Surveys indicate that a third of Britons regularly eat on their own. OpenTable, an online restaurant booking app, found that solo dining in New York increased by 80% between 2014 and 2018.

　　调查显示，三分之一的英国人经常一个人吃饭。线上餐厅预定应用OpenTable发现，2014年至2018年间，纽约独自用餐的人数增加了80%。

　　And in Japan, the world capital of solo dining, a trend for “low interaction dining” has taken off. Restaurants are opening which facilitate the ultimate solo dining experience: passing bowls of noodles through black curtains into individual booths.

　　在“全球独自用餐之都”日本，“低互动用餐”已成为一种趋势。目前日本有为独自用餐的人提供最佳体验的餐厅：顾客点的面通过黑色的帘子被递入单独的隔间。

　　Is this a worrying trend? We think so. Research is revealing the negative impacts of eating alone, which has been found to be linked to a variety of mental and physical health conditions, from depression and diabetes to high blood pressure.

　　这种趋势令人担忧吗?我们是这样认为的。研究显示，独自用餐有诸多负面影响，它与抑郁、糖尿病、高血压等各种心理和身体的健康状况有关。

　　So it’s cheering that hundreds of food sharing initiatives have sprung up around the world which aim to improve food security and sustainability while combating loneliness.

　　因此，世界各地出现了数百个美食共享倡议很令人欣慰，这些倡议旨在提高食品安全和可持续性并与孤独感作斗争。

　　There’s London’s Casserole Club, for example, whose volunteers share extra portions of home-cooked food with people in their area who aren’t always able to cook for themselves.

　　例如，伦敦砂锅俱乐部的志愿者就与当地那些不能自己做饭的人分享额外的家常菜。

　　Or South Africa’s Food Jams, social gatherings in which participants are paired up, preferably with strangers, and given a portion of the meal to prepare.

　　还有南非的美食联欢会，参与者组成搭档，最好是与陌生人一起，来共同准备聚会上的部分美食。

　　Such initiatives offer lessons of all kinds to those thinking about how our food systems need to change. This is why we have been researching them, in our several ways, for the last few years.

　　对于那些在考虑应如何改变我们的食品系统的人而言，这些倡议都是值得借鉴的。这也是我们在过去的几年里一直在用不同的方式研究它们的原因。

　　So why has eating together declined? There are a variety of reasons. Authors such as Michael Pollan argue that it is due to the general undervaluing of home-based labor, including cooking.

　　那么，为什么一起吃饭的人越来越少了呢?原因有很多种。迈克尔·波伦等作者认为，这是因为人们普遍低估了做饭等居家式劳作的价值。

　　The widening of the workforce, which brought many women out of the kitchen and into the workplace during the 20th century, also contributed.

　　20世纪劳动力的扩大使许多女性走出厨房，进入工作场所，这也是原因之一。

　　Meanwhile, the growth in insecure and inconsistent working patterns among a growing proportion of the population also discourage meals eaten communally.

　　与此同时，越来越多的人缺乏安全感，工作模式也不稳定，这也阻碍了人们一起用餐。

　　And an increasing number of people live alone, which certainly does not help.

　　而且越来越多的人独自生活，这肯定无济于事。