The Other White Drink
Monday, July 9, 2007

Camelicious. You heard it here first. The bandwagon is building.

Why would anyone choose camel milk? Ulrich Wernery, whose small pilot milking program became the launch pad for a $27-million dairy housing 500 lactating camels, says: "It is the nearly perfect animal product for humans."

Health properties have played a key role in the fledgling camel milk industry's marketing efforts. Advocates say it contains five times more vitamin C than cow's milk; is rich in enzymes with anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties; and is effective in treating a variety of ailments including tuberculosis, peptic ulcers, psoriasis and diabetes.

The one thing camel milk lacks is fat; it has only 2% fat, compared with 4.5% in cow's milk. As a final selling point, even people with lactose intolerance can drink it, even though it contains about as much lactose as cow's milk.

Emirates Industry for Camel Milk & Products is not the first camel dairy in the United Arab Emirates, but it is the first to produce exclusively its own milk, use automatic milking machines and operate within a closed hygienic system, with milk traveling from udder to cooling tank to processing plant. "Previously, camels were hand milked and they poured it into a bowl," says Wernery. "You can imagine the hygiene difficulties, especially with sandstorms."

The dairy produces about 4,000 liters a day. On the shelf, a liter costs about $2.75, more than cow's milk, but production is barely keeping up with demand.

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Why We Need More Wal-Marts
Monday, May 14, 2007

They are the key to the ancient world!

Workers digging at the future site of a Wal-Mart store in suburban Mesa have unearthed the bones of a prehistoric camel that's estimated to be about 10,000 years old.

Arizona State University geology museum curator Brad Archer hurried out to the site Friday when he got the news that the owner of a nursery was carefully excavating bones found at the bottom of a hole being dug for a new ornamental citrus tree.

"There's no question that this is a camel; these creatures walked the land here until about 8,000 years ago, when the same event that wiped out a great deal of mammal life took place," Archer told The Arizona Republic.

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The Great Camel Race
Friday, April 20, 2007

After trekking up and down a mountain in Petra a few years back on a camel, a scene described in WALKING THE BIBLE, I concluded that eight hours on a camel is like eight hours on a camel, and nothing else. You can imagine, then, how shocking it is to read that the Great Camel Race of Qatar has begun, and contestants ride for TEN DAYS for the chance to win the sword of the emir.

THE annual race of thoroughbred Arabian camels for the sword of HH the Emir will kick off today at Shahaniyah race track.

The race is to continue until April 25 with big numbers of thoroughbred Arabian and GCC camels contesting for the sword.

The Camel Race Organising Committee led by Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Faisal al-Thani has completed all arrangements for the race. The camels from the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) member states have already arrived in Doha to contest for the race.

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The Camel Hub of the Web
Friday, April 6, 2007



Yes, there's a website devoted entirely to camels, including this section, "Historic Camel Photos in America." These two are from the first decade of the 20th century.

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:59 AM 0 comments

Camel: The New White Meat
Friday, March 30, 2007

It's not just for bedouins anymore.

A local council in the eastern Australian state of Queensland is considering building a camel abattoir to cash in on a growing demand for camel meat.

Bulloo Shire Council is working with the Department of Primary Industries and a regional economic development group to investigate the feasibility of establishing a multi-million dollar facility to process the animals.

Recent reports indicate that feral camel numbers in outback Australia are rising, and that the animals are having an increasingly negative impact on the environment.

A taskforce set up to consider the issue has suggested culling may be necessary to reduce numbers.

Its recommendations included the use of camel meat for human consumption or pet food.

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Metrosexual Camels
Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Queer Eye for the Straight Camel! The talk of Rajasthan: How many camel hair brushes can fit through the eye of a needle.

It’s time the metrosexual males moved on because now there's a new man in town who is driving all the women crazy.

Shah Rukh Khan is just one of the many camels who is queuing up at the Gorbandh Beauty parlour for camels at Tilwara.

Beauty parlours for camel makeovers have become a rage. And one of the parlours at a camel fair is a huge hit with camel owners because of it is economically priced.

“I got a camel here and priced it at Rs 15,000 but I found no buyers, then I took it to the beauty parlour and after the makeover I sold it for Rs 35,000,” says a camel owner from Jaisalmer.

The beauty bug has bitten the beast and its owners alike. While the owners count the cash and take the trophy camels around with pride, the camels are only too happy to lazily indulge in styling sessions.

There is camel hair colour, hump hairdos, camel tattoos and oodles of camel accessories at the parlours. So What's next - a camel fashion week?

