or eggs or other insect parts
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.
and local honey helps with allergies so I ate it.
I don’t think this can be true, to be honest
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
not all vegans are the same but personally i use agave over honey
One’s an excess product that we’re literally allowed by the animal to take, the other’s a food source for an endangered species of bat
You should reconsider
Bees can’t give consent
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
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
the plants you eat didn’t give consent either. nor did the spider you killed. so sit down and shut up.
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,
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.
Mezcal? Sold
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.
“honey, I’m home!”
shocked gasp “I want a divorce!”
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
- Veganism (Wikipedia)
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms belonging to the biological kingdom Animalia.
- Animal (Wikipedia)
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.
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.”
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?
Well if your life depended on it, you did good. That’s it
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.
I believe insects can suffer too so yes
walking or driving must be paralyzing for you.
Depends on the individual and whether anyone is there to see.
Real vegans do.
My understanding is most do but it’s the subject of occasional controversy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.