Haven’t had one in ages, but I just started missing their Route 66 and Lost in Austin burritos.

Earlier this week, all of the dozen or so Burritovilles left in the city abruptly closed. Yesterday, The New York Times’ Tina Kelley quotes an owner of a jewelry store next to the Burritoville on Water Street: “A couple of days ago the workers, the chefs and delivery boys showed up around 10 in the morning and were waiting on the stoop out front. Eventually they went home because no one showed up to open the store.”

If you think you’ve heard of something similar happening at another veg-friendly establishment, you’re right.

Burritoville was founded and later sold by Steve Lynn and David LaPointe (who, now with his wife, Jean LaPointe owns Curly’s Vegetarian Lunch). They (and another partner Bob Salamack) also started Veg-City Diner which had a 14th Street and Sixth Ave location and another at Third Ave off 9th Street.

The Third Ave location opened just days before the 9/11 attacks and shuttered weeks after. The remaining Veg-City Diner on 14th Street remained open for another couple years and had quite a following before it abruptly closed due to a reported kitchen fire. (It was Veg-City Diner, with its incredible revolving vegan cakes display, that made Danielle Konya’s VeganTreats famous.)

Strangely enough, some waiters and chefs who worked at the Veg-City Diner reported that they had not been paid for weeks before that fire. And those who were owed wages couldn’t identify anyone who supposedly worked the day the fire reportedly happened. (Bear in mind that Veg-City Diner was a 24-Hour establishment.)

Days after Veg-City Diner shuttered, employees and customers were informed via a sign taped to the gate that the restaurant will re-open soon. But it never happened. Last I heard, a few persistent workers received some payment of back wages, but some never recovered any payment.

More from the Times article: “Burritoville’s Web site has closed, its various phones are either constantly busy or unanswered, and the company president, Jonathan Bernstein, could not be reached for comment. A woman who returned a message on the company’s behalf, identifying herself only as a member of Burritoville’s ‘executive management,’ said the chain would reopen several stores in the next two weeks.”

Let’s hope the many hard-working Burritoville workers will not be screwed – especially considering the tough economic times we’re in.

The Japanese soldiers on the Nisshin Maru prepare to fight us.

This is the seventh blog post in the series documenting the February to March 2008 leg of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling Antarctic campaign. Previous posts in the series are here. The following post was an email I sent three weeks into the voyage. The next update will come Tuesday, July 22nd.

(A donations page, if anyone wants to help me pay for plane tickets to my next Sea Shepherd campaign)

From: Steve Irwin Vessel
Sent on: 3/7/08 10:51:57 +0000

Hey, quick update as I’m in a rush. We just had another clash with the
Japanese soldiers and this time they shot us to hell.

A Japanese soldier winding up to throw a grenade at us. (photo taken by ship’s photographer Noah Hannibal)

A Japanese soldier having tossed a grenade at us. (photo taken by ship’s photographer Noah Hannibal)

They shot at us and threw grenades at us and tried to ram us with their
whaling factory ship and generally acted very unfriendly.

My friends Lawrence and Alex fighting back from the radar deck. (photo taken by ship’s photographer Noah Hannibal)

Your dumbass friend’s job was to stand on the bridge as close as possible to the
grenade-throwers and warn the rest of the bridge crew when to take cover.

A flash-bang grenade from the Japanese in mid-throw. (photo taken by ship’s photographer Noah Hannibal)

The Japanese soldiers threw grenades from behind riot shields. (photo taken by ship’s photographer Noah Hannibal)

Our captain got shot in the chest, but he wore a bulletproof vest, so he’s fine.

Captain Paul Watson holding the bullet that hit his vest, and holding the badge that the bullet dented. (photo taken by ship’s photographer Noah Hannibal)

A close-up of the captain’s badge that was dented by the bullet.

