• 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?”.

    • 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.

      •  Cethin   ( @Cethin@lemmy.zip ) 
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        186 months 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.

        • The “what about plants” argument is such a thoroughly debunked joke argument that it’s amazing anyone would continue to make it. Eating animals and their secretions requires harming significantly more plants than eating the plants directly because animals need to be fed too, and animals as food is by far the least efficient and most environmentally destructive way to have a food system.

          •  Cethin   ( @Cethin@lemmy.zip ) 
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            6 months ago

            It’s not an argument. It was a consideration that should be weighed if you’re being consistent. Your response is not accurate though. You’re referring to most farmed animals. Bees do not require this and is what the post is about. There are many animal products that do less harm than plant products. Farming plants requires large areas of land to be cleared for farming and replaced with what is likely not a native species. This can’t be good for native animals. If you’re comparing the harm done by almonds and honey, honey is almost certainly better for harm reduction, yet it’s an animal product, not a plant product.

          • Not with bees not.

            Eating plant based sugar will kill and harm more animals that bee produced sugar.

            Or do you think that agricultural process does not kill bugs?

            I would argue that eating honey instead of plant based sugar would be more vegan.

            In general drawing the line of veganism with bugs is… Complicated. As you really cannot have agriculture without killing bugs.

            You need pesticides, or some form of plage control. You need to harvest plants that surely will have animals in them. And you’ll need to clean the vegetables of bugs before consumption.

          • Eating animals and their secretions requires harming significantly more plants than eating the plants directly because animals need to be fed too,

            and they are mostly fed parts of plants that people can’t or won’t eat. the same field that grows soybeans for human consumption is growing animal feed, it’s just different parts of the plant.

        • Context matters. In the ancient world starvation was a constant threat, so a source of concentrated calories like honey could in some cases be a matter of life and death despite the dangers of getting that honey. In industrial society we have in many cases the opposite problem - the majority of the top causes of death are lifestyle diseases which ultimately come down to overconsumption and sedentary lifestyles. Too much dietary fat, especially too much saturated fats, too much sugar, too much refined foods, too much concentrated calories, too much easily consumed liquid calories.

          By contrast vegans by far have the easiest time maintaining balanced bodyweight levels.

          If you all could learn to let go of your prejudice you might learn to recognize that doing the right things for animal’s rights is also some of the best things you could do for yourself. These “vegans” you hate so much are just trying to get you to stop self-harming.

          • I’ve come to understand that the healthiest people aren’t vegans.

            It’s just that despite often lacking certain nutrients, vegan diets tend to enforce being at least kind of healthy unless you go ridiculously overboard on fruit or vegan junkfood.

            But eating beef/honey/eggs being “self-harming”? Fuck you very much.

            I am completely disinterested in your arguments, and will continue buying ridiculously good foods from abusive sources. Sources that I’d prefer to regulate in terms of animal rights, but every time that comes up, you people divert the conversation to “if you’re not gonna be vegan you’re evil either way so it doesn’t matter” and everyone tunes out.

            • Sources that I’d prefer to regulate in terms of animal rights, but every time that comes up, you people divert the conversation to “if you’re not gonna be vegan you’re evil either way so it doesn’t matter” and everyone tunes out.

              Pack it up, vegans. This person was going to wish upon a star to regulate animal agriculture, which would’ve done it, but we just had to go and advocate for making material changes on a level we have control over, and that forced them to be explicitly fine with abuse. If only we had your thoughts and prayers, what a horrible miscalculation on our part.

              •  Comment105   ( @Comment105@lemm.ee ) 
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                6 months ago

                Thoughts and prayers? No. Fines. Potentially jailtime. Potentially forcing them to sell farms and factories.

                But you do not want it. You’re delusional and thinking the animals will just have to endure for a little while longer while you’re working on getting the entire planet to switch to a vegan diet.

                Besides, you need the worst cases to stay around.

                You need to film conversion content, and it’ll have to be fresh and gruesome content to be effective.

                • Thoughts and prayers? No. Fines. Potentially jailtime. Potentially forcing them to sell farms and factories.

                  And how do you intend to implement those things? Thoughts and prayers.

          • I think they’re making a comment on the way vegans communicate their worldview to others, not necessarily a fixation on honey.

            There’s also an argument that diet should contribute to thriving, not simply existing in the most convenient way to balance bodyweight.

            If your goal is to build strength and muscle, an all vegan diet will be less effective than supplementing a similar diet with animal proteins. Every few years, a top contact sport athlete will give a full vegan diet a go, but they invariably fall back on animal protein because they can’t build the mass required.

            Ultimately, it’s all individual choice and body chemistry.

      •  Dutczar   ( @Dutczar@sopuli.xyz ) 
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        15 months 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.

