“Save the planet – Eat the children.”

So read the words on the t-shirt of one of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s supporters. In addition to the slogan, the young woman offered these thoughts at the Ocasio-Cortez town hall event on Thursday, October 4:

I love that you support the Green Deal, but it’s not getting rid of fossil fuel, it’s not going to solve the problem fast enough. A Swedish professor [said] we can eat dead people but that’s not fast enough. So I think your next campaign slogan has to be this: ‘We got to start eating babies!’ We don’t have enough time! There is too much CO2.’

The Swedish professor mentioned is Magnus Sodernlund, who believes “eating human meat, derived from dead bodies, might be able to help save the human race if only a world society were ‘to awaken to the idea.’”

Are these two pioneers onto a brilliant scheme to save the planet?

Let’s find out.

For starters, eating human beings would give a new twist to the names of some cooking shows like Cutthroat Kitchen, Chopped, and Hell’s Kitchen.

Just kidding. If we’re going to eat babies, we need to get serious and think this thing through.

America is facing a population decline. For years, birth rates have been below replacement level. If we eat babies, that decline will deepen, which is perhaps the young woman’s point. Fewer babies means fewer human beings, and fewer human beings means a planet of pristine air and water. That leap from mother’s milk to the oven would rid us of millions of disposable diapers.

Nevertheless, we should resist this argument and leave babies off the menu, except to feed certain connoisseurs seeking a replacement for veal. We need to maintain a supply of human beings. Besides, baby burgers are unhealthy. Too much fat, too little muscle.

But we could eat 18-year-olds.

Eating 18-year-olds makes far more sense. Many of them are more muscular, lean meat is healthy, and we could dispatch those who need shaping up to special farms. Young people tend toward idealism and are easily swayed. I am certain a few years of propaganda in our schools and the press would readily convince them of the nobility of serving as a stranger’s hamburger. We might even steal the new Burger King slogan aimed at millennials: “Be Your Way.” We could promise those who made this sacrifice the best cut of lettuce, a slice of fine tomato, and a delicious bun as honorifics for the meat they provide.

There’s even a ready-made patron saint. Long ago, when the Romans were persecuting Christians, they executed a deacon, Lawrence, by building a great fire and fixing Lawrence to a grill above the flames. Supposedly he said at one point, “You can turn me over now, I’m done on this side.” Today in the Catholic Church, Lawrence is the patron saint of cooks, chefs, and comedians.

Here’s the process of election to this altar of sacrifice:

Just as we did during the Vietnam War, we would select our future steaks and chops using a blind draft based on birth date. We could televise the event as a reality show and have the president pull 366 numbers from a fishbowl. If number 340 is first drawn from the bowl, for example, then those born on January 1 survive. If January 2 receives number 12, then it’s off to the butcher.

Losers would become flank steak, sausages, and tenderloin. Winners would spend the rest of their lives feasting on these treats.

We might have some fun, too, reinventing new names for our activities and foodstuffs. A barbeque could become a Barbi-que. Bratwurst, which many of us nickname brats, could apply to the more unruly of the teenagers we throw on the Barbi-que. Shish kabobs we could transform to “She-ish ka Bobs.” Steak Diane could become – oh, well, no point in renaming that one.

For some further pointers, I refer readers to Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. He writes:

I have been assured by a very knowing young American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.

Mr. Swift and I differ on popping infants into pot and pan, but that is a mere culinary distinction. His heart was in the right place.

As for that young woman who touts eating babies, she looks a bit older than 18, but I am certain she would volunteer as our first “Chick-Filet.”

Bon appetit, everyone!

[Image Credit: Pixabay]