Well since we’re constantly digesting our own dead microfauna, I’d say that it’s literally impossible to be fully vegan, so they might as well stop trying and spare us their obnoxious bullshit.
Honey
Submitted 1 year ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/14d75ca3-4025-4577-b1dd-64ecf5360bec.jpeg
Comments
Etterra@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Teppichbrand@feddit.org 1 year ago
“Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”
EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
excuse me I need to eat meat in front of vegans again.
rekabis@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Any that’s the hypocrisy of Vegans. Milk and honey are the only two animal-based food sources that don’t involve the killing of animals. And in the case of most cow breeds, milking is actually needed as they have been bred to produce far more milk than their calves drink. And with careful management of the hive, you can harvest a lot of honey from a mature hive without negatively affecting the hive itself - it just delays/defers new queen production and swarming, which is desirable anyhow - no beekeeper who has hives primarily for crop pollination wants to have hives swarming each and every year.
eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Vegans are more “consent” than focusing on the consumption.
Vegetarians eat honey and drink milk. Vegans don’t as they don’t feel that animals can consent to the actions being taken place on their body. It’s basically a form of “Can this animal agree to what is taking place?” question. If they can’t even answer a yes or no, then it’s a form of abuse.
Like how we consider that animals can’t consent to sexual acts. It’s wrong because we exert a force to them that they can’t even disagree with. Bestiality is obviously wrong, and I don’t think you’d find a lot of people who would disagree except those who perform it. But it’s weird that we view the killing and eating of them as normalized.
And I am saying this as someone who consumes meat. I fully acknowledge I am complicit, I just don’t defend my actions.
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
the vegan society definition makes no mention of consent at all, only exploitation
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
You are free to have this opinion but how does it make vegans hypocrites? Everything you said is incompatible with veganism simple because you are commdifying other creatures.
You did a great job trying to make it sound like humans make their lives better by enslaving them though.
rekabis@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Plants scream when eaten:
PixeIOrange@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Milk and Honey involve absolutely killing animals. For milk the “excess” bulls are being killed. Not to mention the rape to get the cows pregnant for them to produce milk. Maybe we shouldnt breed animals that suffer at all. The bee hives get sugary water instead of their honey, this weakens the hive since its obvisiously unhealthy for the bees. Also the honey bees suppress other natural bees, that are neccessary for many plants since the honey bee doesnt pollinate every plant.
Maybe we should just let the animals alone. We dont need them for food.
bitchkat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Eggs? Even if you count “fertilized” as being an animal, the vast majority of eggs aren’t fertilized.
PixeIOrange@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Ever heard of chick shredding? We need far more hens than roosters, so the males get shredded.
iAvicenna@lemmy.world 1 year ago
fungi?
P4ulin_Kbana@lemmy.eco.br 1 year ago
I want to learn Latin. I need better time management and less distration.
Lennny@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Etymology, why learn one language when you can learn the foundation of all. And then you too can hate on the medical community for mixing Greek and Latin like it’s fuckin vermouth and gin
P4ulin_Kbana@lemmy.eco.br 1 year ago
Yep.
NutWrench@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Can you milk a bee? I didn’t think so!
Slovene@feddit.nl 1 year ago
You can milk certain types of bees. Boo bees.
Slovene@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Wait, it’s Halloween. What kind of spooky bees make milk?
BOO! bees.
WordBox@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Bees have a nipple, Focker…
Slovene@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Does mother Focker have nipples?
TotalFat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Let me get my milking gear. For the tiny udders.
Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
I appeal to the Director of Veganism!
mhague@lemmy.world 1 year ago
How is there 4 posts but one reply? Who said something first, the “bees, not animals” thing?
IHateReddit@lemmy.world 1 year ago
the opened reply is “bees, not animals” and the replies below belong to that
bstix@feddit.dk 1 year ago
Honey is a by-product of bees, the same way that all human made food is a by-products of humans.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Maybe if we went around collecting raw food and storing it inside our bodies, and then converted it into a nearly pure sugar.
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Dude, language!
/s
pyre@lemmy.world 1 year ago
so if I buy food from people I’m basically a cannibal
Hammocks4All@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
I think it’s more accurate to think of you trapping humans in your basement and leaving them a bag of groceries every once in a while. Then you go down there and take whatever they cooked with the produce. They get to eat what they make, you just get the leftovers. They also can’t leave.
angelmountain@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Stupid discussion. It does not matter whether something is in the box “vegan”. Ask yourself why you would or would not eat something. If you don’t want to eat(/drink) dairy because of the way the animals that produce the dairy are treated, would you be ok when they are treated differently? Are bees treated in the same way? Does it matter if you treat them in this way? Those should be your questions, not “does it belong in this box?”.
shasta@lemm.ee 1 year ago
This question is still valid from a marketing standpoint. If you’re selling honey, are you able to advertise it as vegan?
angelmountain@feddit.nl 1 year ago
True. Though marketing is a cancer in itself. But I guess that’s a different discussion 😬
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Entirely true. My favorite stupid argument is about lab-grown meat. People don’t seem to understand that veganism is practiced for a variety of reasons. Is lab-grown meat vegan? It depends on the vegan.
