Dr. Venable likes his vegetables medium-rare | Sam Venable

Vegetarian Verse: First of two parts

Dr. Venable here with an important dietary question: “Are you eating enough vegetables?”

Before you lie outright, or claim a half-baked half-truth like “uh, well, um, maybe,” please understand that Dr. Venable is omniscient. He knows the correct answer is a resounding “heavens, no!”

But relax. Dr. Venable isn’t going to shame you. Nor will he extol the merits of cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale and other disgusting forms of compost.

Instead, he’s going to send your heart aflutter (hopefully not to the point of cardiac arrest) with wonderful news.

Bacon is a vegetable. So are chicken nuggets and hot dogs.

Dr. Venable isn’t talking about fake bacon, fake chicken nuggets or fake hot dogs created in a lab.

He’s talking honest-to-gosh bacon that once oinked. Honest-to-gosh chicken that once clucked. And honest-to-gosh hot dogs that once … hmm, maybe oinked, clucked, mooed, barked, meowed, or whatever’nhell their original source did; frankly, Dr. Venable would just as soon squirt on more mustard and chew in ignorant bliss.

Dr. Venable swears on a vacuum-sealed slab of Benton’s thick-sliced smoked bacon that he is not making this up. In his greasy hands, he holds a report from the peer-reviewed Journal of Environmental Psychology. It describes research recently conducted at Furman University.

The project involved 176 U.S. children, ages 4-7. They were given pictures of 13 common foods and told to divide them into groups: plants or animals. Next, they were given 14 pictures of everyday plants and animals and instructed to categorize them as (a) something to eat or (b) something not to be eaten.

When the numbers were crunched, it became readily apparent that today’s kids wouldn’t know an aardvark from an artichoke.

Sixteen percent thought apples came from an animal. Roughly one-third said eggs came from plants. Another one-third said chicken nuggets were made from plants, despite the word “chicken” in the name. French fries? Almost half said they were derived from animals. And 40 percent described bacon and hot dogs as plants.

Scientists who conducted this study said the answers illustrate a generational canyon between children from rural environments versus those raised in cities.

Dr. Venable concurs. However, he is willing to accept their findings.

You see, these kids will soon be adults. In a few years, they’ll be in charge of drawing up food groups and writing dietary rules. If they decree all those high-calorie, artery-clogging meats are healthy veggies, who’s an out-of-date carnivore like Dr. Venable to argue?

Sam Venable’s column appears every week. Contact him at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Dr. Venable likes his vegetables medium-rare | Sam Venable