  • Reasons that I, as a vegan, do not use honey:

    1. 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.

    2. 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).

    • Bees can kill their queen and make a new one no problem.

      If the colony would want to move away they would just do that. I don’t think clipping the queen wings would do nothing.

      But I doubt any beekeeper colony would want to move as they are keep at a perfect environment so they can produce more honey that they would actually need to survive. Even industrial ones. It’s part of basic beekeeping that bees must be in a good place so they produce the most honey.

      Hurt of mistreated bees would not produce honey. If they are mistreated the try to leave (and as stated they can just kill their Queen if she is crippled), they eat all the honey, or just die.

      Bees are really complicate to get advantage of. Our relationship with them need to be symbiotic to work.

      Not trying to convince anyone to consume honey if they don’t want to. As it’s basically just sugar so whatever.

      • Bees can kill their queen and make a new one no problem.

        This doesn’t make the mutilation of the queen bee any less bad. It’s still harming the bee. I am not aware if a bee has the ability to make an informed decision on whether to kill the queen and relocate, so I cannot make an informed decision about whether the bees actually want to be in their current hive.

        If the colony would want to move away they would just do that.

        I don’t know if this is true. It’s possible the bees are being manipulated into staying at their current hive in some way.

        I don’t think clipping the queen wings would do nothing

        It would hurt the queen, which is more than I want to be involved in.

        But I doubt any beekeeper colony would want to move as they are keep at a perfect environment so they can produce more honey that they would actually need to survive. Even industrial ones. It’s part of basic beekeeping that bees must be in a good place so they produce the most honey

        Making an assumption about what the bees want is not strong enough of an excuse for me to be ok with their exploitation. I don’t believe we should have the right to make decisions for other organisms, and the bees are not able to tell us how they want to be treated, so we should not try to control them or take what they produce.

        Hurt of mistreated bees would not produce honey.

        This appears to also be an assumption. I do not know if it is true, so I cannot use it to make a decision

        If they are mistreated the try to leave (and as stated they can just kill their Queen if she is crippled), they eat all the honey, or just die.

        If this is true, there is likely to be a minimum amount of mistreatment before they take action. I do not know how much mistreatment a bee can take, so I cannot use this to make a decision.

        Bees are really complicate to get advantage of. Our relationship with them need to be symbiotic to work.

        I do not know if this is true. We take advantage of many animals without giving them much in return, so I am not sure if the bee-beeker relationship is actually symbiotic.

        • Now I’m just curious.

          How do you manage the amount of animals that are hurt during agricultural process then?

          Tons of invertebrates are killed by pesticides, while harvest or during the cleaning process of the vegetables.

          It seems to me that being killed by pesticides or drown with water is worse fate that beeing in a nice artificial honeycomb where they may or may not clip the wings of one queen or make you a little sleepy once in a while with smoke.

          On matter of animals hurted/killed during production process honey seems more vegan that most vegetables.

          • This comment section has led me to more deeply consider the effects that all types of food production have on animals. I previously have just been ok with any non-animal product, but I now realize that this is not enough, and I am still causing harm to animals with the products that I do use. I will try to ensure that I buy the lowest-impact food available in the future, but I don’t think it is even be possible to stay alive without causing harm to some animals.

            I think using products produced by animals is generally going to be worse than harming animals to stop them from destroying crops, but I will need to consider this more deeply to make the best choice I can.

  • 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?

    • I’ve always found it interesting that using animals is a bad thing, but using plants in similar ways is fine. I guess there has to be a line somewhere, otherwise such a person would simply starve to death.

          • Well bees are definitely objectified and seen as industrialized honey producing machines. They’re starved of their own resources and are given mostly sugar water in return. Bee keepers are not concerned with their well-being other than for production yields. It is a form of factory farming. Isn’t this reason enough?

          •  millie   ( @millie@beehaw.org ) 
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            They’re certainly exposed to a very different living situation than would be typical for them in most cases, to their detriment. For example, bees that make their combs in frames lose substantial heat from their hives, which usually helps protect against disease and even predation. They’re also often given a sugar water substitute to eat when their honey is drained off for human consumption, which is nowhere near as nutritious. They’re also moved around on the bee keeper’s schedule, which may be a substantial stressor compared with a hive that stays in one place. Never mind that they may be exposed to climates that substantially differ from where that particular variety of honey be evolved.

            Given issues like colony collapse disorder, it’s pretty clear that many forms of bee keeping aren’t really great for bees. Does that constitute torture? That’s hard to tell, but it certainly does put pressures on them in multiple aspects of their lives and the lives of their hives as a whole that they wouldn’t be dealing with otherwise, and which probably aren’t pleasant.

