Next stop: slaughterhouse.

Dairy farmers slaughtered 30 percent more cows in January than in September and are sending the cows’ remains to the meat market to cut losses, the Associated Press reports.

The cost of producing milk is now double the price to consumers and the industry is having trouble keeping up. “This could destroy our dairy infrastructure,” Mike Marsh, CEO of the United Western Dairymen trade association, told the AP.

For a moment, imagine if the burden of Wall Street executives (and, hey, even that of dairy farmers) were alleviated using the same strategy farmers are using to lighten the self-imposed burden of their dairy cows. Those who proved to be worth much less than their paychecks could be sent off to slaughter and made into meat patties, or better, veal–us desk-tethered humans don’t get much exercise–and sold to feed all the people who are furiously digging through their purses for a few more cents to afford a can of chicken noodle soup at Gristedes.

And dairy cows aren’t the only bovines the farming industry is killing prematurely (by their standards). Bull calves shipped off to feedlots to reach a weight deemed appropriate for slaughter are also a liability to the cattle livestock industry; the costs of rearing the young cows are gaining on the returns. Farm Sanctuary is offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the discovery of the party who dumped 30 bull calves on roads in San Joaquin County, Calif. Nearly 50 calves have been dumped on roads in that county since January.

Meanwhile, in Dabhel, India, where killing cows is illegal, five people were arrested on Tuesday, February 10 for cow slaughter.

• I’m in Portland, Oregon for a while. It really is the clean, quiet, inexpensive, leafy, bicycle-and-vegan-friendly town they say it is, dammit. Anyways, if you’re at the Let Live Conference this weekend, say hi! They’ve finally posted the conference schedule (PDF), so check that out.
• One highlight of the conference is Isa Chandra Moskowitz‘s “How To: Culinary Activism” on Sunday afternoon. Isa was just profiled in the Portland Mercury. “America’s Favorite Vegan Cookbook Writer Now Calls Portland Home.” Sob.
• The vegan minimall (home to Food Fight!, Herbivore, Sweetpea Bakery, Scapegoat Tattoo) is even nicer than any pictures I’ve seen led me to believe. And certain amongst our readers will be pleased to know that Herbivore’s got almost nothing brown for sale these days.
• Elsewhere, apes got legal rights in Spain, a country with no wild apes or apes in laboratories. But hey, it may be a start towards rights for apes elsewhere, or for other species in Spain.
• Ram Singh Munda, a single dad in Orissa, India, was arrested for adopting an orphan wild bear cub. Now he’s's in jail, his six-year-old daughter Dulki was sent to a state-run boarding school, and Rani the bear is in an isolation cell at the zoo, refusing to eat. People for Animals is campaigning for Munda’s release and has promised him a job at a wildlife rehabilitation center.
• Tennis fans: Wimbeldon keeps some hawks around who keep most of the pigeons away, but got in trouble recently for shooting some pigeons who were “creating a health risk around the players’ lawn and a restaurant”. Awful of course, but any worse than killing rats and mice and ants and roaches like nearly every institution does?
• What else … oh yeah, Oprah Winfrey’s not vegan anymore. She pledges “I will forever be a more cautious and conscious eater. That’s my commitment for now. To stay awakened.” I wonder how long it will be before she’s enlightened enough to eat that grilled sea bass she’s been missing.

Beijing rescuer Hu Yua keeps 250 cats in her apartment. “If I don’t take them in, the government will kill them.”

Reader Hannah sent us this in-depth article about the house cat holocaust going on China in preparation of the Beijing Olympics. The article and accompanying images are very disturbing, though there are some heartwarming tales of individual rescuers. Unlike Athens’s genocide against dogs before the 2004 Olympics, this horrible initiative isn’t even limited to strays. The government seems to be running a successful propaganda campaign claiming that cats are inherently dangerous and cause all sorts of diseases; many people are turning in their own pets “for safety’s sake.”

In slightly better news, the Indian state of Kashmir has canceled plans to poison thousands of stray dogs (the numbers vary widely from 2,000 to 100,000) in an attempt to stop rabies. After killing the first 500, authorities have decided to try sterilization instead.

