Where did the whole vegan thing come from? I always figured it was a 1970s thing, or maybe it went back to Berkeley in the early 1960s. According to the Vegan Society, the non-dairy/egg-free vegetarian craze began in London back in 1944. That was not a fun year to be in London, what with the aerial bombings and rocket attacks. Here's what they said in the very first issue of their newsletter:

That freedom has now come to us. Having followed a diet free from all animal food for periods varying from a few weeks in some cases, to many years in others, we believe our ideas [...]

Did you know about the greatest media scandal of the year? It's pretty great: VegNews, the magazine for vegan eating (vegans don't actually eat the magazine, though yes, they might as well; it has recipes of "actual" food), has been Photoshopping stock photos of real meat dishes as illustration, by removing the meaty bits or just straight up using real meat. Can you imagine the betrayal? It's a little like Out putting straight people on the cover. (Oh, wait, they do that all the time.) It'd be like Forbes putting poor people on the cover! Or Tikkun profiling David Duke! Or Time choosing someone interesting! (Kidding!) [...]

Remember that story about how Bill Clinton once ate an entire baked potato in one bite? Well, he could still do that now, so long as there was no butter or sour cream on it.

I've never understood haute cuisine. I've never even understood spending in excess of 15 minutes–or $15–procuring something to eat. I think what most confuses me about fancy, expensive, time-consuming food is that, no matter how succulent the duck or the steak or the lobster thermidor, it will all soon quite literally be excreta (or, on a bad night, ejecta). I've got a lot of reservations about the fashion industry, too, but at least a $300 pair of jeans with sequins on the behind will keep you warm for a few months in the winter. This is probably why it was relatively easy for me to become a vegan.

The year's best media scandal has come to a fairly happy end: VegNews, the magazine for vegans, has agreed to stop running delicious pictures of meat, and has actually apologized for doing so. What's odd is that they spent a week being defensive and bullying and hostile to their readers, but most of the vegans are a friendly, forgiving people, as there is no meat inside them to make them murderous, so for the most part they will not hold a grudge. A happy ending! Let's all raise our tofurkey dogs in solidarity.