A: Ah, I forgot the kitchen waste, it’s still in the refrigerator. I’ll go and get it.
B: It’s a good idea to put the kitchen scraps into the refrigerator, it stops them from going bad or giving off a smell. You have to be careful it doesn’t contaminate the other food in there, though.
A: Actually, when you throw away the cooking leftovers, you still need to sort it into scraps for pig feed and scraps to be used for compost.
Photo: Hung Mei-hsiu, Liberty Times 照片:自由時報記者洪美秀
B: Damn, that’s a bit complicated, isn’t it? So, would banana skins be considered kitchen waste? If so, what kind? Can pigs eat them?
A: When I lived in the south before, banana skins and all fruit peelings were considered compost, but a little while ago here a refuse collector told me that fruit peelings could be put in with the normal garbage, because there are no compost processing plants in this area.
A: 啊,我忘了廚餘,還在冰箱裡,我去拿出來。
B: 廚餘放冰箱倒是個好辦法,才不容易腐壞發臭,不過小心別污染了其他食物。
A: 其實丟廚餘的時候還分類呢,有一種是可以餵豬,另外一種是用來堆肥。
B: 天哪,這太複雜了吧?那香蕉皮算不算廚餘?如果算的話,屬於哪一種?豬會吃嗎?
A: 我以前住南部的時候香蕉皮和其他果皮算是堆肥的廚餘,可是前陣子這裡的清潔隊員跟我說,就把果皮當一般垃圾丟掉就好,因為這附近沒有處理堆肥的設施。
(Translated by Paul Cooper, Taipei Times/台北時報林俐凱)
Audio recordings for Speak Up! dialogues will be suspended until further notice due to the pandemic.
The strongest earthquake to hit Taiwan in 25 years killed at least 16 people and damaged dozens of buildings, but the destruction was largely contained thanks to decades of preparedness work. Taiwan sits on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic activity along the Pacific Rim, and — much like neighboring Japan — has a long history of catastrophic quakes. How does April 3 compare with other recent quakes? The April 3 earthquake, which measured 7.4 on the moment magnitude scale, was felt across Taiwan. It was the most severe since a 7.6 magnitude quake in 1999 killed
A: Artificial intelligence technology has been causing controversy lately: a student was caught cheating with AI to win the grand prize in an art contest. B: That’s so absurd. Does this mean that AI paints better than humans? A: Maybe. Luckily, the student was later disqualified. B: And more absurdly, it’s becoming more and more popular to use AI technology to “resurrect” people. A: Yeah, some netizens even posted videos featuring the late singer CoCo Lee, who was “resurrected” by them with AI software. A: 人工智慧的爭議不斷,有學生違規使用AI參加美術展,甚至贏得首獎。 B: 真誇張,這是不是代表AI比人類還強大? A: 或許吧,幸好得獎資格被取消。 B: 還有更誇張的︰讓死者重現的「AI復活」技術越來越熱門。 A: 對啊,還有網友製作已故歌后李玟「復活」的影片呢! (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張聖恩)
Around the time of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, the streets of Taiwan are filled with the delightful aroma of zongzi, a traditional snack made of sticky rice wrapped in leaves. The leaves are folded into a cone and then filled with sticky rice and other ingredients such as braised pork belly, peanuts and salted duck egg yolks. The filled leaves are then tightly tied with kitchen twine and ready for cooking. 每到六月端午時節,街頭巷尾就會飄出粽子的香氣。粽子是將糯米包進粽葉的傳統美食,先將粽葉折成圓錐狀塞入糯米,以及紅燒肉、花生、鹹鴨蛋黃等配料,用棉線綁緊後即可烹煮。 Dragon Boat Festival (n. phr.) 端午節 aroma
Everyone has seen a piece of fruit turn brown after being cut. Have you ever wondered why that happens? It is a common phenomenon that occurs due to a chemical reaction called enzymatic browning. The appearance, flavor and nutritional value of the fruit are all affected by this reaction. Some fruits, such as apples, pears, bananas, avocados and peaches, are more prone to enzymatic browning than others. These fruits contain high levels of an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase, or PPO for short. __1__ This causes a chain of chemical reactions that ultimately transforms the phenolic compounds into