rockin'robin
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2007
- Messages
- 24,433
- Reaction score
- 544
(Sept. 4) -- A grisly claim that a cannibal restaurant would soon open in Berlin turned out today be a hoax perpetrated by a German vegetarian organization, but it still left a disturbing taste in many mouths.
The elaborate ruse involved a high-gloss website that promised diners "authentic Wari cuisine" in the tradition of a once cannibalistic Amazonian tribe and offered "members" a chance to donate body parts, which the restaurant's purveyors would harvest at their own cost -- once they located "an open-minded surgeon."
In fact, it was all a stunt meant to promote eating cauliflower, not human calves, members of the German Vegetarian Association (VEBU) revealed Thursday during a press conference in Berlin.
"Mankind is facing a lot of global problems, like global warming, world hunger, rain forest destruction, water shortage and animal epidemics," said Sebastian Zoesch, director of the German group, which was founded in 1892 and today counts 3,000 members. "All these problems are caused or made more severe by a high consumption of meat," he told AOL News.
Their point: If the idea of eating human flesh turns your stomach, you ought to be just as disgusted over eating animals. VEBU claims the practice contributes to world hunger by diverting grain from human consumption to less-efficient meat production.
Roughly 20 news organizations showed up to the Tuesday morning event, Zoesch said, at the group's Berlin headquarters. The press conference had been advertised as serving samples of human flesh, but Zoesch said reporters nibbled vegan crepes instead.
The stunt generated plenty of attention, but not everyone was amused.
German politician Michael Braun told the tabloid Bild last week that he received complaints about what seemed to be plans for the restaurant, according to Der Spiegel. The caper was especially distasteful given Berliners' experience with a real-life cannibalistic murder in 2001, he said, when computer technician Armin Meiwes killed and ate a willing man.
"I am assuming it is a misguided joke. But it is disgusting," Braun told Bild.
Meanwhile, an official of the Brazilian town of Guajara-Mirim told AOL News he wanted to sue the creators of the website of the supposed cannibal restaurant -- named Flime, based on the German sentence "meat eats man" -- for dismembering the town's tourism-friendly image. The site falsely claimed that another Flime restaurant was located in the Amazonian town.
"We are going to sue [the site's creators] through a federal police investigation to identify who created this material that has caused irreparable damages," said Decio Keher Marques, the town's chief of staff, by phone on Monday, before the restaurant was revealed as a hoax.
Keher Marques said roughly 1,500 people visit the jungle town every weekend, where tourists enjoy visits to a dozen indigenous villages, including those of the Wari people, a tribe listed on Flime's Website as the inspiration for the cannibal cuisine.
No Brazilian indigenous tribe eats humans today, "not even isolated tribes," said Janaina Santiago da Frota Vieira, spokeswoman for the Brazilian government's indigenous rights group Funai.
If the ruse was upsetting to some, so was the group's real message to others. "The idea of equating a human with a pig, or a chicken, or beef cattle -- that's ridiculous," said Dave Warner, communications director for the National Pork Producers Council.
Warner claimed that meat production in the U.S. accounts for a "very, very small" amount of greenhouse gases. And he argued that meat promotes health -- certain proteins are best absorbed into the human body from animals, not plants, he said.
It comes down to a matter of respect, he said.
The National Pork Producers Council "does not have any criticism of any vegetarian restaurant; people are free to do what they want," Warner said. "By the same token, they shouldn't be criticizing people who eat meat."
At least one other group claimed the German vegetarians have the wrong idea.
A spokeswoman for PETA, a U.S.-based animal rights group, said vegetarianism isn't the solution to the world's "meat addiction." Instead the answer is "in-vitro meat" grown in a Petri dish using animal cells, spokeswoman Jaime Zalac wrote by e-mail.
"We're getting closer to the day when people will be able to actually grow meat," she said. The organization is offering a $1 million reward for the first person to do so.
Zoesch said the controversial stunt was conceived a year ago by the German ad agency Serviceplan, and the vegetarian group participated. The agency placed fake ads in German newspapers calling for donations of human limbs; set up a website with a PDF form donors could fill out with questions; including blood type and body mass index; and even set up a bid on eBay for human liver pate.
Zoesch said he got phone calls and e-mails from people identifying themselves as cannibals, but many later turned out to be undercover journalists.
"We are quite happy how [the PR gag] went," he said.
