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114 replies

sopuli.xyz

Depends who you ask. I know a guy who's vegan because he likes animals. I asked him about honey and he said "fuck insects".

But opinion differs because bees are pretty much free to go about their lives and we just steal the honey every now and then. It's not hurting them and not keeping them confined, so....

Others put the line at no hurting animals ever. I don't ask about fleas or mosquitos or tapeworms though.

43
lokalhorstreply
feddit.org

bees are pretty much free to go about their lives and we just steal the honey every now and then. It's not hurting them

I don't think this is entirely true. Honey bees are basically factory farmed, we don't just go into the woods and steal honey. They are ecologically problematic as they compete with native bee species. I'm not an expert but look up how bees are being exploited for almond pollination in California for instance.

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Soggyreply
lemmy.world

That's a valid position, but it applies equally to most kinds of land use. Agave plantations are not less ecologically problematic. Agriculture has an impact.

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Tywèlereply
piefed.social

And animal agriculture uses even more land than eating plants directly. We have to eat something to survive and eating plants has the least impact.

4

For most animals yes, but bees (the topic at hand) are different because their land use overlaps with other kinds rather than displacing it. The competition with native insects is a real problem but not necessarily more of a problem than honey alternatives.

18

Fuck mosquitos. I kill them with a passion. I would estimate I have been bitten a few million times. They're numbing protein doesn't work on me and I'm allergic to it. Nothing like feeling your body is on fire.

8
lemmy.zip

Used to be vegan for 5ish years.

It is a grey area and personal preference. Are you vegan for morality, health, global sustainability, etc....

It depends why someone is vegan (diet, not movement).

I was vegan for health reasons, and local honey helps with allergies so I ate it.

21
piefed.social

and local honey helps with allergies so I ate it.

I don't think this can be true, to be honest

1
lemmy.zip

Yeah, wasn't too sure about this one. But allergies have been getting worse every year and there is no harm in trying it. Also, it does make sense on a superficial level, bees pollinate and make honey. So eating honey builds up your immunity to the pollen bees carry?

I am not a bee guy, just a guy that doesn't like allergies.

1

I totally see how the conjecture can feel intuitive, yeah. That's probably why it's spread.

I feel you on the allergies, I suffer from them too.

1
sh.itjust.works

According to Wikipedia, honey does have anti-bacterial properties but can also cause allegic reactions depending on the immune system.

I'm thinking it could loosely help with inflammatory responses, maybe? But that may be a stretch and it's definitely a case by case basis regardless.

1

I think the conjecture is that it's supposed to contain local pollens, and hence be somewhat similar to hyposensitization, where you subject the body to the allergen in controlled doses to successively lessen the allergy response.

Honeybees don't drink from the kinds of plants that people are typically allergic to, however - they drink from flowering plants, while the common allergies are from wind-borne pollens (trees and grasses).

Even then, the dosage is not right for provoking a hyposensitization response.

See https://www.aaaai.org/tools-for-the-public/conditions-library/allergies/honey

2

Most reject honey. There are those who don't and there are vegans who want to strictly deny that label to those who don't.

Eggs? That's pretty universally rejected.

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lemmy.ml

Maybe but honey is far more humane than eggs.

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lemmy.world

Depend on the eggs. Farm ? Yes, most of them are unethical. Home chicken ? Not unethical, if there are no roosters.

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lemmy.world

It has been fertilized so, if you are vegan, might qualify as murder because th egg is technically viable. No rooster, no fertilisation, no murder : ethical in principle because you can't stop a hen from laying eggs.

2

The hens I've met abandons most of their eggs, for most of the year. If the hen abandons the egg, it won't grow or hatch regardless of fertilization, so as long as you only take the abandoned eggs, a rooster makes no difference in the ethics of eating those eggs.

The difference is that what I've heard a flock usually does better and feels better with a rooster (this may be propaganda from Big Rooster), and if you don't interrupt the nesting process (I dont know the English word for it, when the hen lays on the eggs until they hatch?), you'll keep putting more of the birds into the world which may not be ethical according to the person.

So positives and negatives, but no difference in the abandoned eggs.

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lemmy.world

It has been fertilized so, if you are vegan, might qualify as murder because th egg is technically viable. No rooster, no fertilisation, no murder : ethical in principle because you can't stop a hen from laying eggs.

3
CanadaPlusreply
lemmy.sdf.org

You would have to be a life-begins-at-conception, anti-abortion kind of person, as well, for that.

It's not an impossible or unnatural combination, intellectually, but demographically speaking, being radical in two directions at once is rare.

