David Penberthy: Militant vegans have no grasp of evolution

Put bluntly, in the survival of the fittest, the humans won. It took us a few thousand million years but we managed to make our way to the top of the food chain, writes David Penberthy. It’s our right to eat meat.

Some years ago my newspaper’s picture editor called me over to his desk to show me a photograph that broke your heart.

It was a portrait of a grief-stricken female orangutan that had lost its baby during labour at an Australian zoo. The poor ape had her head down and was resting her chin on her fist, mournfully looking off into the distance. It was a moving photograph that suggested a commonality between us and our closest ancestors.

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I asked the young reporter who had written the accompanying story whether the orangutan had been left alone with her deceased infant to mourn.

The reporter was apologetic but said she had decided not to canvass that part of the story. This was because the mother had apparently eaten the baby.

Karta the orangutan at the Adelaide Zoo after the death of her baby. Picture: News Corp Australia

It was a confronting detail, one the zoo in question was uncomfortable to share, even though it is apparently quite common among primates as part of their grieving process.

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Each to their own, I guess, but this jarring fact would have certainly undermined the melancholy vibe of the story, not to mention shattered the concept of behavioural interchangeability with our fellow primates.

I left the story unedited, and we published the original G-rated version.

I was reflecting on this unfortunate tale this week as the nation’s more militant vegans were busy going berserk at intersections and chaining themselves to abattoirs and tormenting farmers.

These vegans have at their philosophical core a conviction that man and animal are equals. They believe we should establish some sort of détente and carve out a peaceful coexistence, a bit like the guy in that remarkable documentary Grizzly Man, at least until the film reached its brutal and inevitable conclusion when the protagonist is eaten alive by a bear.

A scene from 2005 film Grizzly Man showing Timothy Treadwell, the man who lived and died among grizzly bears.

I am certainly not suggesting we should eat chickens as a form of self-defence, roasting them pre-emptively to shield ourselves from attack.

What I am saying is these militant vegans, as well-meaning and kind-hearted as they are when it comes to our animal friends, have no grasp of the science of evolution.

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Put bluntly, in the survival of the fittest, the humans won. It took us a few thousand million years but we managed to make our way to the top of the food chain through ingenuity and guile.

We did so in our capacity as omnivorous hunter-gatherers. The next time the vegan activists are brushing their teeth they should have a look at the pointy ones on either side of their two front choppers. They’re called canines. They’re designed for biting through flesh.

The reason we don’t have a mouth like a diplodocus is we don’t need to grind up 20 tonnes of foliage a day to sustain ourselves. Sure, we can start with the rocket, pear and parmesan salad for entree, but we can have the fillet mignon for mains, thanks.

Police move to remove vegan protesters who blocked the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Street in Melbourne during widespread vegan protests. Picture: Andrew Henshaw/News Corp Australia

Being a vegan or a vegetarian is a choice, and it is a choice people are wholly entitled to make. Indeed it should be stressed that there are many vegans and vegos who have been aghast at the heavy-handed and intrusive nature of this week’s protests, and to their credit have spoken out accordingly.

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But being an omnivore is a choice, too. It’s a choice that is validated and ordained by our evolutionary history.

It’s a choice the vast majority of us choose to make every time we open our mouths to eat. To try to deny people the right to do that isn’t a form of planet-loving, animal-saving activism. It is a brand of fascism.

There is also no doubt that when it comes to your health, the best way to take care of yourself is through a balanced omnivorous diet. It’s what our bodies are designed for. It’s the way they evolved.

Of course, the problem we have in the west is we often have the balance wrong, spurning vegetables in favour of processed foods and an excessive amount of meat.

There’s a reason humans have evolved with sharp canines for cutting through flesh. Picture: Zoe Phillips

But there are also examples of people embracing a meatless diet on moral or ideological grounds who end up the worse for wear as a result.

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One of the best of these involves a vegan activist and YouTuber with more than 2.5 million followers, Yovana Mendoza. She is one of those “influencers” who flits about exotic locations such as Bali and the Caribbean taking selfies in her bikini eating quinoa salads and acaí berries.

Scandalously, a rival vegan blogger found secret videotape of Mendoza tucking into a fish.

It was reported in news.com.au this week that after the video emerged Mendoza knocked up a quick and defensive post explaining to her fans she had been eating eggs and fish for about two months, on doctor’s orders, because she was not getting her period, was “basically anaemic” and was having serious thyroid issues.

She also has significant issues with intestinal bacterial growth, a condition that can lead to malnutrition.

When a mate of mine was born, like me in the late 1960s, he was immediately put into a humidicrib on account of having life-threateningly low iron levels.

The doctors needed to give him a quick dose of iron and decided the most effective way to do so was to feed him pureed lamb’s liver through a tube.

We used to work together in the Press Gallery and every so often in winter the parliamentary canteen would serve lamb’s fry with bacon and gravy as a special. We made a point of eating it together out of a thank you to the animal that saved his life.

And, you know, because it tastes absolutely sensational.

These are the benefits of evolving so successfully. Us omnivores shouldn’t be sheepish about it. And good luck to the vegans, but if they could just get off the road, that’d be great, too.

@penbo