My rule of thumb is that I’ll eat it as long as nothing was injured or killed to make it. Factory farmed eggs? Nah, I’ve seen videos of macerators. My neighbor’s chickens’ eggs? Hell yeah, I’m friends with those chickens
homicidalrobot@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Sorry, is this post satire or are you talking about satire you did not recognize? NEVER seen a vegan call breast milk non-vegan and have in fact actually seen more discussion about whether vegans should be breastfeeding children at all, I.e. is it healthy to do so with their diet.
You’ve put the word debate in quotation marks flippantly like there’s an obvious answer, but I’m pretty sure you just misunderstood a conversation rife with sarcasm or taken out of context (or straight up made it up).
AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Like all ideologies idiots stick to the rules while forgetting the actual meaning behind them. Compare how Christians act to what their Christ taught.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
If you can explain a vegan way to get milk, meat, or honey then I’m all ears. You seem to be implying there is some gray area here.
angelmountain@feddit.nl 1 year ago
My point is that there is no real way to explain what “vegan” really is, since it means different things to different people and all of these people have the best intentions.
So my point actually is, instead of focussing on what to call “vegan” and what not, the discussion should be about bees.
For instance, do they care if you take their honey? Are they harmed? And should I care about whether they are harmed?
JayObey711@lemmy.world 1 year ago
No he’s implying that eating something just because it is “Vegan” is not understanding the point. Vegans usually don’t eat stuff because it’s bad for the environment or because they see animals as equal lifeforms and don’t want to cause them harm. If you don’t eat most animal products because of the environment then you might be ok with eating oysters on occasion. They have a similar co2 footprint as most vegetables. Similarly honey has an even smaller footprint.
xx3rawr@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I’m no vegan, but I think a large incentive for veganism or at least being vegetarian is the carbon footprint as well. A plant-based diet is much more sustainable than with meat, as in vertebrates. I think invertebrates would be great alternatives but the west-influenced culture is not very fond of eating invertebrates except for crustaceans.
AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Animal ethics isn’t just about whether other animals are being harmed or killed, it’s also about being against exploitation. They might not be able to think in quite the same way that we do, but it’s still clear that they have their own wills and lives of their own that they want to live. It’s worth asking ourselves if we really want a society that’s willing to exploit and turn other thinking beings into commodities, even the ones whose thinking appears to be so much more rudimentary than our own.
It’s easy to dismiss them because they’re “just bugs”, but presently bugs of all species are facing radical population declines with all the ecological instability - maybe even looming collapse - that brings. Maybe we collectively might be more willing to protect bug populations and do more to protect our environments if more of us stopped to analyze our anti-bug bias and considered that they have a natural right to life like we do. The planet does not exist solely for us.
Also, honey is essentially a refined sugar that’s no better healthwise than table sugar. Date sugar/powder is a sweetener made of whole fruit and is a much better choice. Plus, it’s just weird to want to eat the vomit of other species anyway.
Dutczar@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
Don’t we help bee populations by building homes for them?
Also, and I did wonder about this, what do homestock want out of life more than food, getting laid, and taking a walk or run? I think even the smarter ones like octopuses just want to get food and live until making kids.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
As for the exploitation, all living things have their own lives. Even plants seem to be able to communicate to some degree and can be stressed and stuff. Either you’re OK exploiting living things to some degree or you die. The level of exploitation is what should be discussed. Is beekeeping harmful to bees? I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like it.
As for it being sugar, sure. Sugar isn’t bad though. Sugar is bad when consumed in the quantities the average American consumes it. It also has other properties that make it pretty good for your health. For example, I think it’s good for preventing allergies because it contains pollen (I might be making this up, but it seems like I’ve read that somewhere).
Plus, it’s just weird to want to eat the vomit of other species anyway.
Do you realize that fruit is the ovary of a plant? Life is weird. Get over it. Weird is not a word that should come into a discussion of ethics.
Comment105@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Honey, the food of the gods by ancient opinion, is suddenly weird?
I will never like vegans.
Toofpic@feddit.dk 1 year ago
But it will ruin the achievement badge I want to show in my profile!
theneverfox@pawb.social 1 year ago
It seems so silly to me. Do plants not feel pain?
They do. I learned it first hand… You can call it stress if you like, but plants most certainly experience suffering
Sunshine@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Go vegan if you’re serious about morals and protecting the environment!
Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org 1 year ago
Then you should definitely go vegan. A vegan diet needs the least amount of plant deaths and plant suffering, since lifestock is being fed with billions of individual plants.
theneverfox@pawb.social 1 year ago
No, I can’t save them. Because systematic problems cannot be solved through individual action
That being said, it’s bold of you to assume someone conscious of the suffering of plants isn’t eating as sustainably as they can with the choices they have available
Also, this is about honey - honey production encourages freely planting wild fields rather than mono crops, and it discourages killing the bees. I don’t share your moral system, but in mine this is about as good as it gets
weeeeum@lemmy.world 1 year 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.
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year 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?
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 year 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 year ago
We do need bees, but that doesn’t mean the honey industry is sustainable.
JayDee@lemmy.ml 1 year 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.
srestegosaurio@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Potatoes are kinda OP imho.
(I also agree with you btw).
weeeeum@lemmy.world 1 year 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.
Rob@lemmy.world 1 year 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 1 year 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.
LordWiggle@lemmy.world 1 year 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 1 year 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?
khaleer@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
I mean bees are producing way more than they are using. We just shouldn’t take it all.
pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
if it needs to be pollinated by bees or wasps, then it’s not vegan (insert troll emoji i guess)
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I think that’s actually a very valid point. What level of involvement in producing the food makes it vegan or not vegan? If eating honey is unethical I would think so is eating food produced by the hard work of another person.
9blb@feddit.org 1 year ago
What level of involvement in producing the food makes it vegan or not vegan?
It’s about A) exploitation and B) harming the animal.
Pollination is done by all kinds of insects, but they are part of our ecosystem and happen to be pollinating the plants that we eat. We don’t breed them, we don’t kill them (pesticides, sure), we simply coexist.
Honey isn’t vegan because we breed the bees, take their food and often kill the entire hive because they get sick and cannot survive winter without their honey. It’s also not sustainable, because honey bees are being bred en masse and are pushing out native pollinators that are highly specialized in certain kinds of plants, causing them to go extinct.
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What the fuck? Does she think honey composed of dead bees?
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I think that’s the distinction between vegan and vegetarian. Milk is vegetarian since it’s not eating a cow, but it’s not vegan because an animal was used to produce it.
So honey not being vegan is the same kind of thing.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Honey can be vegan. I have a friend who keeps endangered bees and as an unintended side effect of fostering their growth has honey that she has to give away because she doesn’t want it
gjoel@programming.dev 1 year ago
So, if they were endangered cows and your friend didn’t like milk, the milk would be vegan…?
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Well veganism is about reducing suffering. Like if the cows didnt suffer to produce that milk. Like no forced insemination, calfs aren’t separated from their mother, male calf’s aren’t slaughtered, the cows don’t have unnaturally large udders, you only take the over production and not steal the food from the calf and the cows live a good life then you could argue that the milk is vegan. But milk is not produced like that so milk is not vegan.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Playing devil’s advocate, this could be sidestepping the issue, because the honey is only an unintended side effect from your friend’s POV, not the bee’s.
SharkEatingBreakfast@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
Some folks believe that fish aren’t animals, either.
Zozano@lemy.lol 1 year ago
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 1 year ago
Kyle_The_G@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I feel like bees are a bit of a grey area. We’re not eating them, we’re kind of like landlords that give them a nice place to stay and they pay rent in honey. I’m not vegan so I’m not quite sure what the rationale is for bee stuff.
Lux@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
Reasons that I, as a vegan, do not use honey:
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I cannot guarantee that the bees consented to their product being harvested. Some beekeepers clip the queen’s wings, which can prevent the colony from leaving.
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I cannot guarantee that bees were not harmed in the process of harvesting (potentially getting crushed by the honeycomb frames, for example) or in the process of controlling the colony (like clipping the queen’s wings).
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Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
Bees are gubbermint drones, and honey is simply concentrated 5G chemtrail juice that gives you super autism.
SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 1 year ago
Kinda tongue-in-cheek questions, but: Honey isn’t an animal body part, it isn’t produced by animal bodies, so if it is an animal product because bees process it, is wheat flour (for example) an animal product because humans process it? How about hand-kneaded bread? Does that make fruit an animal product because the bees pollinated the flowers while collecting the nectar?
AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’ve had an unreasonable number of arguments against people who seemed to think animal was a synonym for mammal. Thankfully, we’re now in an era where you can look it up and show them now mobile data is cheap, so it’s become a winnable argument.
solsangraal@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
i guess this person refuses to work or patronize a place that uses pest control for cockroaches?
Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Non vegan here. 🤔
Soooooo honey is not extracted directly from the bees, so that would be an argument to declare honey vegan.
On the other hand, even with modern beekeeping tech and modular hives, one could argue the act of taking honey to be a serious intrusion on the bees’ life, so that could be an argument that honey is not vegan.
One could argue where the line lies with eusocial organisms. Do you consider the individual bees or do you consider the whole hive? Whole hive? Honey may not be vegan. Individual insects? Honey could be vegan.
It really depends on your standards. One vegan friend of mine does drink mead (honey wine, for the uninformed) for instance.