Is honey vegan? Okay, I know it comes from animals, so technically it isn't vegan, and it isn't recognized by the Vegan Society nor American Vegan Society as vegan, I wonder whether it is that wrong to eat honey.
I know some people will argue that it is wrong to take bees honey, as it isn't ours to take (which I agree with to an extent), and that often bees aren't left with enough honey through the winter, but you can buy local and ethically managed honey very easily, which harvests the honey in the spring rather than early in the autumn, so they have enough honey to survive the winter. People will also ague that some bees are killed when beekeepers smokes out their hives to clear them and take their honey, but animals are killed by pesticides on crops (although I try to buy organic). In almost all plant farms, animals are killed in some form to protect the crops. How is this any different?
Anyway, even if bees are exploited and abused by the honey process, they are essential to our planet and all other life and their population is declining, so surely we should buy honey to support the declining bee population, even if it does mean some bees have to live in unfavorable conditions. Isn't it better for the greater good to eat honey and support bees, so all life can continue on our planet.
Also, honey is also the least gas-guzzling sweetener we have. Other sweeteners (such as beets and corn) are very energy intensive in growth and production, and cause a plethora of ethical problems, not to mention that they often have to be shipped large distances, whereas honey can be produced locally.
As a vegetarian who greatly limits the amount of animal products I eat, such as using vegan milk and butter, and am planning to go vegan soon, I wonder what the thoughts of other people on the forum and vegans are on the topic. I do not claim to be an expert on this some of my views are probably wrong, but don't start a flame war about it please.
Honey?
- brimstoneSalad
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Re: Honey?
I suspect our honey harvesting to be at least partially responsible for colony collapse.
You might want to see my post here:
https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... 801&p=8725
I'm not particularly worried about the individual bees. But we need bees to pollinate our crops, so we should stop taking their honey so they can do that without dying.
It's a common misconception that bee keepers rely on honey sales to fund their crop pollination. Mobile apiaries make most of their money from the pollination service itself. Honey sales are only a small part of their incomes.
If they couldn't sell the honey, they'd be just fine, and would continue pollinating our crops -- only the bees would probably stop dying off so fast.
It just adds extra steps in processing, more expensive shipping and packaging, and contributes to colony collapse.
There's nothing green about honey, unless you're harvesting it in very small sustainable amounts from your own backyard (or very nearby), and at the current consumption, that's just not practical for the general public.
There may be some honey sources that are less harmful, but even if so, it has all of the health benefits of high fructose corn syrup. Why bother?
I would recommend saving your money (and health) and staying away from honey regardless of where it came from.
Use fruit, or calorie free sweeteners, which are both better for you than a heaping load of fructose and glucose devoid of other nutrition.
Save money and buy conventional.
Win - Lose
vs.
Lose - Lose (honey)
When we harm bees, we are doing so at the expense of our own health and for flavor, not for nutrition.
When we harm pests in fields or during storage, we're doing it out of necessity for our sustained good health.
Honey is not medicine. Don't bee fooled by the marketing.
I know, it's complicated. Organic is bad? Vegan butter is bad? What?
You'll get it, it just takes some time and a skeptical mind.
So, don't worry about the small stuff.
I would say, don't intentionally buy honey, but if there's honey in something somebody gives you, or if you're really hungry and all you can find has honey in it, don't worry about it.
See this excellent article:
http://www.peta.org/living/food/making- ... ucts-food/
What matters is the 99.9%
And if you have a backyard apiary where you really know the honey is sustainably harvested and not replaced with sugar, sure, go for it if you really like that kind of thing. I know I wrote a lot, but it's not a really big deal.
Oh, and also: Welcome to the forum!
You might want to see my post here:
https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... 801&p=8725
It's up to you if you want to eat it or not, though.brimstoneSalad wrote: "I expect has quite a bit to do with Colony Collapse." This was more of a footnote, but I can explain in more detail WHY that is the case. I'm not pulling it out of my ass (it's just not very relevant to the topic at hand).
However, this was the more important point:
We need bees to pollinate our flowers and produce a lot of crops, so anything that threatens them I take as a serious problem, particularly when it's completely unnecessary like Honey harvesting.
The fact that over-harvesting of honey may be involved is a reason to stop it, even without proof positive, because honey provides no actual advantages beyond a very slight subsidization of the cost of food from flowering plants (which is not any advantage to vegans, because at best you're taking money from one pocket, and putting it (after the honey man's cut) into the other).
Consider the standards for evidence based medicine. It must be both safe AND effective.
In the case of veganism, at minimum we should be obligated to ask only if something is harmless OR useful.
If something is useful, it may be enough to just show that it's not very harmful, or show that it's unlikely to be very harmful (in excess of its usefulness) -- like medicine.
However, if something is useless, a greater burden must be put on showing that it is also harmless. In the case of honey, that burden has not been met.
See the precautionary principle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
Which applies even more when a practice is useless or worse (as is the case of honey).
Honey is worse than merely useless in that it is actively unhealthy, and yet through misconception and dishonest marketing promoted as a healthier alternative to sugar.
