Tired of your vegan buddies chirping about clogged arteries and environmental gluttony every time they catch you munching on a barbecued pork rind or tearing into a rare, rosemary-grilled hunk o’ cow (with a peppercorn-butter glaze)? Well, Samizdata’s David Carr has just the juicy rebutto-morsel you’ve been waiting for. Seems we spittle-fanged carnivores have it right after all. In fact, if evolution is any indicator, we can gleefully go on chewing the blood right out of fleshy things and live (millenia) to tell about it. And the kicker? Put simply, David says: “eat vegetables, die.”

Thanks to recent discoveries about the early history of our species we have learned of the contrasting fates of two different but concurrent sub-species of early hominid; Robust Man (Australopithicus robustus) and Gracile Man (Australopithecus garhi).

Robust Man was a vegetarian. We know this because of the extraordinarily prominent sagittal crest found on its skull. This crest could only have evolved in order to provide an anchor for enormous jaw muscles of the kind required for rumination. That, coupled with large, flat teeth, lead anthropologists to the conclusion that Robust Man ate roots, tubers and plants.

Gracile Man remains, on the other hand, consist of a smooth skull and lots of sharp teeth. He was a carnivore.

The trouble with eating vegetables is that they are difficult to digest and require a large gut in order to do so. Meat, however, is easy to digest. So Robust’s metabolic energy went into the development of his huge gut and Gracile’s metabolic energy went into the development of his brain.

As a result, Gracile went from picking the marrow out of bones to develop hunting skills and eventually become us while poor retarded old Robust wallowed around on the floor of the forest and farted himself into oblivion.

So, the next time somebody tells you that meat is murder, you can reply yes, but vegetables are suicide.

Indeed, indeed! And you might also consider slapping the tofu-stuffed pita out of his or her pale, twitching paw, and sneering, “at least my food had a fighting chance of darting away into a bush, or escaping into the forest or something. I mean, at least it was able to put up a fight, for the love of God! What the hell chance does brocolli have? Or a head of cauliflower? Or wheat stalks? (“Eek, it’s those humans again, and they’ve brought with them their giant combine of death. Quick — lean to one side! Hide, hide!”)

So today, as you’re dunking greedy fistsfuls of cayenne-slathered chicken parts into a creamy and luxurious bleu cheese bath, weep not for the tiny, gallant fowls whose slick bones you suck clean. Instead, raise your Buds and toast to the sad fate of your celery sticks — nudged to the plate’s periphery, drained of their once-vibrant green — for they are the true victims of this grisly snack you enjoy, having died a mere garnish, forgotten footsoldiers beside the noble skeletons of kings…

Happy Superbowl Sunday!

(And let the imbibin’ begin…!)