Australian scientists announced this week that they have discovered a way to reduce the methane emissions from livestock. The research, which was partly funded by taxpayers:

‘…confirmed the native Curvularia soil fungi can be cultured to produce bromoform that, when fed to ruminants like cattle and sheep, can reduce the methane emissions contained in their belches by up to 90 per cent.’

In an era where ‘trusting the science’ is the medieval equivalent of paying to touch a relic to cure cancer, I think it’s time Australians told climate activists who don’t want us eating red meat to go and get stuffed. That is my opinion.

Eating beef or lamb that has been fed a fungus is a disgusting idea. I am not interested. If they make this idiotic stuff law, I will start eating my current egg-laying chickens and get my own livestock. As a kid we went fishing and had ducks, chickens, goats, and pigs. The fish went into one of the many freezers and we would boil up water in an old beer keg on legs and dunk the poultry, goats, and pork to feather, skin, and clean it.

That’s how we lived. It’s not difficult to do. In fact, it gives one a sense of respect for the meat we eat and forces one to use recipes that make use of all the parts of the meat. It is a healthy and economical way to exist.

Instead, the Wokerati are trying to force us to eat ideologically-corrupted food. The answer is no.

Imagine someone woofing down hamburgers who couldn’t stand the act of slaughtering a beast? Maybe they should become vegetarian or vegan. It might also force many of us to reduce our consumption because preparing one’s own food takes considerably more effort.

But this idea of eating meat that has consumed fungus to make activists feel better about my food choices is wrong on every level. I won’t do it. I will never do it. I will do anything imaginable (within reason) to stop the stupidity.

Killing beasts to eat is not immoral. Killing animals for food is what humans do. Even abstaining from red meat on a Friday still means fish and chips. You have to kill the fish first.

In Genesis 9:3, God sets out the morality of eating meat in a way that ordinary Australians can understand:

‘Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.’

It is time Australian farmers stopped cosying up to activists. It is time that taxpayer funds stopped going to research that helps these activists, too.

Smart farmers will start advertising that their meat is free-range and free of fungus. Fungus – the stuff that grows on all your appendages in the tropics – has no place in the belly of the beasts that we consume. I don’t care what ‘the science’ says.

There is never an excuse for ‘trusting the science’ that takes away our individual political rights. The complete overreach of the pandemic lockdowns proved that beyond reasonable doubt.

The food that we eat is a personal choice and government has no role to play in our kitchens (despite governments trying to do so for many years). But feeding our livestock unnatural things to stop them burping and farting? It’s as idiotic as it gets.

Here’s a better idea. Gather up every Woke person and make them live in a cave and eat grubs. That way, they can feel good about themselves and compensate for the emissions of the rest of us normal humans. We can even give them free access to social media so they can bleat their virtues to each other.

In their own minds, they will be virtuous while saving the planet.

The reality is that our food is becoming more unnatural. This is exactly what vegans want. Vegan food is a great example of something that is not natural; it’s all chemicals. I’ve had a go at some vegan food over the years and it is disgusting. The dumbest thing is that it all pretends to be meat. Better to have the real thing, I say.

Ordinary Australians may not think too often about the movement to reduce our consumption of red meat, but the meat industry is kowtowing to activists instead of focusing on their real customers – those of us who want to eat natural meats who are not corrupted by ideology.

Yet another thing to think about at the coming election is what you want to eat now and into the future. It is time to stop pretending that the idiotic ideology that is trying to change our diets is only for everyone else. Leftist governments everywhere are on the bandwagon when it comes to idiotic policies like feeding cows and sheep fungus.

The research may be sound, and the fungus may be safe. But I don’t care. I will refuse to eat it, and I will raise my own meat if this idiocy continues. Australians must turn the idea of fungus-eating livestock as a means of achieving a ‘social licence’ for the livestock industry on its head.

Hopefully, fungus-fed beef will go the way of the idiotic paper straw. But only if we stand up to this nonsense before it is too late.

Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is a political scientist and political commentator. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILTA), and a Member of the Royal Society of NSW. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, Chairman of the ACT and Southern NSW Chapter of CILTA, and a member of the Australian Nuclear Association. Michael is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon and was appointed to the College of Experts at the Australian Research Council in 2022. All opinions in this article are the author’s own and are not intended to reflect the views of any other person or organisation.