Red meat kills

Eating red meat increases your chance of dying.

When I read that in my newspaper I immediately read it again. And again. I may very well have typed words different from those I read, but that was the gist. The paper was actually reporting a report produced by scientists ("experts"?) which apparently did say that eating red meat increases our chances of dying. Now, I'm not sure just what planet those experts come from, but in this world we are all going to die sooner or later. Drawing your first breath is about the only thing that increases your chances of dying. Do that and the chance of you dying is immediately 100%, an absolute certainty. I could say that dying is a dead cert. You can't increase that.

Another government scientist (I may have it wrong that he is or was a government scientist) said that we should eat no more than two and a half ounces of red meat per day, which is, I suppose, marginally better than none at all. All the same, there are those who seem to be trying to persuade those of us who consider themselves "normal" that we should eat nothing but lettuce and drink nothing but water. But isn't that how rabbits evolved? I also read somewhere that we can survive on three lettuce leaves, one tomato, a small bowl of muesli and a glass of water every day. It won't guarantee that you live for ever: it will just feel like it!

But what does bother me slightly is the fact that this business of abstaining from the consumption of red meat seems to be gaining ground. How long, I wonder, before some nanny state government decides that we should be discouraged from this lethal practice and slaps on a punitive tax? Then, after more of the population have been brain-washed, it will be made illegal to put red meat on public display in the shops. Anybody foolish enough to want to buy it would have to ask for it and shame themselves publicly. After all, there are precedents. The tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products has, in the UK at least, been increased year on year in vain attempts to stop people smoking. Now it is an offence to have those products on public display. There are proposals now to introduce a minimum price per unit of alcohol in order to curb consumption. Tax has already been increased here and pubs are fast going out of business. I suppose the next logical step is to ban the public display of beer, wine and spirits.

But what the heck. The Old Bat wants me to go with her to the butcher's. He sells great beef. Back tomorrow.