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Posted by B Feiler at 8:01 AM 0 comments

A Camel on the Ceiling
Tuesday, March 13, 2007

My post a few weeks ago about an unusual art exhibition in Estonia got a huge response, so I thought I'd post another one, this one as part of our ongoing series, Breaking Camel News. I learned of this one via Boing Boing.

2007 03 03 Biplane2Why is there a WWI Sopwith Camel biplane and landing strip on the roof of 77 Water Street in New York City's financial district? It's an art installation created in 1969 by Rudolph de Harak and William Tarr.

(Link to Wooster Collective post, Link to NYC Architecture page. The above photo was taken by Philip J. Hollenback when he worked at the adjacent 20 Exchange Place building. Link to Flickr stream.)

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The Camel Bookmobile
Thursday, February 22, 2007


Camels aren't just for lovers anymore. They're also for bookworms!

The provincial library system in Kenya uses a Camel Bookmobile and -- proof that anything can be subject of a novel -- someone has now written a novel about it. GalleyCat has the details, and the picture worth a month's worth of overdue book fines.

Masha Hamilton's forthcoming novel, The Camel Bookmobile, has its origins in a real book distribution network the author encountered in northeast Kenya, which delivers books in Swahili and English to villagers. The Garissa Provincial Library is always glad for new inventory, especially considering the beating their books take in transit, so Hamilton has helped set up a book donation drive with several dozen authors already contributing five books apiece to the program. You don't have to be an author to donate books—and a five-pound box of books to Kenya costs just $23.
Here's another report, from Maude Newton:

When I first mentioned the camel library service a few years back, I had no idea how many people rely on it.

Since then, author Masha Hamilton has accompanied the camels on trips through Kenya’s isolated Northeastern Province, “near the unstable border with Somalia,” during a drought, and returned with photos and a video showing the crowds of people who gather every time the “bookmobile” visits.

“[T]he bush is hard on books,” she writes, “and the traveling library needs more.”

[L]ibrarians in the Northeast Province who travel with the camel bookmobile told me children’s storybooks are most popular, general fiction is also high on the list, and much interest is shown in nonfiction books covering topics ranging from astronomy to geography to history. The librarians also said patrons especially love it when a book is inscribed with a note from the sender. It helps them feel connected to places only barely imagined.
You know that box of old textbooks and novels you keep meaning to drop off at the Salvation Army? Well, donation instructions are here.

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:03 AM 0 comments

What Went Wrong in Iraq: Not Enough Camels
Tuesday, February 20, 2007

What was the problem of the U.S. Army in Iraq? Not enough camels, apparently. Now comes word they are determined to prevent this from happening again.

Once, the U.S. Army depended on animals to wage war. With the advent of technology, the military began to rely more and more on machines to transport soldiers and goods.

But as the country's war against terrorism takes the battles to the mountains, the deserts and the jungles, the Army is instructing its elite Special Forces soldiers on the use of pack animals, according to an Army field manual recently posted on the Internet.

The manual says its purpose is to teach Special Forces soldiers "some of the expertise and techniques that have been lost in the United States (U.S.) Army over the last 50 years" - in other words, since the military retired its pack animal transportation units.

The section on camels contains this quote: "Camels are clumsy-looking, rather ugly animals, and have a lousy reputation because they are believed to spit and kick at people," the manual says. "This perception is not accurate because well-handled camels are safe to with and be around." The manual says soldiers should rely on native handlers as their first option for controlling camels.

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:03 AM 0 comments

Camels are for Lovers
Friday, February 16, 2007

As longtime readers of Feiler Faster know, we cover All Things Camel here. Some of our most popular items in recent weeks have been part of our ongoing series BREAKING CAMEL NEWS -- Where Every Day Is Hump Day. (Please send your tips here!) These include The Next Aphrodisiac and Could Abraham Have Owned Camels?

Today, Camel Cigarettes get a makeover. As the NYT reports, Camel cigarettes are undergoing a makeover to make them more appealing to women. The strategy: Make Camel cigarettes more like Chanel perfume!?

Reynolds, eager to increase the sales of its fast-growing Camel brand among women, is introducing a variety aimed at female smokers. The new variation, Camel No. 9, has a name that evokes women’s fragrances like Chanel No. 19, as well as a song about romance, “Love Potion No. 9.”

But don’t look for a Jo Camel to join Old Joe the dromedary on Camel packages, displays or posters. Rather, Camel No. 9 signals its intended buyers with subtler cues like its colors, a hot-pink fuchsia and a minty-green teal; its slogan, “Light and luscious”; and the flowers that surround the packs in magazine ads.