Honey is worse than merely useless in that it is wasteful in agricultural terms. We can produce comparable or superior sweeteners in every regard with greater efficiency than honey affords.
At best, honey may be blameless for CCD, but this has not been proven (and is extremely unlikely, since our practices drastically affect bees lives). We don't really know for sure what's causing it, so anything that might be causing it must be suspect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorderThe red bold cause is directly related to increase honey consumption and harvesting by humans (and replacement with sugar and other substitutes).Wikipedia wrote:The mechanisms of CCD and the reasons for its increasing prevalence remain unclear, but many possible causes have been proposed: pesticides, primarily neonicotinoids; infections with Varroa and Acarapis mites; malnutrition; various pathogens; genetic factors; immunodeficiencies; loss of habitat; changing beekeeping practices; or a combination of factors.[9]
Orange causes are more indirectly related or more speculatively related, including increased exposure/less enzymatic breakdown, and changing the mediums for pathogens that bees are exposed to through food source replacement, inbreeding for production, etc.
Among those, loss of habitat and mites are pretty much the only things that seem unlikely to have any serious direct relation to honey harvesting (I could be wrong on that though).
...Wikipedia wrote:A 2015 review examined 170 studies on colony collapse disorder and stressors for bees, including pathogens, agrochemicals, declining biodiversity, climate change and more. The review concluded that "a strong argument can be made that it is the interaction among parasites, pesticides, and diet that lies at the heart of current bee health problems."
This is the main reason we should not eat honey. Because it does the opposite of supporting the bees, due to links with colony collapse.MWilders wrote:Anyway, even if bees are exploited and abused by the honey process, they are essential to our planet and all other life and their population is declining, so surely we should buy honey to support the declining bee population, even if it does mean some bees have to live in unfavorable conditions. Isn't it better for the greater good to eat honey and support bees, so all life can continue on our planet.
I'm not particularly worried about the individual bees. But we need bees to pollinate our crops, so we should stop taking their honey so they can do that without dying.
It's a common misconception that bee keepers rely on honey sales to fund their crop pollination. Mobile apiaries make most of their money from the pollination service itself. Honey sales are only a small part of their incomes.
If they couldn't sell the honey, they'd be just fine, and would continue pollinating our crops -- only the bees would probably stop dying off so fast.
Commercial honey is replaced with sugar when it's taken from bees, so that's completely irrelevant. It's the only way massive consumer demand for honey can be met.MWilders wrote:Also, honey is also the least gas-guzzling sweetener we have. Other sweeteners (such as beets and corn) are very energy intensive in growth and production, and cause a plethora of ethical problems, not to mention that they often have to be shipped large distances, whereas honey can be produced locally.
It just adds extra steps in processing, more expensive shipping and packaging, and contributes to colony collapse.
There's nothing green about honey, unless you're harvesting it in very small sustainable amounts from your own backyard (or very nearby), and at the current consumption, that's just not practical for the general public.
There may be some honey sources that are less harmful, but even if so, it has all of the health benefits of high fructose corn syrup. Why bother?
I would recommend saving your money (and health) and staying away from honey regardless of where it came from.
Use fruit, or calorie free sweeteners, which are both better for you than a heaping load of fructose and glucose devoid of other nutrition.
I suggest not buying organic. Organic food uses pesticide too, just larger quantities of more dangerous "natural" pesticide. Organic farming has a lower yield so is more damaging to the environment, and supports animal agriculture.MWilders wrote: but animals are killed by pesticides on crops (although I try to buy organic).
Save money and buy conventional.

It's different because fruits and vegetables and whole grains are good for you, providing important nutrition, and honey is bad for you (providing none).MWilders wrote: In almost all plant farms, animals are killed in some form to protect the crops. How is this any different?
Win - Lose
vs.
Lose - Lose (honey)
When we harm bees, we are doing so at the expense of our own health and for flavor, not for nutrition.
When we harm pests in fields or during storage, we're doing it out of necessity for our sustained good health.
Honey is not medicine. Don't bee fooled by the marketing.
Be mindful of vegan butter, it's often made from palm oil. Unfortunately, really terrible for the environment.MWilders wrote: As a vegetarian who greatly limits the amount of animal products I eat, such as using vegan milk and butter,
I know, it's complicated. Organic is bad? Vegan butter is bad? What?
You'll get it, it just takes some time and a skeptical mind.
That's great!MWilders wrote: and am planning to go vegan soon
So, don't worry about the small stuff.
I would say, don't intentionally buy honey, but if there's honey in something somebody gives you, or if you're really hungry and all you can find has honey in it, don't worry about it.
See this excellent article:
http://www.peta.org/living/food/making- ... ucts-food/
What matters is the 99.9%
And if you have a backyard apiary where you really know the honey is sustainably harvested and not replaced with sugar, sure, go for it if you really like that kind of thing. I know I wrote a lot, but it's not a really big deal.
Oh, and also: Welcome to the forum!
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- Diet: Vegetarian
Re: Honey?
Thanks brimstone salad for clearing up some of the issues around honey for me, and now I do think it is more unethical to eat honey than not to; I will try not to eat it in the future!