In our previous encounter this week, we threw buteric acid and other chemicals at them to interrupt their whaling operation decks, and they shot water cannons and such at us then. But today the Japanese military replied with deadly force. Well, if you hear about us in the news I’m ok.

Anyway, we still have them on the run regardless, and they seem to be leaving whaling territory gradually, so hopefully we did the job.

Will update you again soon.

-Tod

We catch the Nisshin Maru

This is the fifth blog post in the series documenting the February to March 2008 leg of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling Antarctic campaign. Previous posts in the series are here. The following post was an email I sent just over two weeks into the voyage. The next update will come Wednesday, July 16th.

(A donations page, if anyone wants to help me pay for plane tickets to my next Sea Shepherd campaign)

From: Steve Irwin Vessel
Sent on: 3/2/08 23:30:24 +0000

We just engaged the factory ship just now. As long as we’re on their tail,
they can’t do any more whaling. They had a group of soldiers on deck and ready for the engagement, but they’re in Australian waters breaking Australian law so what can they do? Shoot a boat full of Australians to prove they rule Australian territory?

The Nisshin Maru

The first battle begins. As we come into combat distance, the Japanese soldiers come onto the deck, and the Nisshin Maru uses its water cannons to try to repel us.

We threw acid and chemicals etc at their decks, so even if they lose us in a storm or something they can’t continue whaling operations. They tried to repel us with water cannons, but that did nothing. We threw everything we had, even some old vegan salad dressing that no one liked.

I was particularly happy that I hit their decks with my throw, because we had a butyric acid throwing contest a week ago to determine the teams, and I didn’t just throw badly, I threw so badly that everyone including me laughed. I threw like a disabled cat. So I kinda had to hit their deck during this engagement.

Me after hitting the Nisshin Maru with chemicals.

My friend Lawrence fighting the Nisshin Maru with butyric acid.

Lots to do since we’re still hot on their heels and the media keeps calling, so I gotta go for now.

-Tod

The Sea Shepherd vessel, Steve Irwin, in Antarctica. It’s cold.

This is the third blog post in the series documenting the February to March 2008 leg of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling Antarctic campaign. Previous posts in the series are here. The following post was an email I sent on the ninth day at sea.

(A donations page, if anyone wants to help me pay for plane tickets to my next Sea Shepherd campaign)

From: Steve Irwin Vessel
Sent on: 2/23/08 5:31 PM

Meow. So we’re in the Antarctic officially chasing the whaling fleet. It’s been tiring but I’ve been wired during most of it.

Last night I got no sleep. I got woken up around 2am to go to the bridge because we found a suspicious long-lining vessel. Suspicious as in, after I got up to the bridge, they radioed us to threaten us, saying they were armed and would repel us by force, even though we told them we’re just a conservation vessel. And frankly, if I drove alongside a bus in the Midwest who suddenly radioed me saying they have guns and would shoot me, I’d find them suspicious too. We communicated with them for a while, and they kept asking us to identify ourselves over and over again, and we’re not sure why they did that. But we think the chatter may have attracted the attention of the Japanese, because about an hour later, we found a Japanese vessel, which came near us but then lead us on a chase leading East.

We chased it for a while, but the officers decided it was odd for the Japanese to come so near the radio chatter that so clearly identified us, before leading us on a chase. So first officer Peter Brown did a “Crazy Ivan,” which is a maneuver where you make a sudden unexpected turn, to see how the Japanese vessel would react. We made a 180 degree turn and gunned it going West, and lo and behold, the Japanese vessel turned and followed us. That meant the Japanese vessel was the Fukuyoshi Maru No. 68, the Japanese military ship whose only purpose was to track us and lead us away from the whaling fleet. Some of the crew were bummed about that, since it would be harder to find the rest of the fleet with the Fukuyoshi reporting our position to the rest of the whaling fleet. But those pessimists should’ve had a little more faith in us. :)

The Fukuyoshi Maru No. 68, chasing us.