For decades, Camel has been a male-focused cigarette; only about 30 percent of Camel buyers are female. By comparison, for competitive brands like Marlboro and Newport, women comprise 40 percent to 50 percent of customers. Almost half of adult smokers are women, so that limited Camel’s potential.

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:03 AM 1 comments

Make Milk Not War
Wednesday, February 7, 2007

With the paperback publication of WHERE GOD WAS BORN this week we've had a wonderful surge in traffic here at Feiler Faster. And what post has gotten the most comment: The Next Aphrodisiac, about the U.N.'s new push to promote camel's milk.

From Kenya, an old friend from Savannah writes: "Hello from Kenya where we can get Camel milk in our supermarket. I haven't been brave enough to try it. I just might have to give it a go and report back!" Please do! (By the way, to read about the mission my friend and her family have joined, visit www.plantingfaith.com.)

And from Israel, this link to another piece, this weekend, about Israel selling camel-milking equipment to the Arabs:

A camel-milking system largely manufactured by Israel's S.A.E. Afikim that can simultaneously milk 48 camels, was sold by Afikim's British distributor, to a buyer in Dubai, the Jordan Valley-based company said Sunday. The statement didn't identify the buyer.

Israel and Dubai don't have diplomatic relations.

Cooperation between Israeli companies and the nation's foreign ministry "is the best way to enter new markets in which only intervention on the level of governments can open doors for Israeli manufacturers," Afikim Chief Executive Officer Yossi Shemer said in the statement.

The sale of camel milk could become a $10 billion industry, providing food to people in desert areas and income for nomadic herders, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. Camel milk is three times richer in vitamin C than milk from cows and contains vitamin B, iron and unsaturated fatty acids. Camels produce as much as 20 liters of milk a day, compared with as much as 36 liters a day for cows.

Camel Milk: The mother milk of interfaith relations.

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The Next Aphrodisiac
Tuesday, February 6, 2007

In an attempt to funnel new income to nomadic herders in the Middle East, the United Nations is trying to create demand for camel's milk on the global market. The organization hopes consumers will seek it out for nutritional reasons -- it's rich in iron and vitamins B and C, with antibodies said to help fight disease. How does it taste? Says a report in this month's GOURMET: It's sweeter than cow's milk, and rather salty. Here's the U.N.'s take:

In Tunisia, people will travel hundreds of kilometres to get hold of some. Herdswomen from Ethiopia and Somalia think nothing of riding a train for 12 hours to sell it in Djibouti, where prices are high. In N’Djamena, Chad, milk bars are mushrooming all over town.

Half way round the globe people consider it a powerful tonic against many diseases. The Gulf Arabs believe it is an aphrodisiac.

From the Western Sahara to Mongolia demand is booming for camel milk. But there just isn’t enough to go round. State-of-the art camel rearing is rudimentary, and much of the 5.4 million tonnes of milk produced every year by the world population of some 20 million camels is guzzled by young camels themselves.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) thus sees bright prospects for camel dairy products, which could not only provide more food to people in arid and semi-arid areas, but also give nomadic herders a rich source of income.

FAO is hoping financing will come forward from donors and investors to develop the sector not only at local level but help camel milk move into lucrative markets in the Middle East and the West.

“The potential is massive,” says FAO’s Dairy and Meat expert Anthony Bennett. “Milk is money”.

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Humps Against Davos
Sunday, January 21, 2007

I came from California just in time to say goodbye to my wife, who left for a week in Switzerland and the annual World Economic Forum held at Davos. My favorite story from Davos happened a few years ago. We were speaking on the phone and I was reporting on some breaking news, that Ariel Sharon, then PM of Israel, was likely to get indicted in a bribery scandal. "Wait a minute," she said. "Let me find out." I heard from talking on the other end, "My husband is on the phone and he says ..." She came back a few minutes later and said, "Shimon Peres was just walking by and I decided to ask him."

So if you want to have a protest against the powers that be at Davos and could think of the perfect symbol of your oppression, of Third World powerlessness, and the one think they are unlikely to have in the Alps: Camels!

Here's a report from Nairobi: "Glue-sniffing street-boys, men on camels, and women balancing clay pots on their heads marched from one of Africa's biggest slums at the start of an anti-capitalist fest hosted by the continent for the first time."

More than 10,000 people from around the globe descended on the massive Kibera shanty-town -- home for 800,000 of Kenya's poorest -- to dance, beat drums, chant and wave placards at the kick-off of the seventh annual World Social Forum.

