Can I have you for dinner?

After watching a documentary about salmon farming, I lost all appetite for salmon. Typical, isn’t it? I had bought the myth that farmed fish could be the food of the future, only to discover it’s industrial, dirty, cynical, and environmentally destructive. Salmon may not have a brain that makes it an intellectual giant, but it feels stress and pain. It is killed, gutted, and the flesh is dyed pink to look more appetising on a cruise ship buffet, where half of it isn’t even eaten but thrown in the bin.

I should mention that I’ve also seen and read quite a bit about poultry farming and the meat industry, which has led me to abstain from chicken and red meat. This usually lasts about a week, then I’m back to burgers, lamb shanks, and chicken stew as usual. That’s as high-minded as I get. It’s dreadful; we need to find new ways to create sustainable food. Especially food that lacks a brain. Mushrooms, vegetables, and seaweed. Apparently, shrimp and shellfish feel pain when boiled, so we’ll have to find other ways to kill them. Like Stalin, perhaps? Invite them over in a pleasant manner, and when they least expect it, shoot them in the back of the head.

There’s been a lot of talk about insects as a potential food source. Unfortunately, that avenue came to a sudden halt the other day when British researchers mapped the fruit fly's brain. With 130,000 cells and 50 million connections, it can walk, fly, and even sing love songs to potential partners. So the only sustainable diet I can see ahead is human flesh. Our species has millions more brain cells than the fruit fly, but quantity doesn’t seem to be a good quality metric here. Humanity mainly consists of idiots and the taste is said to be surprisingly good. Like chicken, they say.

An average man has 33 kilos of muscle, and a woman 21 kilos. Then many innards shouldn’t be underestimated as food either. So let’s settle on 35 kilos of edible male flesh and 23 kilos of female flesh. At the same time, we don’t want to exceed the new Swedish health rules of 350 grams of red meat per week. That amounts to 18.2 kilos in a year, which means we could manage with about half a butchered male body or a whole female body. That should fit in most Swedish freezers.

I also believe that the origin of the human flesh will become an important factor. The liver of a church pastor who has never drunk alcohol. The fillet of a figure skater in the prime of her life. So the remaining question is how we choose the people who will become food for the rest of us. Perhaps the death penalty could be reinstated to provide us with endless food. Chops from a serial killer, anyone? Otherwise, we can rely on wars or the lunatics in traffic to sort it out for us. All these tragic deaths could suddenly gain meaning and bring joy to everyone. Yes, now we’re getting somewhere. I can see all the new, colourful cookbooks in front of me with sustainable food and exciting recipes: HEALTHY IDIOTS, DESSERTS OF THE AFTERLIFE, and MAN, THIS IS GOOD. I also see a heavily tattooed waiter in the hip quarters of Stockholm who keeps squatting down to confidentially ask me what kind of food I like.

—I like velodrome cyclists in their thirties who have happened to run off the road during a cycling holiday in Zermatt. Preferably with a mushroom sauce!