We played cat and mouse wargames with that ship for a while, in order to get at those whalers before they could harpoon any more baby whales (they kill baby whales!). Then, later that day, our cat and mouse games paid off, as I spotted a harpoon boat on my radar (I call it my radar now because I put so much time and effort into fixing it, and it keeps beeping and making noise and everyone wants to shut it off all the time, and I was the only one who had the faith to keep using it, and the clunky little bugger was the one that picked up the harpoon boat!). The Fukuyoshi tried to get between us and the harpoon boat, but we gunned it past the Fukuyoshi, and we chased the harpoon ship out of a sunny, calm area filled with whales that they would normally have turned into a slaughterhouse of mothers and their calves.

The harpoon boat running away from us.

Close up of the harpoon boat running away from us.

After the chase ended with snow and bad weather moving in, keeping us from effectively tailing the harpoon ship, we came across yet another long-lining vessel, a South Korean vessel called the No. 2 In Sung. We deployed the Delta attack boat to investigate it.

The South Korean vessel No. 2 In Sung.

Our Delta attack boat investigating the No. 2 In Sung.

It turns out it had a permit to be there, but it was bringing up Patagonian toothfish (you probably recognize them on menus as “Chilean sea bass”), which was very illegal.

The In Sung illegally poaching a Patagonian toothfish (photo taken by ship’s official photographer Noah Hannibal)

That was quite upsetting, to see that everyone is pretty much doing anything they want in the Southern Oceans because there’s no law enforcement aside from our tiny ship out here. The other upsetting thing was that the Fukuyoshi came surprisingly close to us when we were investigating the In Sung. They never came that close to us before. I don’t want to accuse poachers of working together, but that was just suspicious that the two closest times they came to us was when we were investigating poachers. Anyway, we repelled them by gunning straight for them, forcing them to back off.

We attack the Fukuyoshi Maru No. 68 to get them off our tail.

We also sent the footage of the poaching to the Oceanic Viking, the Australian customs vessel in charge of the Australian Antarctic territory. Unfortunately they were thousands of miles away and decided not to pursue the matter. >.< No wonder poachers do anything they want here.

I’ve been getting very little sleep, since as a bridge officer they wake me up in the middle of the night every time there’s something suspicious to investigate, but hey, I gotta keep up my NYC sleepless lifestyle somehow.

-Tod

Cartoon by Nick Milliner. This Nugget’s Canadian brethern will now be gassed to death rather than electrocuted. Hooray!

• SuperVegan’s 2nd birthday party is tonight!! Come on out to ‘sNice Brooklyn, 315 5th Avenue at 3rd Street in Park Slope, 6:30pm-10pm. Complimentary cake and keg (feel free to bring supplementary alcohol, too), plus an all-vegan menu of other goodies (that you’ll have to pay for) from ‘sNice.
• I know you all think Vegan Treats cakes are great (unless you’re one of those who ate too much and ODed), so maybe you’d like to read this profile of VT and proprietor Danielle Konya. Also, check out our best attempt at an up-to-date list of NYC restaurants that carry Vegan Treats.
• PETA has annoyed KFC Canda enough that the fried-chicken giant is actually making some changes! Says KFC Canada president Steve Langford, “(PETA) can be unpleasant to deal with, and from a business point of view, it’s nice to put that behind you.” General welfare upgrades will happen to how they (mis)treat their chickens, and they’ll be introducing some kind of vegan faux-chicken to the menu. Sounds nasty to me, but I guess if I’m on a lonely highway in the wilds of Canada, I’d be glad to have it.
• I was going to write a whole blog post about Polyglot Vegetarian’s phenomenal article on historical Branded Meat Substitutes, but I simply haven’t had time to read the damn thing yet. If you’re into the history of veg food, or simply into history, go read it. And you must check out the included poem from 1904, “To a Health-Food Girl.” Hail to thee, Granola Maid!

