“Let them eat shit,” says Tory MP and pig farmer Harry Bodkin, unveiling a bold new scheme to improve the nation’s health. “A bit of good honest filth never hurt anyone.” Indeed, Bodkin believes that many of Britain’s current health problems stem from our modern obsession with cleanliness, which is allegedly preventing Britons from building up sufficient resistance to common diseases. Consequently, he is proposing that children be served raw excreta with their school meals. “It’ll probably make them a bit sick at first, but as their immunity builds up that’ll wear off. And they’ll soon get used to the taste – it can’t be any worse all that fast food they stuff themselves with,” he insists. “I was thinking that a turd lightly sprinkled with sugar could perhaps replace dessert in school canteens. Or maybe they could be offered in a bread roll with ketchup or mustard, like a hotdog.” The MP dismisses suggestions that forcing children to eat raw sewage might actually be harmful. “I’ve fed my pigs shit for years now and it’s done ’em no harm! Not only that, but we put manure on plants to make ’em grow up healthy and strong, don’t we? It stands to reason it’ll do the same for kids! Damn it all, whole families in India live on nothing but elephant dung,” says the MP. “The trouble is that we’ve just got too fussy in this country and won’t eat anything if it doesn’t appear pristine and clean! I mean, if a child drops a crisp or something on the ground, we tell them not to eat it and to throw it away because it’s dirty instead. God Almighty, in my day we didn’t mind a bit of dirt on our food – we knew that it was actually doing us good!”
To prove his point, Bodkin recently arranged a press conference during which he forced his nine year old daughter to eat a shit-filled burger with fries. Bodkin claims that he himself has used crap as a supplement to his regular diet for several years now, with no ill effects – apart from sporadic bouts of nausea and diahorrea and halitosis. “It’s certainly no more harmful than things like the Atkins diet. I mean there’s nothing more natural than excreta – guaranteed no additives,” he says, claiming that his scheme could also prove a dietary aid, helping combat the problem of obesity in Britain’s children. “As it’s all waste product with little nutritional value, it’ll just pass straight through, only leaving the bugs and germs. Moreover, the bugs and germs left will probably give them severe stomach upsets (until they build up their immunity, of course), causing them to shit themselves thinner.” Indeed, he claims that several celebrities have already come to him for dieting advice, and are currently eating shit in an effort to lose weight and improve their health.
Bodkin speculates that if the school shit-eating scheme is successful, schools could perhaps also offer children a daily bottle of urine, much as they had once given every child a daily bottle of milk to build up their calcium levels. He points out that such a scheme would be cheap to operate, as the schools would only have to supply the bottles. “They might claim that cleanliness is next to Godliness, but just look at the number of Holy Men the world over who swear by drinking their own urine! The great thing is that you know exactly where it’s been,” he enthuses. “There’s one such chap in Bangalore who drinks a pint of his own piss a day – he’s now over a hundred and twenty years old, still has sex three times a day and does forty press ups after each shag! There is no doubt about it, the longest-lived people in the world come from the filthiest, most unhygienic countries; India, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Mongolia, Wales. It is clear that our sterile and antiseptic western environment is actually harming our children – too many parents are scared of even allowing their kids to get dirty for fear of germs and infection!”
Indeed, Bodkin is an enthusiastic proponent of the medicinal properties of filth in all its forms, not just excreta, advocating that parents allow their children to eat dirt, rub it into their hair, drink from puddles and even bath in stagnant water in order to build up their strength and immunity. “All right, so they might eat the odd worm or larvae, or risk infection from bacteria, but what doesn’t kill them can only make them stronger,” he contends, adding that he had successfully followed this strategy with his own seven children. “If ever I saw a pile of dog shit by the road, I’d encourage them to roll in it! In the long run it did ’em no harm. Except perhaps the two who died – but they were weaklings anyway, it was just a way of weeding out the defective genes. The others all recovered from debilitating bouts of diphtheria and the like, to grow up much stronger!”
Health and nutrition experts remain unconvinced by Bodkin’s claims. “We’re very worried that if celebrities are seen to be endorsing his dietary claims, excreta eating could become a fashionable fad amongst youngsters – all it needs is for someone like Justin Timberlake to be seen snacking on a turd to trigger a major health scare,” comments top nutritionist Dr Julian Mallacky. “The fact is that the systematic eating of shit will inevitably result in extreme ill health and, ultimately, death. Not to mention very bad halitosis and probably acne.” Mallacky also points out that Bodkin’s pig farm was shut down by the Department of Agriculture on suspicion that it was a source of foot and mouth disease, and that his supposed ‘organically grown’ foodstuffs had to be withdrawn from sale amid allegations that he had been using his own faeces and urine instead of conventional fertilisers and pesticides.
Nevertheless, despite such criticism, Bodkin has succeeded in persuading the Department of Education to implement a six-month trial of his scheme in four Berkshire schools. “Whilst acknowledging the concerns of some scientists, we have a duty to explore any means by which we can deliver greater value for money for the taxpayer,” explains junior Education Minister Brian Keech. ” We also believe that Mr Bodkin’s scheme is fully in line with this government’s policy on recycling waste products – do you know how much shit simply gets thrown away everyday? Such a waste of a precious resource!” Bodkin is delighted. “There’s no doubt that this is government that knows how to handle shit,” he beams. “I’m confident that before long we can take this scheme nationwide!”
