Processed Meat

Greetings, loyal readers of The Hatemonger's Quarterly. It is your Maximum Leader sitting in the HMQ war room in front of "the big board." The one just like the one in Dr. Strangelove. As cool as these digs are one would wonder why the Crack Young Staff would ever want to take a day off - much less take off a whole week. What is the draw of the beach over a big board?

Frequent readers of your Maximum Leader's regular web site, Naked Villainy, know that he has an affinity towards the pig. After the dog the pig is God's most perfect domesticated animal. Your Maximum Leader has said it before and he'll say it again, pigs are great. This is because the pig is just so useful. They eat anything. They are smart. They can be made into bacon, sausage, ham, pork chops, pork ribs, pork roast, pickled pigs feet, sweetbreads, leather, and candles. The pig is just the most handy thing around.

Your Maximum Leader loves, as you can no doubt tell, his pork. So imagine his dismay when he read today on the news wires that "processed meats" like "bacon, sausage, and smoked ham" can increase one's chances of contracting stomach cancer. It appears as though some crazy Swedes say that a daily increase of 1 ounce of processed meats in one's diet can increase chances of contracting stomach cancer between 15 and 38 percent.

These Swedes claim their study results are "unequivocal."

Hah! Pshaw! Nonsense! First off... What is the regular daily portion we're talking about here? 1 ounce? 6 ounces? 1 pound? Who is rating this? The USDA? Are we using the old recommended daily allowance? The new food pyramid? Are these processed meats processed in Sweden? Or are they processed in the US? How do we know that the Swedes have the same type of digestive tract as Americans? Is socialized medicine responsible?

Ah! Now your Maximum Leader is on to something... Socialized medicine must be to blame. Since everyone shares the cost of health care in Sweden there must be some sort of social imperative to keep people from eating anything that might vaguely be fun or tasty. We all know fun and tasty foods can't be good for you. And if you are paying for Olaf down the street's health care you want to avoid that triple bypass or stomach cancer treatment...

It must be a conspiracy. A damnable socialist conspiracy.

Your Maximum Leader thinks he's going to have to fund a study on how processed meats improve the quality of life for non-Swedes...

Carry on.