I’d encourage you to do something vegan to celebrate World Vegan Day, but you do everything vegan everyday anyway. However, while its not officially part of the philosophy, we all know that what vegans are really good at is arguing. So, it being right after Halloween: dogs in costumes. Cute, cruel, exploitative, charming, inappropriate, demeaning? What do you think?

If you just want to see more dogs in costumes, check out Gothamist’s coverage of Pups on Parade at Tompkins Square Park. If you have other favorite pics, post links in the comments.

The only dog I saw dressed up this year was at the Library (not actually a library) at 2am last night. A chihuahua dressed in leather to go with his leather daddy human. So not vegan. (If you can’t see the poll below, click here to vote.)

Today is the 13th annual World Vegan Day, which celebrates the foundation of the Vegan Society in 1944 and the coining of the word “vegan.”

Activists in Britain are campaigning for legal definitions of the words “vegan” and “vegetarian” and for more vegan pizza (they’re totally jealous of us New Yorkers).

Plenty of celebrations are happening around the world; check out ActiVeg or the Vegan Society for event listings. (New Yorkers: the American Vegan Society will be celebrating on Saturday, November 17, from 1pm – 4pm at Candle 79.)

Today’s a good day to get your non-veg friends a Vegetarian Starter Kit or a Why Vegan. Just remember to soften them up with some good food first.

Oh yeah, and happy All Saints Day, Day of the Dead, and Halloween-hangover-recovery day! (Maybe we should’ve chosen a less crowded date for our holiday…?)

Happy Halloween and Day of the Dead from all of us at Team SuperVegan! We’ve been busy in our lairs and dungeons and mad science labs, and we’re thrilled to announce the launch of the New York City Vegan Restaurant Graveyard. This is a special section of our site providing an eternal resting place for all the restaurants in our database that have closed. Old reviews remain visible, and you can still leave new ones– eulogize your martyred heroes and curse your vanquished foes in the war for decent eats.

Some notable recent additions include Zen Palate’s Union Square location (they just closed, citing an “unreasonable rent increase”) and Brooklyn Heights mainstay The Green’s.

The Graveyard is currently populated with places that have closed since we started SuperVegan in early 2006. Over time, we may add older places that live on in our hearts. (O Bachué! O Helianthus! How I miss thee!) Where do restaurants go when they die? Now you know.

Enjoy, and let us know what you think!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bombs: Can you tell the original and the knock-off apart?

Jordana Rothman at Time Out New York has a fun story tracing the “clone rangers” and spin-offs of various popular NYC institutions. For example, alums of the tourist deathspot Magnolia Bakery spawned Buttercup Bake Shop, Billy’s Bakery, Sugar Sweet Sunshine, and Little Cupcake Bakeshop. (None are vegan-friendly, so check out Babycakes for your sugar fix instead.) Surely we have something just like this in the veggie world.

Vegetarian’s Paradise 2 went through the trouble (and expense) of trademarking their “World Famous Crispy Soul Chicken” after a former chef left to open Vegetarian Palate in Park Slope, Brooklyn and ripped-off the West Village mainstay’s signature dishes such as Peking Spareribs and Mango Chicken.

A former chef at Gobo ripped-off not only the fancy restaurant’s recipes and menu, but also a part of its decor – the collages of dried ingredients – when he opened Wild Ginger on the border of Chinatown and Wild Ginger Brooklyn in Williamsburg.

In Philly, Gianna’s Grille rips off Danielle Konya’s VeganTreats and tries to peddle their knock-offs with an air of authenticity with words such as “original,” “signature,” and get this: “Gianna’s vegan treats are available exclusively at Gianna’s! Accept no substitute!” (The lovely Danielle used to supply her cakes to Gianna’s.) Even more scandalous though: after telling their customers for years that they used a secret formula for their unbelievably meltable and stretchable soy cheese, Gianna’s Grille was exposed to have maliciously lied about their soy cheese being vegan. Though they now claim that everything labeled vegan on their menu is really indeed vegan, many vegans in the know still avoid and boycott the restaurant like the plague.

