And it’s often food that’s the last line of argument for frustrated multiculturalists when dealing with an ignoramus who finds the idea too confusing to entertain. Sadly, it’s an argument that is often met with the phrase “Ooohhh… I love their cooking, but they can’t drive and they eat dogs. Nup – don’t want ’em here, mate.”

Which has me thinking about food and all things dietary. I wonder how it was that they figured out the recommended daily intake of any given substance. How on earth have they got it figured out down to the milligram? Is there a lab full of malnourished, skeletal university students earning themselves a quick $100 by being starved by unlicensed nutritionists in a basement somewhere? Are they being drip-fed minute portions of trace elements until they become the healthy, pink-faced adolescents that we’ve come to know and love around campus?

The thing that really worries me, though, is the rise and rise of vegetarianism and all of its wacky offshoots, like Buddhism. Vegetarians have a lot to answer for, in my opinion. Their self-righteous prattle and stubborn refusal to come over for a barbecue makes my blood boil. They claim it’s for health reasons, or even worse for philosophical reasons, but the end result is the same – they’re all wan, unhealthy and secretly dying for a steak. I think they’re actually just afraid of eating anything with a face.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with tucking into a huge piece of barely cooked steak, particularly if it’s been lovingly prepared on a barbecue being driven by wet wood covered in petrol. There’s something special about the unique taste of charred flesh and petroleum products, coupled with the unnerving sensation of chewing bleeding meat that is still at body temperature. It brings out the animal in all of us – far better than sinking a dozen beers and attacking the neighbours when they complain about the noise.

This type of behaviour stems from an ancient need. In eras gone by, it wasn’t unusual for the locals to suddenly band together, arm themselves with colossal weapons and trot off down the street to murder the people in the next village. Scholars have recently discovered that this usually occurred just after the consumption of large quantities of meat. The discovery was made through the study of stool samples found in peat bogs at the scene of some of the massacres. Stools that contained plenty of meat waste were usually found in one large pile, suggesting that the meat eater was full of good tucker, and supremely confident that they could shit where they liked. Samples that contained mostly vegetable fibre were usually found in several small pieces that diminished in size in a straight line from the point of origin. This suggests that the vegetarians were usually running away as they crapped.

These days, meat-induced violence doesn’t occur all that often. Places where men can band together and consume meat are now either heavily policed, or the meat is doctored to lessen its impact. Take, for example, a football match. Football is traditionally a gathering point for men to eat meat, drink beer and watch other men wrestle with each other in mud. A probable hotbed of violence, I hear you say, but football violence is actually a rare occurrence. The food that is served at the game can only be loosely defined as meat, per se. I defy anyone to correctly identify a single piece of flesh in either a hot dog or a meat pie.

Vegetarianism, however, is not the answer to the violence that is invariably prompted by the consumption of meat. Vegetarianism is wrong on a thousand different levels, most of them too boring to list here.

But when you consider vegetarianism, it pales in comparison to veganism. Vegans won’t eat any animal products or by-products at all, which is weird. They’re condemning themselves to a life of feeling weak and having to buy really expensive alternatives to normal food. Vegan pasta, which doesn’t contain any of the usual good bits like eggs or weevils, tastes like cellophane and costs a small fortune.

However, veganism should be promoted at every available opportunity. The reason for this is quite simple – when it all goes south and the global economy and political system collapses, we’ll be reduced to eating each other to survive. And I for one will be targeting vegans.

Vegans will be the new veal.