The event, mainly held in Latin America in the past, began in 2001 as a challenge to the annual gathering of business and government leaders in Davos, Switzerland.

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:08 PM 0 comments

World's Largest Shawarma
Sunday, January 7, 2007

Camels are not just for the desert any more. In order to promote its new show, "Little Mosque On The Prairie", the CBC organized what they called "the World's Biggest Halal Shawarma Sandwich" -- a 300-pound shawarma, or turkey giro, in the middle of Toronto. As one local blog reported: "Torontoist loves good street theatre and it loves free food, and this provided both, so why not go? Heck, there were camels and everything. Nothing says "entertainment" like camels!" These photos are from their report.







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Posted by B Feiler at 9:51 PM 0 comments

Could Abraham Have Owned Camels?
Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Nothing gets the blood boiling in a new year more than a story about camel domestication! But this may be the biggest news in biblical archaeology all year. For decades now, the best research has shown that camels weren't domesticated until the middle of the second millennium B.C.E., which would mean the references in the Bible to Abraham, say, having camels would have been an anachronism. I spent a small bit of time in Walking the Bible discussing this surprisingly fascinating topic. How do you determine when animals are domesticated?! One answer is when you discover their bones from a sacrifice, actually. See yesterday's Breaking Camel News.

Anyway, researchers in Iran have just uncovered evidence of camel domestication as early as the 3rd millennium B.C.E. Here's the key graf:

A team of anthropologists say they have identified a camel rider among the skeletal remains which belongs to a man from the 3rd millennium BC.

The team were from the Anthropology Department of Iran's Archeology Research Center and the British New Castle University, who had the mission to conduct paleo-pathological studies on the remaining skeletons of Burnt City adults.

The team say evidence of bone trauma suggests that the rider lived most of his life on camelback, possibly from the time he was a young adult to the time of death.


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Posted by B Feiler at 8:33 AM 0 comments

Camel Slaughter Back On
Sunday, December 31, 2006

Word out of India today that a court has changed its mind about a planned slaughter of camels this weekend for an Islamic festival.


The Madras High Court today vacated its order of December 28 preventing the slaughter of camels in Tamil Nadu during Eid-ul-Zuha, observing that there was no statutory bar on it.

Hearing a batch of petitions seeking the vacation of the order and implead petitions, including a review petition filed by the Tamil Nadu Advocates' Meelad Forum, a division bench comprising justices P Jyothimani and K Chandru said, "In the absence of any statutory bar, the court cannot continue the injunction."
In other Breaking Camel News, the Turkish Airline workers who sacrificed a camel at Istanbul airport to celebrate a job well done joined Vice President Cheney's shooting accident and the German who invented snug spray-on condoms as Reuters' top offbeat news stories of 2006.


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Posted by B Feiler at 3:26 PM 0 comments

Jesus is Back, But Camel is Still Missing
Friday, December 29, 2006

Jesus is back, but the camel is still missing. That is the news out of Massachusetts today where folks at the Easthampton Congregational Church found a doll representing the baby Jesus, wrapped in a towel, who had been missing for two years, on their doorstep on Christmas morning. They replaced her in the Nativity Scene, which was even more depleted this year after a five-foot camel was found missing in the garage over the summer.

"It's huge. It takes two people to hold it," Ruth Matthews said.

"I can't see how anyone could steal the camel. You'd have to have a pick-up truck," her husband, Phillip Matthews said.

Committee members looked into purchasing a Fiberglas baby Jesus, but quickly discovered it would cost between $600 and $800. A camel would cost $1,700.

They ruled out a purchase.

An unstated reward has been offered for return of the camel.

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Posted by B Feiler at 2:06 PM 0 comments

More Breaking Camel News

Feiler Faster is your source for daily camel news. Today: My pals over at GOURMET have a new blog, full of food talk (like where to get the best pomegranate molasses), travel talk (like who's the hottest new chef in Milan), and a talk talk. My fab-o editor, Jane Lear, who is both big hearted and very sharp with words, has one of the first posts, about her recent trip to Petra. A friend was recently emailing me about what she and her boyfriend should do before going to Jordan. My advice: Read this! Her tone, and her info, are great (even if the photo of her on a camel is alarming).

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Posted by B Feiler at 6:45 AM 0 comments

Postcard from Morocco
Thursday, December 28, 2006


I received the following email today from my brother, who had spoken to my parents during their holiday trip to Morocco:

Dad turned down an offer today. He said "no" when offered 3,000 camels ... for Mom!

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