A vegetarian would be fine with a backyard coop. Vegans might say that your chickens are kind of like slaves - they make stuff for you, and can't leave - and that's bad.

9
lemmy.world

You're right on that, I can't deny it. But then again, I had some vegans friends that had hens that were saved from the slaghterhouse. They had no barriers at all and their hens roamed free. Yes, a hen is a product of human selection, and on that aspect the line between ethical and practical is really fine and more suitable to philosophical debates, but since the hens were saved, they were better off their fate and in that regard, harvesting eggs was not an act of torture per se. But I'm not a vegan and can't speak for them, just give an insight on a non-dicheotomic point of view.

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CanadaPlusreply
lemmy.sdf.org

Yes, a hen is a product of human selection

Actually, layers are pretty close to natural red junglefowl, as far as I can tell. It's not like turkeys or cows, where they can't really exist in the wild. Although, the wild sucks too...

I'm in the picture FWIW, as a vegetarian who's cared for backyard hens. They seemed fine and happy, if a little bored in the winter, and were pretty great and easy-to-care-for pets. If there was any money in fixing the gender ratio problem, that bit about what happens to the male chicks would probably be solved, as well.

3

That's an interesting aspect that I hadn't considered. It brings the question of "does life begin at fertilization" into this.

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piefed.social

I am vegan, because I want to minimize animal suffering. if insects have the ability to suffer is highly debated. honestly I think they could just be different enough for us to not recognize their intelligence, like we do/did with fish. I will eat honey when offered, but would not buy my own. tldr: I wouldnt reject it. but I would also not but it myself.

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Atroposreply
lemmy.world

I'm not vegan or even vegetarian, but I respect this. I'm doing the same thing with meat now. I don't reject it (and really enjoy it), but I don't buy it myself so everything we make at home is vegetarian! I'm working on it.

4

and thats all everyone should do. working on it and keeping it in mind. I think we (also me until some years ago) consume mindlessly.

3
lemmy.world

Tell me you know nothing about beekeeping...

They literally only take honey that the bees don't need. If the bees lose enough honey for it to hurt them, then guess what? They can't continue to grow and keep making honey. If bees had an actual problem with it, they wouldn't be so chill about it either

Meanwhile bats have no way of making agave. It's just there, and then when we harvest it, there's just gonna be less for them to have. That's the difference

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Hadriscusreply
jlai.lu

There's no need to be confrontational !

They literally only take honey that the bees don’t need.

Bees still can't give consent, lol

2
TransNekoreply
lemmy.world

the plants you eat didn't give consent either. nor did the spider you killed. so sit down and shut up.

0
Hadriscusreply
jlai.lu

Control yourself, mate. You should be able to discuss things without immediately resorting to insults. If you're interested in talking further, I am, but only if you drop the attitude. Cheers,

1

if telling you to sit down and shut up aka don't be a hypocrite is something you consider to be an insult... then you are the biggest snowflake second only to maga.

1
aussie.zone

I have never met a vegan who was okay with honey but I have had plenty of non vegan mother fuckers constantly bring this up as if its this huge edge case point of conflict. Its made and taken involuntarily from animals. It ain't that hard to figure out.

12
lemmy.zip

I saw a post once that actually argued bees are aware of the arrangement and generally willingly tolerate the deal. We can tell they know the deal because they produce extra honey to account for the keeper's cut, and we know they willingly tolerate it because if they found it intolerable, bees are perfectly capable of fucking right off and leaving you with an empty hive.

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lemmy.dbzer0.com

I don't believe they take the beekeeper's cut into account! They make as much honey as they can all the time.

4

The rationalizing is off the charts in this thread, do not try to understand, there is no consistency.

3

You may be right. I had heard that they make extra for it, but I'm having trouble corroborating that.

1
Fleur_reply
aussie.zone

"Don't like the rent? Just move somewhere rural lmao" type argument.

I've been hit with the "they literally make it for us." No bro the bees that evolved honey did not do it millions of years ago for the people that weren't even around back then.

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lemmy.zip

They didn't evolve it for us, no. The evidence just suggests to me that they find this an agreeable expense in exchange for a solid shelter guarded by a comparative titan. I don't know exactly what parts of the deal they understand and what parts they like, but they clearly at least know to expect the honey tax.

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Fleur_reply
aussie.zone

I know you think animals can consent but they can't

1
lemmy.zip

I mean some animals certainly can consent to some things. There are obviously limitations, and bees may be well within those limits, but I've seen pets and farm animals that very clearly understand the deal with "owner is gonna do something unpleasant and then give us a treat" because they offer themselves up for something they initially resisted and clearly still are not fans of.