More locally, have you read about the rescues of Phyllis the Bed Stuy Chicken or Denny the Bronx goat? Both happy endings for individuals, but reminders that there are still plenty of active slaughterhouses in New York City.

I spotted this ad on a bus shelter the other day. The text reads “A Vegan Did Not Choose Green.” More background here or here.

• Mumbai has banned elephants, citing cruelty and unhealthy conditions. Now if only we could do something similar for the horses in New York…
• Jason at Taste Better recently posted the final part of his interview with Ryan Wilson from Vegan Essentials. It’s pretty long and reasonably dry, but if you care about vegan business, well worth a read: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
• David Beckham apparently now wears synthetic soccer cleats, in deference to his wife‘s support of animal rights. Thanks, Posh!

NOHARM Dark Brown Lace-up Vegan Ankle Boots: only $299!

• Following up on previous reports, vegetarian Mumbai gentry continue to oppress meat eaters, kicking them out of housing and shopping malls, etc. It’s kind of hard to imagine this happening anywhere else!
• There’s a new kid on the vegan shoe block. NOHARM shoes are handmade in Italy, and are aiming for the Stella McCartney end of the market with prices starting at $275 a pair. They make a lot of nice-looking men’s dress shoes, which is great, cause almost no one else does. But for all their talk of ethics and eco-friendly packaging, NOHARMS still seem to be made of evil PVC, just like your kicks from Payless
• A new scientific study reveals that multiple stab wounds may be harmful to monkeys. As with everything tested on animals, the same thing is certainly true for humans, so be careful with the kitchen knife when prepping that Puppy Beef or Kitty Beef for dinner. (Hat tip to The PETA Files.)
• Today’s NY Times “Dining & Wine” section has a big “happy meat” article that gives a nice bit of ink to Gene Baur and the good folks at the Farm Sanctuary but also indulges crap like this:
  

  “From the chef’s perspective it comes down to, ‘Yeah, the steak looks good but why is it not performing?’ ” Mr. Perry Lang said. “It’s because of how the animal was raised and handled. That’s not animal rights, but it is animal welfare.”

Dr. Benjamin Spock, humanitarian.

• Doctor Spock recommended a mostly vegan diet for babies, children and adults. And he sold way more books than Nina Planck ever will.
• At the prodding of one legislator’s 16-year-old daughter, Israel has outlawed animal testing for cosmetics.
• Posh Victoria Beckham carries vegan diet book Skinny Bitch around. Sales explode–hey, it’s selling better than Isa on Amazon!
• An Indian vegetarian won his civil suit for “aggravated damages” against Malaysian Airlines after they served him a meaty on-board meal in 2003. He received 200,000 rupees (about $4,124) in damages, twice as much as this Indian family did for “mental torture.”
• And I’ve always had mixed feelings about raw food, but this Chinese man is giving “live” a whole new (terrible, punny) meaning: he claims eating live frogs and mice for the last forty years has cured his stomach ails.

Gopal Kumar Goyal, Chairman, MDLR Airlines

Airlines may not be segregated for vegetarians as Sri N. Sugalchand proposed earlier this year, but vegetarians in India will soon be able to fly more comfortably. MDLR Airlines is marketing itself as India’s first pure vegetarian airline. They plan to begin operating this month with two 70-seater aircraft flying between Chandigarh, New Delhi, Ranchi and Kolkata, and then expand to other cities such as Mumbai, Goa, Surat and Bhavnagar. MDLR Chairman Gopal Kumar Goyal said the airline promises to “provide a wide variety of multi-cuisine vegetarian specialties.”

This is a great step for India – and I can’t even express how glad I am that vegetarians won’t have to be subjected to “special, picky-eaters” seating. But for all of us not living in or traveling around India, we’ll still be stuck researching veg meals for a while.

A more innocent time: when veg mental torture wasn’t a polite topic of conversation.

A vegetarian family from Surat, India was awarded a 118,000 rupee (about $2,680) settlement from Denmark’s SAS Scandinavian Airlines for “racial remarks, misbehavior and mental torture” inflicted on them when they requested veg airline food.

