FASHIONABLE meat meals like pulled pork, steaks and ‘barbecue’ do not confer manly qualities, it has emerged.

It had been thought that the large, oozing meat dishes consumed in restaurants with exposed brickwork and quasi-American names were making men stronger, braver and more capable in battle.

Professor Henry Brubaker of the Institute for Studies said: “We took a group of men, fed them nothing but pulled pork and 28-day-hung rib-eye steaks for a month, then dropped them on the Orkneys with just pocket knives to see if they would survive. Their meat diets extended their lifespans slightly by giving them an extra layer of subcutaneous body fat. But the main problem was having to get their own food rather than simply ordering it from an oversized laminated menu with pictures of cows on it.”

“They all died.”