FRIDAY, Dec. 15 (HealthDay News) — As a child’s IQ rises, his taste for meat in adulthood declines, a new study suggests. British researchers have found that children’s IQ predicts their likelihood of becoming vegetarians as young adults — lowering their risk for cardiovascular disease in the process. The finding could explain the link between smarts and better health, the investigators say. “Brighter people tend to have healthier dietary habits,” concluded lead author Catharine Gale, a senior research fellow at the MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre of the University of Southampton and Southampton General Hospital.

Lord MacCormack: Oh, those stinking vegans! They got the cause and effect wrong! And their data is skewed, because poor kids don’t get their IQs tested, and kids with high IQs more often come from high income homes who can invest more in their education. High income people are more likely to become vegetarians because (a) it’s a trendy thing for rich people to do, and (b) it costs more than living on McDonalds and pork rinds and Kool Aid, like the poor kids do. Whoever did that study was just sloppy. I have a friend who is vegan who would love to read about this study and then preach at me about it. Except that he won’t get the chance, because I don’t do anything with him anymore since it’s such a pain in the ass to have to only go to the couple of places in town that cater to his ridiculous lifestyle.

Sandy Twistedpanties: I think you’re making assumptions about the study, Lord MacCormack. For goodness sake, take that lamb shank out of your mouth and think a minute before speaking!

Lord MacCormack: Balderdash! Poppycock! You and your kind are just weak! If humans were meant to be vegans we wouldn’t have incisors and canines. If you’d been in charge back on the Serengeti Plain, we’d still be saber tooth tiger food!

Sandy Twistedpanties: The very idea that what we perceive as “natural” is what’s “right” is just bunk. I know you are smarter than that, Lord MacCormack. Leave that natural law nonsense to the mystics and the moralists and the Christians.

The Christians: Whoh, whoh, whoh! Don’t pin that natural law stuff on us! We don’t believe in that either! We have incisors and canines because the LORD wanted us to have them.

The LORD: That’s right.

Lord MacCormack: Look, you little cabbage eater, you . . . if you deny that we evolved to be meat eaters then you are not using the superior brain that meat allowed you to evolve! Vegans are substandard humans! Soy eating wimps who have to lather on the patchouli to cut the stench of garlic! No vegan will ever be in charge of anything important, because they have tiny, shriveled, meat-starved gonads and bad priorities. You know what I want to do this afternoon? I want to go set a bear trap in Leicester Square and see if I can catch a dog, then field dress it, take it home and make dog sausage out of it. Then I will make passionate love to a fertile, meat-eating woman to let off all the testosterone raging through me that the fresh meat produces. Damn, all this meat talk is making me hungry. I’m going to have Roger make me a huge prime rib for dinner tonight!

Sandy Twistedpanties: I cry.

A Cow: I die. So that Lord MacCormack may eat prime rib. I am satisfied with my lot.

Another Cow: It would be a pleasure to have a bolt shot through my brain, then to have my entrails pulled out, then to be cut into pieces with electric saws, so that Lord MacCormack may have the best dinner possible tonight. I envy you, other cow. How I envy you.

Lord MacCormack: Yeah, whatever, I gotta go. My stomach is eating itself.

Lord MacCormack’s Stomach: Gnarr! Gnarr gnarr! Gnarr!