The report below is taken from The Vegetarian Society website http://www.vegsoc.org/news/2006/testnation.html 

VEGGIE CHAMPIONS!!!

The Vegetarians win BBC’s Test the Nation IQ battle.

Vegetarianism… the intelligent choice!

We are THRILLED to announce that the 40-strong team of vegetarians came out top as the studio team winners of Saturday night’s hugely popular BBC National IQ contest. And, proving that vegetarianism is clearly an intelligent choice, the individual contestant with the highest overall IQ was a vegetarian too!

Wearing green t-shirts, the vegetarians competed against six other teams including butchers, estate agents, public school pupils, state school pupils, footballers’ wives and celebrities.

The veggie team was made up of vegetarians and Society members from around the UK, including five members of VegSoc staff. As the results were announced, the veggie team was consistently in the top three but not the obvious victors. However, when the final scores were tallied, including IQ variations for age differences, we were delighted to be declared the winners – with an overall IQ of 113. Interestingly, The Butchers came joint fourth! For a full break-down of the scores please go to: www.bbc.co.uk/testthenation/iq/results/results.shtml 

Top-scoring contestant Marie Bidmead, 68, a mother-of-five from Churcham, Gloucester said: “It was great fun. The veggie team was so united and jolly, regardless of winning. We all went along for a bit of fun and were up against these highflying students and stars. I was in absolute shock when I got the top score! I failed my 11-plus and I’ve never considered myself to be a brain-box. I think it shows that we veggies are good ‘thinkers’ – we think about what we eat with intelligence for a start!”

September 2006