Veg Greenpointers and American History buffs have reason to celebrate in the recently opened William Taft Vegetarian Diner. It’s the only all-vegetarian eatery in the ‘hood, and the first Greenpoint restaurant we’ve added to our restaurant guide. They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner food simultaneously from 8am til Midnight, and bake their own muffins, cakes and pies on premises.

Though the WTVD was named after the 27th president on a whim, the Taft theme runs throughout. Upon walking in the place, diners are confronted by a huge freestanding bathtub full of the jelly beans–an ironic meeting of the girthy president’s favorite food and mortal enemy. (Taft was trapped in the White House tub several times before a huge custom one was installed.) The menu features cheeky dish names like “Fantaftic sandwich” and the “Whoa, Nellie Taft!” salad (named after the first lady). The diner also has a mustachioed logo, as Taft was the last prez to sport porntaftic facial hair.

The atmosphere at the WTVD is pretty low-key (fluorescent lights, linoleum tiles, the restroom in a curtained-off back room full of “mess” which a sign says was blessed by God), but the friendly punk biker kids working there and the old-time Greenpoint locals who drop by add flavor and distinction.

Check out their myspace page to find out about their upcoming back-room movie screenings which start next week. Apparently you can BYOB, thought Taft might not have approved. Go eat there, then leave a review on SuperVegan!

In 2007, journalist Elizabeth Jensen pitched the story to CNBC, and the cable news network decided to investigate. They interviewed Vegan Supreme founder Ming Tran, Sara Sohn (Sara, you look great!) and the folks at Vegetarians in Paradise, putting it all together into a “delectable story everyone will enjoy!” Here’s the first minute and a half to tease you:

The segment, titled “A Puff Piece,” is part of “Business Nation” and premiers on CNBC Wednesday, May 2nd 10pm Eastern, and will be rebroadcast that night at 1am. Additional May show times (all Eastern): May 7th, 9pm and 12am; May 20th, 10pm and 1am; May 21st, 9pm and 12am; May 27th, 10pm and 1am.

Editor’s Note: Yeah, we’re not too sure these cookies have any real resemblance to Thin Mints, what with the creme and vanilla cookie, but we still hope to inhale a box in the near future.

One of my happiest childhood memories involves cookies. I was a Girl Scout, and in 198whenever, my mom, who is not usually insane, volunteered our house to be the local distribution center for the annual cookie drive. It was like Cookie Christmas: I woke up one morning, came downstairs and found our entire living room filled, floor to ceiling, with cases of cookies. A whole room of cookies! At first, I was in heaven. Then I got to the part where (much like it is to be vegan now) I wasn’t allowed to eat them and it became torture.

I held out secret hope that if any cookies went unsold, California’s possession laws would grant me ownership. I turned in my sash and quit the club when those overachievers sold the last damn box. But today I have found redemption! All I need is a stockpile of cash, the room of my choice, and Paskesz Mint Creme Cookies by the caseload. Thin Mints! And the packaging doesn’t lie, they are approximately 3,782 times better frozen. Girl Scout’s honor.

Bush is a meat-eater!

Fresh from correcting an article that falsely claimed soy milk is not a nutritionally good alternative to bovine mammary secretions, the venerable New York Times has been called out again for a review of Tristram Stuart’s The Bloodless Revolution that included the bullshit claim that Hitler and his cohorts were vegetarian.

Instead of simply scrubbing clean the story on its website this time around, the New York Times will be publishing an edited letter of correction from Rynn Berry, local NYC author of such books as The Vegan Guide to New York City and Hitler: Neither Vegetarian Nor Animal Lover and historical advisor to the North American Vegetarian Society, in this coming Sunday, April 14th edition of The New York Times Book Review.

