What follows is an attempt to reach out to the good people of King’s Landing in the aftermath of the vegetable-throwing incident last Sunday.

Spoilers for Game of Thrones “The Queen’s Justice” below.

Dear people of King’s Landing,

Look, we know you’ve had it tough with Cersei as Queen (and Tommen as King, and Joffrey as King, and Robert as King, and the Mad King… and so on). But this blatant wasting of food needs to stop.

You absolutely have the right to protest and express your hatred towards people in power or formerly in power, be they from King’s Landing or elsewhere (although it’s worth noting that Westeros isn’t a democracy), but it seems necessary that we address what happened last week.

Euron Greyjoy did bring a gift for Cersei after all: Ellaria Sand and her daughter. He also brought Yara Greyjoy along as a prisoner. As her marched them smugly through the city streets, many of you, most of you, were throwing vegetables at them.

I would like to kindly remind you that there’s a war going on, on multiple fronts. Jamie Lannister just took Highgarden, Daenerys Targaryen just took Casterly Rock, and something is definitely going to happen with Jon Snow eventually. And you may not be aware of this, but Sansa Stark is already trying to figure out how to get enough food to last the North during the long winter.

Up to very recently, the Crown was in severe debt — not a very good position to be in during war and winter, and one that has famine written all over it. Even if Cersei has Tyrell riches now, we all know there’s no way she’ll be sharing them with the people. There’s a severe shortage of food on its way, and you may not want to spend what little you have by throwing it at Ellaria Sand.

You have experience with protests and heckling, anyway, from the riots during Joffrey’s reign to Cersei’s own walk of atonement. You know that nobody really gives a damn if you throw a leaf of lettuce at them. Rotten tomatoes, maybe (you probably haven’t really given thought to this, but tomatoes aren’t technically vegetables anyway), but even so it’s not anywhere near as nasty as having mud or feces thrown at you.

Lettuce and cabbage do nothing. If you’re going to throw potatoes, just throw rocks, it’s pretty much the same thing. You need your veggies, my friends. You’re all going to be very hungry soon.

Some might say that these vegetables were rotten, but given this screencap of Yara Greyjoy being pelted with lettuce in perfectly good condition, I beg to differ. You might value carbohydrates above lettuce, but this is unacceptable. Your children are going to need vitamins too if they want to survive the winter.

And if there’s truly an abundance of rotten vegetables, then there’s a serious food waste problem that needs to be looked into, because people are literally starving in Westeros. And even if they weren’t, there are lots of great ways to use vegetables, either as salad or garnish. But if you do have piles of rotting vegetables, instead of wasting them on politics, it might be time to figure out a way to dispose of them as fertilizer.

Please, if you must throw something, throw cowpies.

I would advise you, though, that while throwing feces you keep your hands from actually touching excrement, especially since you probably aren’t that well-versed in washing and are using the exact same hands to rummage through your possessions and food (including the vegetables you might be intending to throw). This is how cholera and other nasty diseases begin, and I don’t know much about Westerosi diseases, but nothing good has ever come from mixing up your vegetable-tossing hand with your poop-tossing one.

Again, I totally respect your right to protest (although it seems rather misplaced here, given that no one has ever given a damn about the Lannisters or the Sand Snakes, much less in the current political climate) but some revisions need to be made to your strategy.

Also, may I politely suggest that someone accidentally splatter Euron Greyjoy with crap as well, next time.

Thank you for reading (and congrats on being able to read at all),

A concerned viewer.