Is Eating HONEY Ok?!?!

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bearbear287
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Is Eating HONEY Ok?!?!

Post by bearbear287 »

Hello I recently was talking with another vegan at school and they said they ate HONEY?!?!

So are they really a vegan?! In my books, no they are NOT truly a vegan by definition, here is the definition of veganism:
"Veganism is a 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."
https://www.vegansociety.com/try-vegan/ ... n-veganism

Some may argue what is actually vegan by the "type" of vegan they are. Now if you are a vegan that is excluding all animal products to reduce the suffering of animals, you will most definitely say that Honey is NOT vegan! The processes of collecting honey is often cruel, and involves the exploitation and harming of bees. Now if you are an environmentalist "type" of vegan you may argue that Honey is "preserving" bees and nature, in a sense "keeping the bees in existence". I can see how some may believe that keeping Honey bees is helping the environment, but is it worth all the suffering? I think that the production of bees is cruel and unnecessary, bees are not a machine to make our food, they are living, breathing beings that are far more important to the earth than we are, and they deserve to be praised. So please, reach for some vegan sugar! NOT they honey!
http://prime.peta.org/2009/01/but-what- ... uelty-free

Do you eat honey? What your opinions on the matter?
Last edited by bearbear287 on Tue Dec 01, 2015 12:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Red
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Re: Is Eating HONEY Ok?!?!

Post by Red »

Honey is by no means a vegan product, since it is derived from animals, and the animal in this case is a bee. So, it is not a vegan product, it is an animal product, and your friend is a vegetarianBut hey, it's not like honey is a hard thing to give up. I mean, I probably shouldn't be talking, considering I never ate honey (unless they were part of another food item), so don't take it from me. They aren't a vegan, they are a form of vegetarian. I'm pretty sure there's a name for those types of vegetarians (i.e. vegetarians that eat eggs are ovo-vegetarians.). Not implying a No-True Scotsman. Hell, I'm not even sure XDD. Then again, there is a lot of controversy regarding this issue. Some vegans say that honey is vegan, and of course there's the other side. Well I'm no professional. So I don't think honey is vegan, but I'm opening to opposing viewpoints. First ask ourselves this: does honey cause harm? Well why don't you tell me if you're so smart? If anything, honey being non-vegan makes MORE sense. Why don't you and honey have a baby that you have shared custody of after you and honey have a messy divorce if you love honey so much?
Learning never exhausts the mind.
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bearbear287
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Re: RedAppleGP

Post by bearbear287 »

I can share some quick information about the cruelty involving honey production right now.
In every Honey bee colony there is a queen bee, and it is necessary for Honey production. To get the queen bees often Honey farmers order the queen bees. Arriving in small packages, the queen bee is often then stripped of her wings, and then artificially inseminated, witch involves the killing of another bee to do so. The Honey farmers often have to get new queen bees often because the queen get too old to produce eggs anymore. The queens eggs are why the other bees make Honey production happen.
I don't think anyone can name themselves vegan after supporting such cruelty.
Thanks to RedAppleGP for the reply's, and taking time to read my posts!
MoralAkteur
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Re: Is Eating HONEY Ok?!?!

Post by MoralAkteur »

I absolutely agree with you,just want to clear something up, even though you might already know this:
there´re always drones dying in the mating process, even if it happens naturally. After mating the queen rips out part of their organs when flying away. This usually happens to more than 10 drones. And around fall the worker bees carry the remaining drones out and let them starve to death.

And about the environment... I read somewhere, that the cultivated bees play a very little role in polinating. And they are slowly but surely displacing the wild bees, which do most of the work... Do people know more about this than I do? I´d like to hear it
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ThatNerdyScienceGirl
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Re: Is Eating HONEY Ok?!?!

Post by ThatNerdyScienceGirl »

Call me insane if you please, but I find the idea that someone is not a vegan simply because they consume a little bit of honey to be a bit asinine. Your friend is vegan, just 99.9% vegan. Unless you want to call them a Honeterian.

Now do you all think that excluding someone because they are not pure enough a vegan is helping the vegan movement? I personally don't eat honey, or dairy anymore, or meat, fish, eggs, I don't wear leather or buy wool, but am I not a vegan if my car tires are not vegan? What if I consume sugar that might be processed using bone char? How about eating Cheerios that have a trace amount of D3 that might be derived from lanolin? Where do we draw the line?

And since Veganism is about ethics, more than it is about some crazy notion of simply excluding products because products exist, how do we deal with ethically-sourced honey? Such as honey procured from Vegan Beekeeper Will Curley? http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/01/ ... ll-curley/

Which brings me to another point: Roadkill. Is it ethically vegan to eat an animal that was run over by a car accidentally? Since that animal did not come from Factory Farming and did not unnecessarily suffer for the mere fact of becoming food? Even PETA claims that it is ethical to consume the remains of animals struck by cars as opposed to buying factory farmed meat from stores.