When I recently traveled to Europe, I requested vegan meals with United Airlines upon booking my flight; but both there and back, my meals “were [mysteriously] not boarded.” After some minor finagling, a flight attendant brought me one of the first-class “snack baskets” stuffed with three pounds of crazy Euro fruit; about a half hour later, a different flight attendant brought me a tomato and smoked tofu sandwich! It wasn’t a ‘sNice club or anything, but it tasted incredible in context. So I say risk the torture and demand to be served like other customers–the guy next to me got a “low fat/low sodium” meal with no problems. And if they’re jerks to you, file a complaint and win thousands of dollars. (And read the labels on those snack mixes because a lot of them are cheesy.)

The world’s longest dosa

Do you know that hotels and restaurants in India are required to post red or green stickers on all food, to indicate if it’s vegetarian or not? Neither do many restaurants and hotels in India (or at least Lucknow), according to the Hindustan Times. But still, what a wonderful idea!

I had trouble finding much background on the stickering scheme. Please comment if you know any more about this.

The pot calling the not-quite-kettle black

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine came under fire recently for suing fast food chains like McDonald’s and Burger King for serving grilled chicken containing carcinogens. The slam came from the Center for Consumer Freedom, which calls PCRM a “phony ‘physicians’ group” who would “rather save lab rats than cure cancer and AIDS.”

In its pursuit of “truth,” the CCF has created websites like PhysicianScam.com, as well as FishScam.com and Trans-fat Facts.com, where it refutes information about the dangers of eating fish and trans-fats-containing foods—information it says has been fabricated by the “food police”—and promotes their consumption instead.

The group calls PCRM “animal rights zealots” and “radical animal rights activists.” And CCF’s director of research, David Martosko, used the lawsuits as an opportunity to scare people away from a plant-based diet: “The federal government and the American Cancer Society agree that there’s nothing dangerous about eating a chicken sandwich. But letting animal rights activists slowly force us into vegetarianism could be hazardous to everyone’s health. The last time I checked, Americans were getting sick from spinach, not grilled chicken.”

Right. While we’re all concerned about the E. coli contamination of spinach and lettuce, let’s not forget the source of that contamination: the manure of farmed cattle. (Now it’s thought that wild pigs could have spread the bacteria in the cow’s manure. A sensible conclusion since it does less harm to profits to cull wild animals than farmed ones…though now even wild boar are finding their way into someone’s wallet.)

As for the group’s claim that PCRM is not what it appears to be and that it has an ulterior motive for advocating vegetarianism and veganism, how about this: Richard Berman, who runs the Center for Consumer Freedom through his PR firm, Berman & Co., has served as a lobbyist for Steak & Ale Restaurants, and his company has ties to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, Sutter Home Winery, Philip Morris (which owns Kraft Foods and Oscar Meyer), and, oh yeah, National Steak & Poultry. So it’s not surprising that CCF advocates eating chicken despite PCRM’s carcinogen-revealing tests. (Let’s not even discuss the fact that the 53rd death from bird flu just occurred in Indonesia, bringing the total to 148 deaths and 253 cases of bird flu worldwide.)

CCF’s motives for advocating a poultry- and meat-based diet are pretty clear. So what does PCRM gain from promoting a plant-based diet—apart from the health and welfare of humans and animals, of course? If the CCF is worried about conflicts of interest, it should focus instead on people like former FDA chief Lester M. Crawford, who, in addition to owning shares of Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, Medtronic, and Boston Scientific, had stock in Embrex, “an F.D.A.-regulated poultry biotechnology company where he formerly served as a director.” Crawford also had a stake in Pepsico, while he was chairman of an FDA “Obesity Working Group that among other tasks was reviewing calorie content labeling for soft drinks. At the time, prosecutors said, [he and his wife] held 1,400 shares of Pepsico worth at least $62,000, as well as 2,500 shares of Sysco, which specializes in supplying food to restaurants and institutions, worth at least $78,000.”

And what about our government, whose Beef Checkoff Program “was established as part of the 1985 Farm Bill. The checkoff assesses $1 per head on the sale of live domestic and imported cattle, in addition to a comparable assessment on imported beef and beef products. States retain up to 50 cents on the dollar and forward the other 50 cents per head to the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board, which administers the national checkoff program, subject to USDA approval.” Thanks to this program, beef sales are promoted at, for example, the restaurants of the TravelCenters of America chain—and this marketing actually qualifies as “government speech.” No blurring of boundaries there.