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Fleur_reply
aussie.zone

Yeah the animal I'm talking to clearly consented to a lobotomy

0

Oh wow you're so clever with your locked in opinion that resists the evidence of my experience.

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GreenBeanreply
lemmy.today

They "find this an agreeable expense"? They have a choice in the matter? Bees do what bees do in the wild or or in man-made hives. Humans choose to place them in hives.

1

They "find this an agreeable expense"?

They produced extra to account for it when they could leave, so it appears to me they at least understand that their current home comes at the cost of honey.

They have a choice in the matter?

They can and WILL leave if abused, so they very obviously do have a choice, yes.

Humans choose to place them in hives.

And if humans want them to produce honey, they're going to have to give the bees ample opportunity to find a better home and leave.

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Fleur_reply
aussie.zone

Yeah it also is gross as fuck. Imagine putting spider silk on your weet-bix

1
piefed.social

yes. the reason the term vegan came about was because of the looseness of vegetarian. vegetarian would inply no eggs or insect unless it had a rider. like lacto/ovo vegetarians will ingest milk and eggs. honey was usually not to much of an issue. so vegan started being used for people who don't eat animals or anything that came from an animal like honey or milk. There is a thing called fruitarian that theoretically will only eat the parts of the plant that the plant made to be eaten. Like fruits. Steve jobs was into it before he died. I think he thought it would cure or help his cancer or something.

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lemmy.world

Strict vegetarian used to be the term for not eating any animal products. Vegan denoted lifestyle, not just diet. A vegan would not have leather shoes of wool sweaters.

7

I feel like someone strict enough to not eat honey is going to be thinking about their clothing choices though. I mean I was not a part of the subculture honestly but from an outside perspective that is what it felt like to me.

4
lemmy.world

fruitarian

It's interesting to me that they went with that name, since there's already a name for eating fruit (frugivory)

2

Frugivore implies a biological cause for the diet primarily consisting of fruit. Humans are biological omnivores regardless of if we choose to limit our diet of other reasons. They don't use frugivore for the same reason that vegetarians don't use herbivore.

3

I never herd of frugivore. My guess is you have vegetarian so its using the same thing.

1
lemmy.sdf.org

They're against domestic animals as a concept, so you'd think. The basic idea is that animals are independent beings, and benefiting from them, with the massive power imbalance in play, is wrong.

Vegetarians are just against slaughter as a practice. And then you might land in between, if you don't like the way battery hens are treated, for example.

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Soggyreply
lemmy.world

They’re against domestic animals as a concept, so you’d think.

Except the great many vegans who keep pets, as if that was somehow different.

3
slrpnk.net

I've wondered about the pet thing too and I am vegan.

I've brought it up a few times with people and most of the replies were that the pets they had were rescues or strays, so looking after them was better than not, which I kinda get. Vegans who own and ride horses are weird as fuck though and I do not understand their moral stance at all.

Personally, even though I really like playing with cats, I am deeply uncomfortable with owning a being for my entertainment,and said being relying on me for its survival. So I am not having pets.

4

I don't share your principles but I have to respect them, it's nice to see a consistent position instead of carving out self-serving allowances.

3

I’ll start with the fact that I am not a vegan, but I have a cat because a cat walked into my house. She has had several occasions where she could leave and chooses not to (or once she peaces out for three days and came strolling back like nothing happened despite my fiance and I being totally distraught).

1
lemmy.world

I know a vegan who has ex-battery hens as pets. She's against taking eggs away from them because it may cause distress, but often they'll lay an egg wherever they happen to be, and walk away. Those ones are fair game because the chickens have abandoned them, and they need to be collected before they rot in any case.

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Denjinreply
feddit.uk

That's stupid because chickens don't give a shit about their eggs. It's a good idea to feed them egg shells to give them back some nutrients but you have to smash the shells up because if they recognise the eggs as food they will enthusiastically eat their own freshly laid ones.

10

Also, there's a distinct difference between normal and brooding behavior. A broody hen gives a shit about her eggs (well, not specifically her eggs just the concept of sitting on and hatching eggs) but if they aren't fertilized it rapidly becomes a problem. And they'll lay another in a day or two regardless.

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r0ertelreply
lemmy.world

I find this one interesting. I knew a farmer who only had hens and so all of the eggs were unfertilized.

Of course, its always possible that there's some sort of immaculate conception and a hen will lay a fertilized egg, but I'm pretty sure that won't happen.