Not to mention that the jury is still out on whether or not insects such as Silkworms and Bees even feel pain, and whether there is a distinct difference between the harming of bees for honey, and swatting a Mosquito, or spraying a termites nest in your house.

But are we literally going to say "No honey because honey exists?" Is that like calling someone not a vegan because they wear a leather jacket bought from the local thrift store? Or a vegan that eats yogurt covered pretzels that they found in bulk when dumpster diving at their local grocery?

If you are vegan for Ethical reasons, then yes, honey can be vegan if sourced ethically.

If you are vegan for health reasons, then no, honey is not vegan

If you are a practical vegan, it might be more practical to not worry about whether a cheaper form of food, or donated food from a food bank, might have honey in it.

If you are vegan for environmental reasons, you can buy sustainable honey and as a result help the bee population grow and thrive.

But if you are a strict textbook vegan for little real reason besides "all animal products are bad because animal products exist" than nothing is vegan.

Where do you draw the line with honey? If you find the honey is vegan, than it is. If you find that honey is not vegan, than it isn't. Don't be exclusive because you can't handle someone not following a strict definition of a vague group.
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Cirion Spellbinder
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Re: Is Eating HONEY Ok?!?!

Post by Cirion Spellbinder »

ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:Call me insane if you please, but I find the idea that someone is not a vegan simply because they consume a little bit of honey to be a bit asinine. Your friend is vegan, just 99.9% vegan. Unless you want to call them a Honeterian.
It all really depends on whether veganism is binary thing or a spectrum. I'm not sure if there is any clear consensus on this, but it is important to keep in mind.
Now do you all think that excluding someone because they are not pure enough a vegan is helping the vegan movement?
No, I don't think it is.
am I not a vegan if my car tires are not vegan? What if I consume sugar that might be processed using bone char?
Is it possible and practical to avoid these products in favor of vegan alternatives? If not, I would still consider you a vegan.
How about eating Cheerios that have a trace amount of D3 that might be derived from lanolin?
Trace products are not counted because they are purely incidental. If you process A on the same equipment as B, B will inevitably have some of A on it.
Where do we draw the line?
Wherever possible and practical.
And since Veganism is about ethics, more than it is about some crazy notion of simply excluding products because products exist, how do we deal with ethically-sourced honey? Such as honey procured from Vegan Beekeeper Will Curley? http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/01/ ... ll-curley/
I would call that symbiosis. I am not opposed to symbiosis, but rather, exploitation. The problem is that unless you personally know the farmer or constantly supervise them, you can not know what they are doing with relative certainty. Just because something says it's ethically sourced, doesn't mean it is because what defines ethical is pretty flexible if you want it to be.
Is it ethically vegan to eat an animal that was run over by a car accidentally?
Yes. Of course. We call this freegan.
Not to mention that the jury is still out on whether or not insects such as Silkworms and Bees even feel pain, and whether there is a distinct difference between the harming of bees for honey, and swatting a Mosquito, or spraying a termites nest in your house.
I'm not sure about silkworms, mosquitoes, and termites, but bees are certainly sentient. I'd recommend you take a look at this page: http://www.vegetus.org/honey/honey.htm

The difference between harming bees and harming mosquitoes and termites is that the latter two are a threat to you and the former is not and a necessary component for the land ecosystem. Swatting a bee promotes Colony Collapse Disorder. Swatting a mosquito assures you that you won't be contracting West Nile Virus.
But are we literally going to say "No honey because honey exists?" Is that like calling someone not a vegan because they wear a leather jacket bought from the local thrift store? Or a vegan that eats yogurt covered pretzels that they found in bulk when dumpster diving at their local grocery?
If it's ethically sourced honey, and we can reliably know that, they are probably vegan. The latter two examples are also vegan.
If you are a practical vegan, it might be more practical to not worry about whether a cheaper form of food, or donated food from a food bank, might have honey in it.
Could you elaborate please. From what I am aware of, a vegan diet without honey is sustainable and cheaper for the working poor in the west.
But if you are a strict textbook vegan for little real reason besides "all animal products are bad because animal products exist" than nothing is vegan.
Technically no. Raw vegetables would still be vegan. ;)
Where do you draw the line with honey? If you find the honey is vegan, than it is. If you find that honey is not vegan, than it isn't. Don't be exclusive because you can't handle someone not following a strict definition of a vague group.
We draw the line at wherever it is possible and practical to do so. In the case of honey, I am quite certain that is always. Unless there are places where honey is the only available and practical food source! :lol:
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Is Eating HONEY Ok?!?!

Post by brimstoneSalad »

ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:Call me insane if you please, but I find the idea that someone is not a vegan simply because they consume a little bit of honey to be a bit asinine. Your friend is vegan, just 99.9% vegan. Unless you want to call them a Honeterian.
That is very sane, and well said.

Honey is best avoided, and not a vegan food product, but it's much worse for the vegan movement to be vegan police and call others non-vegan because they're doing a tiny bit of something harmful while avoiding 99.9% of harmful products.