I’ve always found it mind-boggling that when organizations like PCRM work to protect human health and alleviate the suffering of other species, some group comes out of the woodwork to attribute nefarious motives to their actions. I guess that’s to be expected when you’re putting public health and interspecies welfare above profits. But then again, it’s not just profits they’re up against; it’s ignorance, too. A PETA campaign that equates feeding meat to kids with child abuse is getting a lot of flak (admittedly, the use of the term “child abuse” is pretty inflammatory). But here it’s doctors who are speaking out against the campaign, citing, among other reasons: “Meat is part of a healthy diet for growing children,” and “…it is irresponsible to—without qualification—discourage them from eating meat.”

Never mind beef’s fat content, and all those hormones and antibiotics. Or that there are other, healthier ways to get the necessary iron and protein. Or that a vegan diet may more effectively treat type 2 diabetes than even oral medications. I admit, there is one thing eating a plant-based diet won’t provide us with: mad cow disease. (And I’ll bet that the U.S.’s decision to run fewer tests for mad cow had nothing to do with the fact that Japan was preparing to resume importing beef from us.) And lest our salads get all the attention, more than 5,000 pounds of beef were recalled due to E. coli recently, following an earlier recall of several thousand pounds of meat as recently as August.

So to Berman and his CCF cohorts, I say, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Especially not carcinogen-laden ones, aimed at people who are working to promote the health of people and the planet instead of lining the meat and poultry industries’ pockets.

In June, India banned the export of lentils to combat domestic shortages. The NY Times checks in today with a report of the ban’s impact on New York City’s Indian immigrant community. A choice excerpt:

“Some people might say, ‘Big deal, it’s just a bean,’ but to Indians, the lentil is our bread,” said G. L. Soni, who owns House of Spices, an Indian food distributor in Corona, Queens. “Many Indians are vegetarians, so it is their bread and milk and cheese and meat combined.”

The article also made me realize how underrepresented Jackson Heights is in our listings of Indian restaurants. For your reference, here’s the restaurants we’ve categorized as South Indian, and here’s the restaurants we’ve categorized as North Indian (there’s some overlap between the two).

Ananthapura Lake Temple

The wires are abuzz with reports of Babia, a vegan crocodile who acts as guardian of Ananthapura Lake Temple in Kerala, India.

While the priests only feed the sixtysomething year-old Babia large quantities of boiled rice and jaggery, accounts differ as to whether the croc supplements this austere diet with the local fish.

(What, you don’t know what jaggery is?! Here, I looked it up for you.)

Well, we can add a few more to the number of vegans in India: the cats at Karuna Kunj shelter in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta, you colonialist pig), are eating vegan now!

“To avoid serving non-veg food to cats some of our animal-loving patrons thought that we should try to find out an alternative vegetarian food which can provide cats required nourishment and at the same time save innocent lives of other animals” said Debasis Chakraborti, founder of the Compassionate Crusaders Trust, who runs the shelter.

It’s just a trial program for now, but it seems to be going well. They are ordering AMI s.r.l. food from Italy, which is expensive to ship and takes two months in transit. Now I feel a little less ridiculous getting my cats’ food shipped from Minnesota.

Folks wait for a taste of vegan India in Washington Square Park.

Early this month, The Hindu conducted a State of the Nation Survey. The poll of thousands of people in different regions across the country aimed to determine the food habits and dietary preferences of the Indian population. The results are now in and some of them are quite surprising.

I’ve always imagined that a majority of Indian people were vegetarian, considering all the religions that advocate a veg diet that have sprung out of that area of the world and all the recent veg segregationist activities. But the survey reveals that only 31 percent of Indian individuals and only 21 percent of families are vegetarian. The survey reports that 9 percent of Indians are vegetarians who consume eggs, though it does not note how many are vegan.

Naturally, after reading this survey I was very curious to discover how many people in the USA are vegetarian, just to get some perspective. According to a 2003 Harris Interactive Survey sponsored by the Vegetarian Resource Group , only 2.8 percent of Americans are vegetarian and about 1.8 percent of Americans—and a majority of vegetarians—are vegan. (I couldn’t find any more recent reliable research.)

