According to the latest research we might as well give up eating altogether.

Some of the best minds on the planet have come to the conclusion that just about everything we currently consume is either going to drop us stone dead on the spot, or inflict on us a slow lingering demise with just about every form of cancer known to man.

Above all else, we must stop eating all red meat and have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with processed meats like bacon, cured ham and sausages. It seems there is no escape. We are doomed.

And don't think you smug fish-eaters are any better off. Apparently that big juicy swordfish steak you're about to tuck into contains more mercury than a giant thermometer. So if it doesn't kill you instantly it puts your weight up by two kilos and slowly poisons you to death.

There's worse to come. Should the western world decide - at a stroke - to alter the dietary habits of a millennium and turn vegetarian overnight, that's just as lethal. Of course it is, just think of the vast increase in the byproduct of all those beans and pulses we'll eat. I think you get the picture. All that extra methane gas escaping into the atmosphere is going to hasten the onset of global warming and kill the lot of us anyway.

Happy prospect, isn't it?

So what can we do to save the human race and still enjoy a decent diet? Absolutely nothing. We are well and truly stuffed, stitched up - on our collective bikes.

A few years ago, nutritionists and nutters were telling us all to eat only white meat - and that means chicken. Ha! Now not even that is safe because it's packed with so many growth and sex hormones, not to mention antibiotics. Two mouthfuls of chicken cacciatore and you run the very real chance of a permanent sex change, growing another six inches taller overnight, and being susceptible to every nasty affliction from bird flu to fowl pest. The dangers posed by eating processed meats is the one I'm worried about. I mean, I like my bacon and bangers. It's very upsetting to be told they are bad for me. And what about the Germans and all that bratwurst they shove down their gullets?

By all the laws of reason, the entire country should now be a depopulated wasteland, with all its inhabitants. History.

According to the experts, eating processed meat products is about as safe as having unprotected sex with a dozen Botswanian whores.

Life soon won't be worth living. You get up in the morning to a cup of filtered water and a handful of organic bran. Yummy, yum! No milk - all cows are contaminated and milk contains bucket loads of animal fats and cholesterol.

You are permitted a mid-morning snack - of one carrot, that has been organically grown, but not harvested by under-age, underpaid Chinese peasants trying to get by on less than a dollar a decade.

Lunch. Aha! This is the main meal of the day and it's not defined by what you can consume, but more by what you can't. In the brave new world of safe eating, it is an indisputable fact that any food that actually tastes of anything just has to be bad for you. So additives like pepper and salt are most definitely out. Apart from the fact that half a sprinkling of sodium chloride (salt) can give you instantaneous heart disease, it can and surely will rot your liver, lungs, spleen and the naughty bits.

And really, that's it for the day. Feast on some vegetarian coleslaw (no dressing) at lunchtime, then nothing else for the rest of the day. It will give a whole new meaning to the expression 'fast food'.

Oh yes, and alcohol is strictly banned at all times, even at weddings and bar mitzvahs. All bars and pubs will be converted into health-food dispensaries, with delicious turnip juice and beetroot cordial taking over from lager and scotch. I can hardly wait.

Bon appetit.