So: Honey is not vegan. But it's also wrong to tell people they aren't vegan because they eat a little honey, since that makes us seem obsessive.


bearbear287,
You're probably right in principle -- that honey is not vegan -- but telling people that seems obsessive, so it may be a false economy.

I suggest you focus on how unhealthy honey is, and encourage your friend to choose artificial sweeteners instead (which are waaaay more environmentally friendly and healthier, and nicer to bees). :)

It's best to encourage this kind of advice:
http://www.peta.org/living/food/making- ... ucts-food/
I don't always agree with PETA, but that was well put.

ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:Not to mention that the jury is still out on whether or not insects such as Silkworms and Bees even feel pain, and whether there is a distinct difference between the harming of bees for honey, and swatting a Mosquito, or spraying a termites nest in your house.
I'm more concerned with CCD.
Colony Collapse Disorder is likely at least partially caused by over harvesting of honey.


On the issue of pain, though: That's a little more complicated. It's not wrong to harm animals because they feel pain, since not all animals do -- and not all humans feel pain either -- it's wrong to harm them because they don't want to be harmed.

Our forum member AsmodesReynolds does not feel pain. We had a discussion on the subject here:

https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... =10#p12720

Pain is only the unpleasant sensation of real or potential tissue damage. Pain is not everything that is unpleasant (a common misconception).
You can be miserable, yet be completely free of pain. Indeed, some of the most horrifically unpleasant experiences in life aren't technically pain.
The International Association for the Study of Pain's widely used definition states: "Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage."[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain

Waterboarding is not technically torture, because torture is inflicting PAIN to extract information or compel action, and PAIN is the unpleasant experience of tissue damage, and while waterboarding is one of the most unpleasant experiences in the world, it's not inherently damaging.

This was a legitimate argument used by the government in support of waterboarding, and technically correct (it went over the media's heads). The problem is that it's deceptive because people misunderstand what pain technically means, and the notion of torture in practical use goes much beyond that to describe any intensely unpleasant coercion (even if that might not be what the dictionary says).

So please remember: Just because an animal can't experience technical "pain", doesn't mean that animal can't have excruciatingly unpleasant experiences that aren't "pain". Fish suffocating on land are not having a good time, even if they don't experience tissue pain, they're probably experiencing a qualia similar to human waterboarding which any victim of would gladly trade for some pain instead. It is perhaps remotely possible that bees being blown with CO2 even experience something similar as they're dropping. We don't know, and only knowing how insects respond to tissue damage won't tell us.

It's a subject that needs more research, but the question of "pain" isn't as important in ethics as many make it out to be. Sentience is much more important: We respect an animal's wish not to be harmed because he doesn't want to be harmed, not because the harm creates a particular sensation. We respect his wish not to be closed in a confined space because he doesn't like that. We respect his wish not to die because he doesn't want to die; he wants to keep living. It's all about what others want, and respecting that.
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Re: Is Eating HONEY Ok?!?!

Post by ThatNerdyScienceGirl »

Cirion Spellbinder wrote:
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:If you are a practical vegan, it might be more practical to not worry about whether a cheaper form of food, or donated food from a food bank, might have honey in it.
Could you elaborate please. From what I am aware of, a vegan diet without honey is sustainable and cheaper for the working poor in the west.
Yes, in the long run it definitly is. But I am referring to people who get their food from donations, who can't afford to be so picky. But also talking about instances where I personally had to buy slightly more expensive items because they were the only ones available that did not include honey.

Sorry for the rant, btw, I just get annoyed whenever I feel as if others are being excluded from a group for very trivial reasons. :?
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Cirion Spellbinder
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Re: Is Eating HONEY Ok?!?!

Post by Cirion Spellbinder »

ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote: Yes, in the long run it definitly is. But I am referring to people who get their food from donations, who can't afford to be so picky. But also talking about instances where I personally had to buy slightly more expensive items because they were the only ones available that did not include honey.
Oh ok. They'd still be vegan if they were making a conscious effort to avoid animal products wherever possible and practical.
Sorry for the rant, btw, I just get annoyed whenever I feel as if others are being excluded from a group for very trivial reasons. :?
No, no. 'Twas a good rant. :)
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Re: Is Eating HONEY Ok?!?!

Post by brimstoneSalad »

ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote: Yes, in the long run it definitly is. But I am referring to people who get their food from donations, who can't afford to be so picky. But also talking about instances where I personally had to buy slightly more expensive items because they were the only ones available that did not include honey.
Right. It would never be healthy or useful to just outright eat honey. It's empty calories, just like corn syrup.

BUT some products have honey in them already, particularly many whole wheat breads and otherwise more healthy breakfast cereals.
It can be reasonable to eat those sometimes, due to them being free or lower cost or more available than less common alternatives.

Sometimes the products with honey in them are the healthiest available (whole grains, less added fat, less total sugar; honey included).
The honey doesn't make them healthy, but was added to an otherwise healthy product due to its health halo, and wasn't added in large enough quantities to make the whole product unhealthy.
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