是幾個世紀以來東方和西方一直有爭議的一個話題。而現在從環保角度出發，這場曠日持久的辯論似乎終于可以塵埃落定了。

每年，14億的中國人會使用800億雙一次性筷子，中國也承認因為本國的森林資源已經無法為人們的餐桌提供足夠的筷子。

一位兩會代表曾在兩會期間建議：“我們應該改變消費習慣，鼓勵人們出門吃飯時也自己帶餐具。”

該代表指出，一棵20年樹齡的樹木只能生產出4000雙筷子。他甚至還建議，餐館應該直接使用金屬制的刀叉代替筷子。如果該建議被廣泛采用，中國4000多年使用筷子的歷史可能就會遭遇“黑暗時刻”。

筷子的起源大約在公元前2100年，夏朝的開國之君大禹據說是第一個使用兩根棍子來吃飯的人。當時大禹趕著去治水，因為時間緊迫，沒時間等食物涼下來，就直接拿起兩根小細枝狼吞虎咽吃完了飯。

筷子很快在亞洲地區流行起來，不過中國人使用的筷子比韓國人和日本人使用的要長，因為需要夾到桌子中間的公菜。韓國人因為愛吃燒烤，所以經常使用金屬制的筷子。

根據這位代表的說法，如今中國每年要砍掉2000萬棵成熟樹木來滿足人們使用一次性筷子的需要。

而中國的森林里如今已經沒有足夠的木材來滿足這樣的需求。中國現在是世界上最大的木材進口國，甚至還需要從美國進口筷子。喬治亞州的一家公司表示，當地的原生膠木材很適合制成筷子。

基于2008年到2013年的數據，中國國家林業局此前作出估計，中國每年的一次性筷子消費量可能會達到570億雙，這個數據比實際數據要低得多。