(November 19, 2001) — Vegetarianism—the practice of surviving on a diet composed primarily or wholly of vegetables, grains, fruits, nuts and seeds, with or without eggs and dairy products. Bah-humbug! Vegetarians are rebels with a cause, radicals bent on the destruction of their own species. We as humans have been eating meat since we first discovered how to kill and to stop doing so would be disastrous. Anyone who has watched Disney’s The Lion King knows that there is a certain circle of life in which animals eat each other to maintain the delicate balance in nature. I mean, what would Simba say if he found out that the already weak humans had quit eating meat? I know that some people can’t eat meat because of health reasons. I agree that if something is bad for your health, you should avoid it at all costs. But not eating meat because you think animals have rights is ridiculous. It’s like telling a hungry lion that he can’t eat that juicy zebra over there because it has the right to live. Unless you can prove to the lion that it has clogged arteries and should lay off the cholesterol for a while, there is nothing you could say or do to prevent it from eating that zebra. I don’t exactly know how vegetarianism started, and I’m sure no one else knows for sure either. My theory is that during the late Ice Age one of the smaller Neanderthals of the cold northern hemisphere found it too hard to kill the mighty Woolly Mammoths that roamed the land at that time, and so resorted to eating grass. I’m sure that some thorough genetic research into the matter would show that this Neanderthal passed his bad eating habits onto his kids and they onto theirs. The evidence would show that this family of grass eaters split into two different genetic branches. One side of the family mixed in with the carnivores and evolved into the vegetarians you encounter today, and the other half de-evolved into the steak you so contentedly eat. Basically, vegetarianism is pointless and shouldn’t be practiced by creatures who were so obviously meant to be carnivores. On TV you hear about how wrong it is to change who you are and to try to be someone you’re not. Humans are meat eaters, and there is nothing anyone can do or say to prove otherwise. Therefore, changing from a carnivore to a herbivore is the most drastic and the most shameful change anyone of the human species can make.