3

There's been a lot of Japanese studies showing insects aren't so dumb recently. Same with fish.

So I've ranked them up and don't consume honey anymore. I already considered fish sentient before the recent studies anyways but now I'm validated lol.

5
lemmy.world

Honey: some do, some don't.

Eggs: Vegetarians eat eggs and drink milk. Vegans don't, that's the whole definition.

4

Fun fact, in India vegetarians specifically don't eat eggs (they do have dairy). People who are that sort of vegetarian and also eat eggs are referred to as eggetarian instead. I was told that this is because the eggs might be fertilised? Not sure how they farm eggs in India. In the country I live in laying hens live in a completely separate facility from any males so there is 0 chance of an egg being fertilised. That's possibly why eggs are always considered vego here.

2

I suppose they should probably avoid products that use shellac as well.

  • hard candy
  • chocolate
  • gum
  • ice cream
  • popcorn
  • pretzels
  • cookies
  • cakes
  • pies
  • vitamins and supplements
4

Also include some red food dye and shellac (confectioners glaze) made from crushed beetles or beetle excretions, respectively.

4

No Yes: it's an animal product.

However vegetarianism and veganism are a spectrum and different people will place themselves at various places along it.

4

I would be more interested in knowing if commercial honeybee pollination is vegan ok or not, and the same with buying boxes of bumble bees to pollinate inside greenhouses.

3

I am what I call an "involuntary vegan". I had to go full whole food plant based due to heart health issues. One of the effects that consuming any animal products has on me is significant inflammation. That includes honey. It is bee puke afterall.

That said, I maintain bee friendly gardens wherever I can because bees rule. Honeybees are grea for the environmen and bee is good for most people, so I would never chastise anyone for having it.

3

I mean, it's going to be bullshit they don't actually practice.

Somehow, pretty few of these people would personally kill or torture a cat or dog, but would pull up a weed or mow a lawn no problem.

I think there's a short answer to this somewhere, that you can just copy and paste, but I don't have it on hand.

5

Vegans are not a monolith. Some do, some don't. The decision generally comes down to their motivations & their education level.

Since ethical honey sourcing is actively good for both bees and local ecosystem, many vegans will consume ethically sourced honey. As opposed to meat where even the most ethical forms still involve the death of an animal.

Besides that many vegans view it as their 'cheat' option to curb their cravings. But also, there is very little reason to consume honey vs raw sugar, the flavor is similar especially once mixed into other food items. So some cut it simply because it is easy to cut.

2

Yes.

Honeybees (outside their native habitat) are outcompeting native pollinators. They are counter to restoring nature.

They became useful as pollinators in by monoculture destroyed habitats. And have been normalised to the point where we assume they are native, helpful and wholesome. Which is fucked up. But all of animal agriculture is fucked up.

There aren't enough honeybees in the world to produce all the honey in the stores. So most of the time when people think they are consuming honey, they are more often than not eating rice syrup or other syrups. There is no way of controlingbthis since there is no fucking difference.

It's just sugar. No magic. Just bad.

2
lemmy.world

I am now 5 years cancer free and with all my bits, thanks in large part to immunotherapy. This involved infusing live bacteria into rude locations. So, my survival and quality of life were predicated on killing millions of bacteria. What do vegans think of that?

2
piefed.zip

Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A person who practices veganism is known as a vegan; the word is also used to describe foods and materials that are compatible with veganism.

Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms belonging to the biological kingdom Animalia.

Vegans don't care about that. Everything you eat and drink is absolutely covered in bacteria. They're unavoidable. -Vegan (Me)

As for me, on a personal note, I will take anything prescribed by a doctor as prescribed if there is no vegan alternative. Many medicines come in gelcaps or have lactose-based binding ingredients.

If a doctor tells me to take Advil, I'm finding a generic ibuprofin with no gelatin or dairy binders. If a doctor tells me to take Advil in a gelcap because it absorbs better or whatever (I'm not a doctor), I'll take the gel cap. If it's a prescription filled by a pharmacist, I'm taking whatever they have available. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

13

Even disregarding the distinction between bacteria and Animalia… what a dumb thing to think is at all relevant to veganism.

Most people have some ethical objections to killing animals; like most believe it’s wrong to kill an endangered species for sport. But imagine someone doing so and then arguing “Yet you squish mosquitos? Curious! I am very smart.”

5

I'm sure all but the most "radical" vegans would do the same in your situation. Btw, congrats! And damn, isn't medicine cool AF?

2

Well if your life depended on it, you did good. That's it

2