I think the whole “so and so was a vegetarian, so vegetarianism must be bad” argument is just plain stupid and hardly worth responding to. But in case someone ever says “Hitler was a vegetarian” and you feel like responding like a Jeopardy-worthy history junkie, here’s Rynn Berry’s full letter.

Updated: Here’s the New York Times Book Review’s edited version of the letter.

Thursday, March 8, 2007

The Editor
The New York Times Book Review
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036

To the Editor,

I must take issue with Mr. Rothstein’s glib characterization of Hitler and his Nazi henchmen, Hess, and Himmler, as vegetarians, in his review of Tristram Stuart’s The Bloodless Revolution (February 25). As the historical advisor to the North American Vegetarian Society, I am constantly being taxed with having to explain Hitler’s alleged vegetarianism. In researching the matter, I discovered that Hitler was not a true vegetarian. I presented my findings in a book entitled Hitler Neither Vegetarian Nor Animal Lover (Pythagorean Publishers, 2004).

In my book, I cite numerous primary sources that attest that Hitler was not a thoroughgoing vegetarian. Here are a few examples: For instance, one of his closest friends, Frau Hess, asserted that Hitler was a strict vegetarian except for Liver Dumplings. “From that moment on, Hitler never ate another piece of meat, except for liver dumplings.” (His habitual eating of liver dumplings is an important exception that disqualifies Hitler as vegetarian.)

Chef Dione Lucas, who used routinely to prepare meals for him into the early 1930s, actually published Hitler’s favorite recipes in her cookbook, The Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook (1964, p. 89) “I learned the recipe when I worked as a chef before World War II, in one of the large hotels in Hamburg, Germany. I do not mean to spoil your appetite for stuffed squab, but you might be interested to know that it was a great favorite with Mr. Hitler who dined at the hotel often. Let us not hold that against a fine recipe though.” (His habitual eating of stuffed squab disqualifies Hitler as a vegetarian.)

In the New York Times of May 30 1937, in an article entitled “Where Hitler Dreams and Plans,” Times reporter Otto D. Tolschuss wrote, “It is well known that Hitler is vegetarian and does not drink or smoke. His lunch and dinner consist, therefore, for the most part of soup, eggs, vegetables and mineral water, although he occasionally relishes a slice of ham and relieves the tediousness of his diet with such delicacies as caviar, luscious fruits and similar tidbits.” (His occasional eating of sliced ham and caviar disqualifies Hitler as a vegetarian.)

Hitler biographer, Thomas Fuchs, in his book, A Concise Biography of Adolf Hitler (New York: Berkeley, 2000, p.78), also confirms that Hitler was not a vegetarian. “A typical day’s consumption included eggs prepared in any number of ways, spaghetti, baked potatoes with cottage cheese, oatmeal, stewed fruits and vegetable puddings. Meat was not completely excluded. Hitler continued to eat a favorite dish, leberkloesse (liver dumplings).”

To be sure, Hitler professed to be a vegetarian (in section 66 of Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941-44), but the primary sources that I have cited in my book show that while he paid lip service to vegetarianism, he was not consistent in his practice of the diet. “Vegetarian”–which means, (according to the standard dictionary definition),”the practice of eating only vegetables and refraining from eating meat, fish, or other animal products”– is like that other V word, Virgin: you either are one, or you are not. By that criterion, Hitler was a quasi vegetarian, a would-be vegetarian, or a flexitarian. He was decidedly not a true vegetarian.

With regard to Rudolf Hess, the Fuhrer’s fawning deputy, Hess may have been a vegetarian for a brief space–perhaps as a result of his faddish interest in Rudolf Steiner’s bio-dynamic agricultural theories. In fact, Hess’s biographer, Wulf Schwarzwaller, in his book, Rudolf Hess the Last Nazi (Bethesda, MD: National Press, 1988), suggests (pp. 157, 161) that Hess’s flirtation with biologically dynamic vegetarian foods was just that–a dietary experiment prescribed by a Steinerian doctor. By the time Hess was in Spandau prison in the 1940s, he was back to eating animal flesh with gusto. Schwarzwaller (p. 278) quotes him as complaining to the prison doctor, “The sausages are much too spicy.”