            Would you consider it torture, or at least cruel, to forcibly relocate the population of a city to an area that’s freezing cold, force them to live in poorly insulated homes, make them eat food that isn’t healthy for them, and steal the product of their labor in exchange for their efforts?

      •  Mrs_deWinter   ( @Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org ) 
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        One good argument for this: A vegan diet not only minimizes animal deaths but plant deaths as well, since livestock obviously has to be fed on many, many individual plants before they can get slaughtered. So even if we for some reason prioritized saving the lives of plants going vegan would still be the way to go.

        • I respect this argument. I would like to know how Humans fit into the ecosystem.

          Humans tend to remove predators from population centers to prevent Humans from becoming prey. The culling of predators allow more prey animals to survive. Humans find themselves competing with prey animals for fruits and vegetables. Humans hunt prey animals to increase yields of fruits and vegetables.

          How do we reconcile that our population centers are built on the culling of predator and prey species?

          How do Humans balance protection and food production with the morality of minimizing animal and plant death?

          What should Humans do with the bodies of culled predators and prey?

          •  Mrs_deWinter   ( @Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org ) 
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            I think if you ask 10 people this questions you will get 11 opinions, at least.

            I personally would prefer the reintroduction of predators into their native habitats because the human tendency to squeeze economic profit out of every square centimeter of the planet we inhabit reads absolutely bizarre to me. This kind of instrumental world view where everything has to have a purpose for us is in my opinion an epoch in the development of humans we should strive to leave behind, because although for a time it shaped our progression as a species like nothing else, it’s also about to destroy the world we live in and come crushing down on us if we find no better way forward. I believe that in the long term we will have to withdraw from at least some parts of the ecosystem and let the predators do their thing. Our population centers can be (and for a good part already are) so sealed off to them that it should very well be possible to do our thing without being mauled by wolves.

            …All this does go a bit beyond the question of honey though. Sorry for the rant there.

            • Bees and other insects are pollinators allowing food to grow. Say humans succeed at sealing themselves off in such a way that we can grow the food we need without impacting outside ecosystems.

              Would humans still need pollinators? Would human pollinator populations be separated from outside populations?

              The idea could inspire some entertaining science fiction. The best writer would probably have a background in Entomology and Horticulture.

      • It is really tricky to genuinely discuss this topic. Many omnivores use this as a straw man argument to discredit vegans for not being fully consequential. On top of that, reasons for being vegan and where people draw the line also vary hugely.

        Anyways, I would argue that eating plants and also fungi is very different to eating animal products. First of all, if you are vegan for ethical reasons (as I am) then usually the argument is that one can infer from one’s own feelings onto other animals. Sure, this isn’t always that easy and we will never know how other animals really feel. This includes fellow humans btw. But it is certainly very definitive that many animals feel pain, discomfort and many other emotions not unlike we feel them.

        Plants and fungi on the other hand have completely different body plans. Plants are modular organisms and you simply cannot relate cutting your arm off with cutting a branch. We may deepen our understanding on plants and maybe we will find some form of conscience one day. But this is still far off and for now we can only speculate. Fungi are very different as well and we usually just eat their fruiting bodies anyways.

        Secondly, as someone else pointed out, for ecological reasons and for the sheer quantity that is necessary to sustain humans, going vegan is always the better choice. Animals live on plants, too, and just use a lot of the plants’ energy on their own metabolism.

      • There are varieties of Jainism that won’t pluck fruits (will only eat what has naturally fallen) and many mainstream varieties of Jainism that won’t eat any root vegetables (because digging them up would harm insects), or seeded vegetables (eating it harms the plants ability to reproduce).

          • I’m not a Jain so take this with a grain of salt. Their philosophy of nonviolence believes in two sets of rules - one for ascetics and one for “householders”. The former renounce everything in service of nonviolence (they often wear masks to prevent breathing in any organisms, carry canes that they use to tap the ground when they walk, etc). The latter have more “reasonable” restrictions (but are still pure vegetarians, etc). So maybe for the former group?

    •  JasonDJ   ( @JasonDJ@lemmy.zip ) 
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      76 months ago

      Think about it as if its about consent. The bees don’t consent to their honey being taken. Cows don’t consent to be repeatedly impregnated and milked. Pigs don’t consent to their butts becoming bacon. Chickens don’t consent to their eggs being taken.

      However, the miller and the baker both consented to milling/kneading, and later selling their wares.

      Human breast milk can be vegan, though, if given freely. If you forcefully take human breast milk, then it is no longer vegan.

  •  rekabis   ( @rekabis@lemmy.ca ) 
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    45 months 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.

    • 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.

