You are what you eat, the old expression goes. But it leaves out one crucial detail. "We don't dine alone. We dine with trillions of friends." said Jeff Gordon, a microbiologist at Washington University in Saint Louis. "And they are partners in consuming these meals and ingredients."
Leaves out:省去；遺漏；不考慮
老話說，你吃什麼就像什麼。但是它遺漏一個至關重要的細節，我們吃飯的時候並不孤獨。我們和數以萬億的朋友一塊進餐。聖路易斯華盛頓大學的一位微生物學家
傑夫.戈登說。它們也是我們食用食物和食物成分的合作者。
Those friends—they're microbes in our guts. They break down dinner, including otherwise indigestible stuff, and pass the leftovers on to more microbes. Creating a complex food web inside us.
break down使分解（爲）；使變化（成）
這些朋友是我們消化道里的微生物。它們分解食物包括難以消化的食物原料，將剩餘食物傳遞給更多的微生物。在我們身體內部創造了一個複雜的食物網絡。
But that microbial garden is a lot more diverse in people who eat a calorie-restricted, veggie-rich diet. The typical American diet on the other hand—breads, meat, cheese, not a lot of veggies—doesn't raise up near as diverse a crop of microbes.
a lot more 更多；許多
much more 更加；多得多
但是對於飲食上控制卡路里、吃富含蔬菜的食物的人身體裏微生物會更加的多種多樣。對於典型的美國人飲食，麪包、肉類、奶酪，而不是許多蔬菜，身體裏的微生物沒有多種多樣。
And microbial diversity matters. Because in a mouse model, Gordon's team found that, if you give up the American diet, in favor of a healthier one with lots of veggies—the "Americanized" gut bacteria, being less diverse, aren't primed to respond. They're not great at regrouping, to accommodate all the nutrients in kale and broccoli and so on.
微生物多樣性很重要，因爲在噶丹團隊發現的老鼠模型裏，如果你放棄美國飲食習慣，選擇更健康的蔬菜。美國化腸胃菌就不會多樣化，就不會有太大反應。美國化腸胃菌並不善於重組，西蘭花甘藍等蔬菜的所有營養元素。
- All this isn't to say you shouldn't try to eat healthier. Because it's not clear how this microbial efficiency translates into human health. Or to what extent you might be able to pick up beneficial microbes from those around you, as they demonstrated mice can, in this study.
- 撿起；獲得；收拾；（汽車；飛機）乘載；不費力地學會
但是這不是說你不應該吃更健康的食物。因爲腸胃細菌是怎麼促進人體健康的尚不明確。
你也許能夠養成有益的腸胃細菌從你周圍。像在研究中，小鼠實驗證明的那樣
But Gordon's colleague Nick Griffin had this prediction: "It's entirely possible that in the future we'll more and more recognize a need to reinstall absent populations of bacteria in people as they're looking to change their diet for benefits to health."
但戈登的同事尼克·格里芬(Nick Griffin)預測：我們越來越多的人會意識到要增添身體裏缺乏的一些腸胃細菌，正如人們爲了身體健康而改變飲食習慣。
Until then—next time you're about to fertilize your microbial flora with a patty melt—you might just wanna do a gut check first.
再下次你要用碎肉餅給你的腸胃菌羣施肥的時候，你可能首先要對它做一次檢查。