Smart Cow

World-traveling Shallow Thought Wednesday guru John Lindner is back -- and smarter than ever, thanks to all the red meat in his diet. Here's John. LV

Is there anything as sweet as vindication? (I'm presuming total world domination skews savory.)
 
When the unseen, unelected, unwelcomed panjandrums of nutritional purity declared butter and eggs "unhealthy," I held out, eating, if anything, more butter and eggs. Both those staples have since returned to the good graces of our would-be keepers. Julia Child was, as always, right. Still, the puritans press on.

It is a curiosity of our age that those who place most stock not so much in the facts of evolution, but in its finality, are those who most strive to deny natural selection’s inevitable due: survival of the fittest.

They inflict warning labels on the population least likely to need them while the most endangered demographic pays the sniffy cautions no heed because, hey, they’re the ones most likely to bring a soldering iron into the bathtub. Safety concerns are not among their priorities. Misadventure is their only teacher. Besides, if you really need a written exhortation against climbing high-voltage relay towers, you’re destined for an early grave, or very lucky. Officialdom cannot preserve you. It can only annoy.

So it goes with red meat. Long has it been the bane of green economists and yoga instructors. Beef, so the mantra goes, is inefficient and unhealthy.

Let me quickly interject that I harbor no animosity toward vegetarians or vegans (as long as they don’t proselytize in breathy, apocalyptic outbursts or prudish murmurs). I mean,

somebody

has to challenge the herbivores, right? And yes, I agree, a diet of nothing but meat, while fun, may cause complications down the road. Scurvy comes to mind.

In quantities in excess of moderation, I like meat. Red meat. And now, finally, my position on red meat (eat it!) has been vindicated.

.

Of course, this revelation makes me wonder why, with all the cheeseburgers under … well, ok, hanging over … my belt, I still can’t understand elementary algebra and articulate a better case against helmet laws. Or does grinding the meat prematurely release its cerebral emoluments? Should I have sent back all those over-cooked burgers?

But then I don’t eat meat for my brain … or my heart. I eat it for my soul. After all, what good is your health if you’re miserable?

Meat. It tastes like being right.

Photo by Christian Hauzer courtesy Stock Xchng