Potatoes are kinda OP imho.
(I also agree with you btw).
Comment on Honey
weeeeum@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I feel like instead of a giant push for veganism, there should just be a push to eat what’s sustainable.
Beef and dairy? Causes huge amount of greenhouse gasses and with current methods of production, it is not sustainable
Blue fin tuna? These things have been way over fished and are endangered. Not sustainable, just try it once and move one with your life.
Tilapia ? These things grow like weeds and can be fed efficiently. Go ahead, good source of protein for your diet.
Honey? We need bees and they are an important pollinator for crops. Go nuts (just watch your sugar intake}
Almonds? Takes huge amounts of water to grow and exacerbates droughts in the areas they are farmed. Eat less of these.
Potatoes? Grow stupid easily in all sorts of conditions. Go nuts.
srestegosaurio@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
weeeeum@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yeah exactly, people arguing whether dragon fruit or some shit is a “super food”. The super food is right in front of us, potatoes (and onions).
What other food has been so vital to our survival that its disappearance could ravage a population (Irish potato famine)
No offense to dragon fruit, blue berries or whatever exotic fruit, but if they went extinct, not that much could change.
quicksand@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Obligatory Irish potato famine was a result of British policy. But I agree with your sentiment
TriflingToad@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Potatoes OP must nerf
xx3rawr@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
The last time it was nerfed, the Irish were pissed to say the least
radicalautonomy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Why you wanna starve Captain Blond Beard Mark Watney?
LordWiggle@lemmy.world 2 days ago
About honey: we do need bees. But taking away their honey which they work really hard for to sustain their colony during the winter and replacing it with sugar water is really bad for them and makes their colony weak. They can get viruses, bacteria and fungi much faster, which they can spread to other colonies or when splitting up when their queen dies.
Next to that, bees we use for honey are a very aggressive territorial species. They claim their territory and all the other bee and whasp species are killed and pushed out. There are many bee and whasp species who do not live in colonies but are very important for the biodiversity. Replacing them with our bees, which will die and get sick faster because we take away their nuteician rich honey, is a bad idea.
We do need our bees, but in reduces quantities to keep the balance. But we shouldn’t take their food.
racemaniac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
I’d say the issue is that if honey isn’t vegan because you’re causing harm to bees, isn’t most of modern vegetable agriculture at least equally harmful to bees & other insects due to all the pesticides being used?
Or is it just if we directly involve bees, it’s bad, but if we inflict greater harm in a less direct way, it’s acceptable?
Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org 2 days ago
Every aspect of our globalised and industrialised world is causing harm. Veganism is about reducing the harm we’re responsible for as far as possible and reasonable. Renouncing honey is easy. So it’s possible and reasonable. No vegan think’s they’re responsible for zero suffering or even zero dead animals, we’re simply trying to reduce the number as best as we can without starving ourselves.
racemaniac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
But if honey is cultivated in a way that’s better for the bees than other sources of sugar, wouldn’t using honey be more logical for vegans?
CetaceanNeeded@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Not just insects. Vermin control is critical and often not very ethical. Here in Australia, rabbits and kangaroos can be a big issue for farmers too and are often killed to protect crops when they become too numerous. Ducks can be a big issue for rice farmers here and permits are issued to shoot ducks on crops.
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
isn’t most of modern vegetable agriculture at least equally harmful
I’m a going with far more harmful.
ZeffSyde@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yeah. The modern method of acres and acres of one species being farmed, with or without pesticides and other performance enhancing drugs is terrible for the environment.
For many animals, you might as well build an asphalt parking lot for each acre of corn or soy you plant. Same goes for Western grass lawns.
The critters that can’t adapt starve or move away.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Vegans should stop eating vegetables and only eat honey then? Is that it?
khaleer@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
I mean bees are producing way more than they are using. We just shouldn’t take it all.
LordWiggle@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s a buffer for when the climate is different then normal so they will need more food…
vert3xo@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
That’s not true, bees really do produce more than one colony needs. The thing is that when they have no more room to store honey some bees will take a large portion of it and leave to start a new colony which is bad for you as a beekeeper and other insect species. The way I see it you definitely should take the honey. Just leave some for the winter.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Turns out that what’s sustainable is often what is vegan. Vegans are constantly discussing the edges of all this stuff trying to come to a better understanding, its somewhat natural that they would provide some of the most well-reasoned and substantiated arguments.
Honey and tilapia are not sustainable currently. Its a demand issue. Rules and regulations will never prevent an industry from meeting demand. Thats why we currently use practices at large scale we never would at small scale.
markstos@lemmy.world 1 day ago
We do need bees, but that doesn’t mean the honey industry is sustainable.
JayDee@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
I agree for the most part. I would like to point out that fish farms are actually very damaging to the ecosystems that they sit in. The excrement ends up dropping down in single locations, burying the seafloor in it. IIRC, this often leads to the oxygen levels in the water dropping, which further kills off the surrounding aquatic life.
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Beef and dairy? Causes huge amount of greenhouse gasses and with current methods of production, it is not sustainable
what makes you think this?
Rob@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’d already be very happy if everyone took your approach, but it’s not the entire story for veganism. Sustainability is an important factor for myself and many others, but so is animal welfare.
It’s a bummer that animal welfare is pretty much inversely correlated with emissions. Packing chickens together and making their lives miserable is much better for the environment than having them roam free.
Veganism happily aligns with environmental sustainability. But when you believe we shouldn’t exploit animals at all, just pushing to eat what’s sustainable ignores a lot of pain and cruelty.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
I think “exploitation” is the wrong word to be used. I’m not vegan, so I really have no bearing on this, but exploitation doesn’t equal harm.
This post for example is about bees. They’re being exploited (in that we’re using them to get resources), but is it harmful? I have trouble saying yes. It seems somewhat ideal for them. They get to go about their lives like normal, though usually in a place with a lot of flowering plants, and they get taken care of. Occasionally honey is gathered from them, but this doesn’t actually harm any bees.
I think vegans follow dogma too much. They should consider their reasons for themselves, and consider what food sources fall into that. The dogma is useful for quick communication and sharing of information, but I would suspect honey farming is a lot better for the living things involved than even a lot of plant farming, which requires large swathes of land to be dedicated to farming, which certainly isn’t good for native species and arguably plants can feel too.
RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
The harm side comes in multiple forms:
Harm to the animals; by removing their nutrient dense food source, and feeding them sugar water in its place, impacting colony health
Harm to the ecosystem; by mass producing honey bees we are choking out other pollinators, and the selective breeding for honey bees prioritizes output and makes colonies more susceptible to disease and collapse.
Even if you feel like the bees we’re farming lead a good life, that life comes at a cost of other species - we are choosing a winner in the food web in a way that could be done less harmful for similar end result (i.e., plant sugars / syrups). Much of veganism is about harm reduction.
Knowing the importance of pollinators to our food supply, as a vegan I would probably not have much of an issue with pollinator farming if there goal was maintaining biodiversity, instead of min-maxing profit.
Wooki@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Big nutrient profile difference for what you’re proposing and frankly supporting a significantly worse industry considering just environmental damage