Mr. Rothstein’s statement that Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the Final Solution, was a vegetarian advocate ["Himmler was an advocate,"] is preposterous and utterly without foundation in fact. Nowhere in the biographical literature on Himmler does it state that he was ever a practicing vegetarian. In fact, in the definitive biography of Himmler, Peter Padfield’s Himmler, (New York: Henry Holt, & Co., 1990, p. 352), Padfield writes that Himmler despite his queasiness about the hunting of animals, “was not a vegetarian.”

Finally, to suggest with Tristram Stuart, as Mr. Rothstein does, that many Nazis were vegetarians, ["Many Nazis, as Stuart suggests were either vegetarians or interested in related issues."] is a gross distortion of the facts. The truth is that not one Nazi was a thoroughgoing vegetarian–not even Hitler himself. I hope that you will be fair-minded enough to print this letter so that readers may judge for themselves whether Hitler, Hess and Himmler were vegetarians. I’m afraid Mr. Rothstein’s review is just one further instance of a pundit’s publicly relishing the (false) paradox that a triumvirate of genocidal tyrants should have been the followers of a Gandhian diet.

Rynn Berry
Historial Advisor
North American Vegetarian Society

In “We Eat Horses, Don’t We?” in The New York Times, Christa Weil explains that contrary to what most Americans believe, our history shows that we have indeed sporadically used horses as food. And as you may know, other cultures, such as the French and Canadians, consider it a delicacy. Like most vegans, when I heard about this bill passed last week in the House, which prohibits the commercial sale and slaughter of wild free-roaming horses and burros, I was ambivalent. Sure, it’s great that this year another 130,000+ horses won’t be slaughtered for human consumption. But what about the billions of farm animals who suffer each day of their lives and die hideous deaths? As Weil points out, “The ill treatment of slaughter-bound horses is bad, but it would be worse still if it made us pay less attention to the undue suffering of other food animals.”

We don’t eat horses because it’s not part of our culture. But eating cows, chickens and fish is. Culture can be defined as: the word we use to explain something that is otherwise inexplicable or unjustifiable.

Scientists are on the case! (Read the full strip.)

A new study has determined that Neolithic European farmers couldn’t digest dairy. Scientists at University College London and Mainz University in Germany examined skeletons from between 5480BC and 5000BC, in search of the gene that produces lactase (the enzyme which enables the digestion of the milk sugar lactose). Some time between then and now, Europeans mutated to produce the gene, while many non-Europeans never developed it, and have suffered the imposition of dairy on their diets.

UCL’s Dr Mark Thomas seems hopelessly Eurocentric in his assessment that “this is probably the single most advantageous gene trait in humans in the last 30,000 years.” But some of his other arguments hold more water: being able to digest milk gave ancient Europeans a “big survival advantage” as it was less contaminated than stream water; and it was available year-round, unlike crops.

So, while civilized people in the rest of the world learned to store crops through non-productive seasons, white people mutated to drink milk.

Tristam Stuart’s The Bloodless Revolution: A Cultural History of Vegetarianism from 1600 to Modern Times (a book I’ve previously expressed interest in) is now available in the US. There’s an extensive review by Steven Shapin in the New Yorker which makes for a very good read.

While certainly a good writer and scholar, Stuart is not a vegetarian himself, as related in this Guardian column, where he uses deer overpopulation as an excuse to shoot and eat one. As far as I’m concerned, if you think anyone needs to be killed to stop overpopulation, you should seriously consider starting with yourself, at least as a rhetorical exercise.

On Tuesday, as part of the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival, there’s a screening of Animal People: The Humane Movement in America.

The documentary takes a look at the history of the animal protection movement and includes interviews with Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Ingrid Newkirk, Gene Bauston, Dr. Neal Barnard, and others.

