But I suspect he is too strong meat, too consistently libertarian for many conservatives.

BBC: It could get even nastier for Mitt Romney

Mr Frost's other assets include one of America's few female generals as his wife, a strong record on bringing defence contracts and other pork back to Texas, a relatively conservative record in Congress (he is best known for a tough law punishing child-molesters) and the fact that Mr Sessions is fairly strong meat even by Texas standards.

ECONOMIST: The nastiest race in Texas

All that can be said is that there appears to be a strong correlation between eating this kind of meat and having these health problems.

BBC: Red meat: What is a 13% increase in the risk of death?

Nevertheless, Scottish meat processors have built a strong UK market, achieving better prices than their English competitors, based on a reputation for quality and comparatively low incidence of BSE.

BBC: Scotland: The beef industry's challenge

The company went out of its way to cite the "strong" performance of its white-meat chicken items, along with better-than-expected overseas results, in announcing a 5% same-store sales jump in December from a year ago.

FORBES: It's The Burgers, Stupid

And what we're reporting on people who, you know, have strong opinions about how we should be eating meat.

NPR: Former Vegetarians Start Magazine About Meat

Although strong, "rank" smells are a clear indicator that food - especially meat - should be thrown away, the reality is people won't be able to tell if food is definitely safe to eat from smelling it, according to food expert Stefan Gates.

BBC: Should you smell food before throwing it away?