  •  Queen HawlSera   ( @HawlSera@lemm.ee ) 
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    The whole “Vegans against Honey” thing is so stupid… like… brah, Bees are the one critter that has already unionized.

    Not like there’s much sense to begin with in a diet where you need a thousand supplements in order to not go insane from a Vitamin B-12 Deficiency and start blaming Carnist Voodoo for your Anemia… Ya know instead of going “Oh wait, I was getting my iron from chicken…”

    Edit: On that note, I actually do need to take Iron for a defiency, this post reminded me… Not a vegan though.

    • I’m not vegan, I’m vegetarian, but I don’t need any supplements to be just fine. I know plenty of vegans who are happy and healthy without supplements. It isn’t that hard to find sources elsewhere in your diet. I’ve never understood the malnutrition argument, when we’ve known that you can be perfectly healthy (and statistically healthier than otherwise) when eating vegan. You can’t just eat salads and expect to be okay, but doesn’t that sound like such a bland diet anyways? I prefer making stir fries, burritos, stews, and other mixed dishes where I can hit all the macro and micro nutrients my body needs. I’m very healthy and haven’t eaten meat or animal products outside of humanely sourced eggs (my friend has chickens) for years.

    •  Mrs_deWinter   ( @Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org ) 
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      Then you should definitely go vegan. A vegan diet comes with the least amount of plant deaths and plant suffering, since lifestock is being fed with billions of individual plants before being slaughtered. You can save all of them.

      • 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

          • No, I just eat very little meat. Most of my meals are rice and beans with whatever veggies I have on hand mixed in, preferably locally grown. I’ll also add in eggs sometimes, which unfortunately don’t come from a local source because I don’t have one anymore

            And occasionally I go out for a burger or sushi, but I do it rarely and consciously. I enjoy it even more because of that And by framing it this way, I’ve convinced most of my friends and family to cut back and think more about their choices.

            I don’t subscribe to the vegan moral system, I find it often inconsistent and confused. Like here… What’s best for the bees? What’s best for the ecosystem? What’s best for the humans?

            • Sounds like there is still some room for improvement in terms of “eating as sustainably as they can” then.

              I don’t subscribe to the vegan moral system, I find it often inconsistent and confused. Like here… What’s best for the bees? What’s best for the ecosystem? What’s best for the humans?

              Do you mean the vegan moral system is confused, or are you confused? Because not many vegans are confused about those things, that much I can tell you.

              Right now you’re voting with your wallet to increase an economic demand for the death of billions of innocent blades of grass. Not to mention dead animals - but we’re not talking about them, that would be silly.

              • This is why I find it confused.

                I just told you how I’m doing what I can, and having great success convincing others to do the same

                I told you I don’t subscribe to your moral system

                You’ve entirely ignored most of what I’ve said and failed to engage me in any area where we have common ground. Instead, you attacked me for not doing more under your own value system

                You’re working at cross purposes to your goals… You’re a hardliner. This approach is why some of my family gatherings have a vegan and a “normal” option for foods that taste basically the same. This is why I can’t reach some of my family members on this topic - they were attacked and talked down to for their eating habits, now it’s about winning and losing for them

                Veganism is not the highest ethics of eating habits. The correct answer to my concern for the suffering of plants was a fruititarian diet… But it isn’t higher in my own value system, due to the transport involved

                Doing more for me means growing my own food, and maybe keeping chickens. Maybe hunting the occasional deer. It means reintegrating with the ecosystem… But I’m not able to do that yet

                Also, voting with your wallet is a lie to keep people complacent. Systematic issues must be solved systematically - already there’re huge subsidies for the meat industry to keep prices down and for big agro to over produce certain crops. This can only be changed through collective action

                So if you don’t want me to see you as confused, ask yourself “what are my goals?” and “am I using the best methods available to me to meet my goals?”

                • Claiming I’m the one who’s confused only makes you seem delusional. You seem desperate to stir the conversation into a direction where you’re getting praised for your diet choices, while I’m still amused about your original comment.

                  You’re standing on the proud achievement of a claim that is not only wrong, even if it was true, it wouldn’t work as an argument in your favor. Maybe on some intellectually detached level you are in fact aware how stupid of an argument that really is, so now you’re trying to change the topic to vegan goals and systematic issues and convincing people of your unsurpassable approach to a sustainable lifestyle.

                  I am not a hardliner by any means. And I’m not even talking down your eating habits. I’m talking down dumb arguments.

    • Just finished watching Tolkien stuff, so i got this:

      Bees are kelvar: beings that are “capable of moving and escaping”! Except maybe for the queen bee, which may be an olvar.

      Kelvar was a name used by the Valie Yavanna to refer to that part of her natural realm capable of moving or escaping, as opposed to the olvar which were rooted in place.