So it looks like if one were looking to become an expatriate to a more veg-friendly nation, India might be a good option. Just don’t expect it to be all dhal all the time.

A Valentine’s Day protest in Mumbai

The militant vegetarians of Mumbai show no sign of lightening up. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that residents of the high-income Napean Sea Road area have repeatedly and effectively defeated anyone’s attempt to open a non-veg restaurant. Some choice quotes from the article:

When Pizza Hut tried to open a franchise near Walkeshwar last year, vociferous protests from area residents forced the company to turn the restaurant into the world’s first and only vegetarian Pizza Hut. But even that was not good enough and a few months later the new outlet was closed.

Sanjay Narang, a local restaurateur, owns the Roti chain of restaurants that serve northern Indian fare, such as tandoori chicken and rogan josh, tried to open one of his restaurants near a Jain temple. It was very unwelcome, Narang told the local press, and members of the Jain community living nearby spat on guests and pelted them with pebbles.

While there is certainly a dark underside of classism and religious discrimination to the situation (which we previously reported on a month ago), it’s hard not to feel good about it!

Meat eaters need not apply.

A recent AP feature reports that the number of exclusively vegetarian neighborhoods is rapidly growing in Mumba, India.

Meat eating house hunters are routinely and openly denied housing sales and leases. The article points out that rejected omnivorous home-seekers have challenged the discrimination in court, but last year India’s highest tribunal ruled the practice legal.

Housing isn’t the only area where vegetarians are of such a high influence; many supermarkets and restaurants throughout the city are exclusively vegetarian because of pressure from their primarily veg customers. “If you step out to eat, there’s nothing for kilometres because everything around is veggie,” complains one non-veg man interviewed.

Salman Khan: In for a five-year stretch

According to a story on the BBC, Bollywood superstar Salman Khan is in big trouble—because he can’t stop killing animals. In spite of bringing home the bucks in movie terms, he keeps, well, bringing home the bucks: in his case, poaching an endangered antelope. According to www.salmanonline.net, he’s going to have “five years rigorous imprisonment.” And that isn’t the end of it. Salman’s also facing two other court appearances after a 1998 hunting trip, as the BBC puts it, “when two black bucks were killed.”

According to his official fan site, Salman is “moody and unpredictable. Can be very caring, very protective, very loving, and also childishly petulant….” Clearly, on this occasion, he was an idiot.

Sacramento’s Main Jail continues to refuse vegan meals to imprisoned eco-activist, Eric Taylor McDavid. The Sacramento Sheriff’s Department considers veganism to be a “lifestyle choice.” McDavid, who has been on a (presumably diet-related) hunger strike since March 8, considers it equivalent to religious belief. He is now suing the jail.

Meanwhile on the flip side of the world, in Madurai, India, police shut down a AIADMK Party function for trespassing into a city temple and attempting to organize a non-vegetarian feast. “Police and officials said this was in violation of both the model code of conduct and the temple customs, which prohibited anyone from bringing non-vegetarian items inside the premises.”

John Abraham

PETA India has just launched petaDishoom.com, a website targeting Indian tweens, teens, and twenty-somethings. Of course Pamela Anderson is featured, but bollywood celebrites like John Abraham are there working their sexiness for the animals too.

No chicken for her.

The onset of bird flu is making people do unheard of things around the globe. In Kerala, India, according to RXPG News, Christians, who make up a fifth of the population in the south-western state, are going to mark Lent, which begins on February 27, by actually giving up something: in this case, eating chickens. Meanwhile, airlines in India are removing chicken from their menus and beefing up, as it were, their vegetarian options. In fact, says The Statesman, Jet Airways and Air Sahara have removed all meat and eggs, except a few mutton dishes, on their flights. Better not tell them about scrapie.

Not to be outdone, Bollywood stars are also chucking chickens: “I’m not eating chicken or eggs,” says Bipasha Basu (pictured) in Mid-Day. “Anyways, I am more of a fish eater.” The only star not finding reasons to examine their diets a little more deeply is Bhushan Kumar, a producer: “I have heard about the bird flu and it’s very sad that it’s taking so many lives. I am a pure vegetarian and as a precaution I have started eating at 100 per cent vegetarian places and at home only vegetarian food is cooked.” Sounds a sensible plan, bird flu or no.