If you haven’t been near a news source for the past couple of days, you’re probably looking at the title and thinking “er…what!”, or something similar. So, in case you missed it yesterday, the BBC website – amongst many others – carried this amazing news: A pea plant grew in a man’s lung. He didn’t grow it deliberately, and doctors (killjoys) removed it while it was still quite small. But this story demonstrates that it is possible to grow vegetables in our lungs. I’ve given it some thought, and it’s actually a good idea. Here are seven reasons why.
1. You Will Always Have Food With You. There’ll be no more worrying about where your next meal is coming from, and you’ll also lessen the likelihood that you’ll snack on food that is bad for you. After all, you’ll be growing fresh, healthy vegetables in your lungs, and you’ll be eating that instead of snacking on late-night-pizza. So you’ll be healthier too.
2. Oxygen. Plants are amongst Earth’s major sources of oxygen. Where better then, to house an oxygen-making plant, than in your own lungs. You’ll be able to get some of your oxygen directly, without breathing as much. Maybe you’ll be able to hold your breath for a long time. Perhaps you’ll be able to swim underwater for longer distances. David Walliams will probably attempt to swim the English Channel underwater and David Blaine will be able to stage ever-more-spectacular death-defying stunts, which will continue to confound and irritate all right-thinking members of humanity.
And now that I’ve accidentally mentioned David Blaine, I feel obliged to say this. David, you are thirty-seven years old. The world’s oldest living person is 114 years old. So you aren’t even a third of a way toward equalling her death-defying accomplishments; shut up and stop showing off.
3. Vegetarians. In cases where planes have crashed in remote locations and people have become stranded for long periods of time without a food source, vegetarians fare badly. When their omnivorous companions’ minds turn to cannibalism, their thoughts do not. If we grow vegetables in our lungs though, vegetarians will have something to eat too, while their friends are eating their…er…other friends.
4. Space. Not the final frontier, but the amount of room that we have in our gardens. If we’re growing vegetables in our lungs then we’ll have a lot more room in our gardens. And also, the lung-vegetables seem to require no earth, so we’ll need less mud in our gardens. And frankly, the mud is the worst bit. No one will miss it.
5. Uncles. The phrases, “I’m going to have a pee” and, “I’m just off for a leak”, when uttered before disappearing to spend time alone will become ambiguous and will be the source of much humour. We may tire of it quickly, but we will hear it nonetheless. From uncles. “How are you, Uncle Richard?”. “Fine son, I’m full of beans.” It’s always uncles.
6. Smoking. Smokers will have even more incentive to give up, as their smoking will surely adversely affect their lung-vegetable crop*. Either that or the silly people will try to grow tobacco plants in there**.
7. Cauliflower. The centre of a cauliflower resembles the human brain. The brain is an internal organ and, as such, it’s always a little strange to be able to see it. If we were to grow cauliflowers in our lungs, then we would rid ourselves of the terrifying spectre of massed ranks of what are apparently brains, sitting in fields. I always wake up screaming at the point in my dream where the horse chases me through the cauliflower field. Always. And if we grow cauliflowers in our lungs that dream may go away. Though I’m not going to advocate growing horses in our lungs of course, that would be silly.
*This is not based on data from an official scientific study.
**This is wholly based on the conjecture of a man who may have become slightly carried away with his theme.