The film is playing at Village East Cinemas, 181 Second Ave., NYC, 212-529-6998. To order tickets online ($12), click here.

On Thursday, I went to Stand-up NY (kind of an unlikely venue) for a lecture by Dr. Michael Greger, for a presentation based on his new book, Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching.

The talk was both fascinating and terrifying. Did you know, for example, that all human infectious diseases are thought to have originated from animals—the flu from sheep, colds from horses—and that infectious diseases did not exist before humans started to domesticate animals? (In populations that hunt and eat wild animals, there are no such diseases.) Hence, a virus of our own hatching.

Some facts from the book:

“In 1918, half the world became infected and 25% of all Americans fell ill. Unlike the regular seasonal flu, which tends to kill only the elderly and infirm, the flu virus of 1918 killed those in the prime of life. Public health specialists at the time noted that most influenza victims were those who ‘had been in the best of physical condition and freest from previous disease.’

…The 1918 influenza pandemic killed more people in a single year than the bubonic plague (‘black death’) in the Middle Ages killed in a century. The 1918 virus killed more people in 25 weeks than AIDS has killed in 25 years. According to one academic reviewer, this ‘single, brief epidemic generated more fatalities, more suffering, and more demographic change in the United States than all the wars of the Twentieth Century.’ ”

The problem is, bird flu is going to be worse. And according to Dr. Greger and other experts, it’s a matter of when, not if:

“Because it’s happened before. Because an influenza pandemic in 1918 became the deadliest plague in human history, killing up to 100 million people around the world. Because the 1918 flu virus was likely a bird flu virus. Because that virus made more than a quarter of all Americans ill and killed more people in 25 weeks than AIDS has killed in 25 years—yet in 1918, the case mortality rate was less than 5%. H5N1, on the other hand, has officially killed half of its human victims.”

Thankfully, Dr. Greger didn’t hurl the ugly truth at us without also telling us what we could do to try to protect ourselves. You can find information on general preparedness here, as well as a checklist of supplies to have on hand.

Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching is due out later this month, but you can order it online now (the cost is $30, but all proceeds go to charity, though which one[s] Dr. Greger didn’t say). You can also download the book for free, and start stocking up on food, water, and medicine now.

Tonight (Sunday) is the 25th anniversary of PBS’s Nature series, and to celebrate, the channel is airing Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History.

Chimpanzees “provides a sobering glimpse into their use in science and entertainment” and features three groups that work to save our closest relatives from experimentation: Save the Chimps, the Fauna Foundation, and the Center for Great Apes.

Want to do your part to liberate these primates from laboratories? Ask the government to stop funding animal research, and e-mail the National Center for Research Resources about instituting a permanent moratorium on the breeding of chimps.

Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History airs at 8 p.m. ET tonight. Check here for your local listings.

The Guardian has published an excerpt from The Bloodless Revolution: A Cultural History of Vegetarianism from 1600 to Modern Times, a new book by Tristram Stuart.

The book is an in-depth examination of the origins of modern, Western vegetarianism. It follows the movement from early British encounters with Hinduism and Enlightenment philosophy through to the present. A choice quote:

Amazingly, three of Europe’s most important early seventeenth-century philosophers – Descartes, Gassendi and Francis Bacon – all advocated vegetarianism. At no time before or since has vegetarianism been endorsed by such a formidable array of intellectuals, and by the 1700s their pioneering work had blossomed into a powerful movement of scientific vegetarianism.

And it seems some things never change:

Although most people preferred not to think about it, the vegetarians insisted that filling the European belly funded the torture of animals in unpleasant agricultural systems, and ultimately the rape and pillage of the entire world.

I look forward to reading this book. I really don’t know my pre-20th century roots when it comes to veganism. I suspect I’m not alone in this.

While The Bloodless Revolution was released in the UK today, the US release isn’t until January, 2007.