But his intended message seemed to be competing with some darker ones. On eBay, the bid for the gagsters' human liver pate offer reached $1,000 before it was yanked.
Berlin Cannibal Restaurant Revealed as Hoax
The elaborate ruse involved a high-gloss website that promised diners "authentic Wari cuisine" in the tradition of a once cannibalistic Amazonian tribe and offered "members" a chance to donate body parts, which the restaurant's purveyors would harvest at their own cost -- once they located "an open-minded surgeon."
In fact, it was all a stunt meant to promote eating cauliflower, not human calves, members of the German Vegetarian Association (VEBU) revealed Thursday during a press conference in Berlin.
"Mankind is facing a lot of global problems, like global warming, world hunger, rain forest destruction, water shortage and animal epidemics," said Sebastian Zoesch, director of the German group, which was founded in 1892 and today counts 3,000 members. "All these problems are caused or made more severe by a high consumption of meat," he told AOL News.
Their point: If the idea of eating human flesh turns your stomach, you ought to be just as disgusted over eating animals. VEBU claims the practice contributes to world hunger by diverting grain from human consumption to less-efficient meat production.
Roughly 20 news organizations showed up to the Tuesday morning event, Zoesch said, at the group's Berlin headquarters. The press conference had been advertised as serving samples of human flesh, but Zoesch said reporters nibbled vegan crepes instead.
The stunt generated plenty of attention, but not everyone was amused.
German politician Michael Braun told the tabloid Bild last week that he received complaints about what seemed to be plans for the restaurant, according to Der Spiegel. The caper was especially distasteful given Berliners' experience with a real-life cannibalistic murder in 2001, he said, when computer technician Armin Meiwes killed and ate a willing man.
"I am assuming it is a misguided joke. But it is disgusting," Braun told Bild.
Meanwhile, an official of the Brazilian town of Guajara-Mirim told AOL News he wanted to sue the creators of the website of the supposed cannibal restaurant -- named Flime, based on the German sentence "meat eats man" -- for dismembering the town's tourism-friendly image. The site falsely claimed that another Flime restaurant was located in the Amazonian town.
"We are going to sue [the site's creators] through a federal police investigation to identify who created this material that has caused irreparable damages," said Decio Keher Marques, the town's chief of staff, by phone on Monday, before the restaurant was revealed as a hoax.
Keher Marques said roughly 1,500 people visit the jungle town every weekend, where tourists enjoy visits to a dozen indigenous villages, including those of the Wari people, a tribe listed on Flime's Website as the inspiration for the cannibal cuisine.
No Brazilian indigenous tribe eats humans today, "not even isolated tribes," said Janaina Santiago da Frota Vieira, spokeswoman for the Brazilian government's indigenous rights group Funai.
If the ruse was upsetting to some, so was the group's real message to others. "The idea of equating a human with a pig, or a chicken, or beef cattle -- that's ridiculous," said Dave Warner, communications director for the National Pork Producers Council.
Warner claimed that meat production in the U.S. accounts for a "very, very small" amount of greenhouse gases. And he argued that meat promotes health -- certain proteins are best absorbed into the human body from animals, not plants, he said.
It comes down to a matter of respect, he said.
The National Pork Producers Council "does not have any criticism of any vegetarian restaurant; people are free to do what they want," Warner said. "By the same token, they shouldn't be criticizing people who eat meat."
At least one other group claimed the German vegetarians have the wrong idea.
A spokeswoman for PETA, a U.S.-based animal rights group, said vegetarianism isn't the solution to the world's "meat addiction." Instead the answer is "in-vitro meat" grown in a Petri dish using animal cells, spokeswoman Jaime Zalac wrote by e-mail.
"We're getting closer to the day when people will be able to actually grow meat," she said. The organization is offering a $1 million reward for the first person to do so.
Zoesch said the controversial stunt was conceived a year ago by the German ad agency Serviceplan, and the vegetarian group participated. The agency placed fake ads in German newspapers calling for donations of human limbs; set up a website with a PDF form donors could fill out with questions; including blood type and body mass index; and even set up a bid on eBay for human liver pate.
Zoesch said he got phone calls and e-mails from people identifying themselves as cannibals, but many later turned out to be undercover journalists.
"We are quite happy how [the PR gag] went," he said.
But his intended message seemed to be competing with some darker ones. On eBay, the bid for the gagsters' human liver pate offer reached $1,000 before it was yanked.
Berlin Cannibal Restaurant Revealed as Hoax