-Herbalist
Controversy of Honey
-
Herbalist
- Newbie
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Fri Jan 15, 2016 10:26 am
- Diet: Vegan
Controversy of Honey
Hey forum! I've been a vegetarian for about 3 years and recently turned vegan about 2-3months ago. It's actually a lot easier than I thought, I've never felt better. Now I don't consume honey but I've come across many vegans who do. I've heard both sides of the argument one states (i believe it does) that it destroys the bees system and their way of adapting to the environment after being in their artificial homes through bee keeping and the other argument on the opposite end of the spectrum is it provides a home and can help their population. I'm a bit confused by it all and was wondering if you guys can share some guidance. Thanks!
-Herbalist
-Herbalist
-
ThatNerdyScienceGirl
- Full Member
- Posts: 210
- Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:46 pm
- Diet: Vegetarian
Re: Controversy of Honey
You posted this in Atheism instead of in the vegan part of this forum, just an FYIHerbalist wrote:Hey forum! I've been a vegetarian for about 3 years and recently turned vegan about 2-3months ago. It's actually a lot easier than I thought, I've never felt better. Now I don't consume honey but I've come across many vegans who do. I've heard both sides of the argument one states (i believe it does) that it destroys the bees system and their way of adapting to the environment after being in their artificial homes through bee keeping and the other argument on the opposite end of the spectrum is it provides a home and can help their population. I'm a bit confused by it all and was wondering if you guys can share some guidance. Thanks!
-Herbalist
But as a vegan, I don't consume honey. There are plenty of honey alternatives so I don't have to, but I am not against the consumption of honey. I understand that it is a controversial topic. There can be benefits of beekeeping, there may be downfalls, the science does not yet show that either are a serious issue.
Although most of the arguments I have heard against beekeeping is fallacious, viewing ALL beekeeping conditions to be the exact same kind of horrendous, when that is not the case in a huge number of bee farms.
As a result, I just let others do the argumentation, I won't eat honey because it is unhealthy, but if a vegan thinks it's right to eat honey, I say go for it. He they don't, I say go for it.
Nerdy Girl talks about health and nutrition: http://thatnerdysciencegirl.com/
-
brimstoneSalad
- neither stone nor salad
- Posts: 10367
- Joined: Wed May 28, 2014 9:20 am
- Diet: Vegan
Re: Controversy of Honey
Welcome!
Bees are kept primarily as pollinators for our commercial crops, not for honey. This pollination is an essential duty, and will happen whether people eat honey or not. It is from pollination service that huge beekeepers make most of their money. Honey is just an additional revenue stream that, for bees, adds injury by taking their hard earned food and replacing it with inferior products like sugar and mass produced pollen -- resulting in likely nutritional deficiency, and contributing to the problem of Colony Collapse.
Because Honey harvesting is likely injurious to bees (although modern commercial breeding of bees has managed to stabilize the population through replacement despite the population crashes taking honey probably contributes to), and because honey has roughly the nutritional qualities of high fructose corn syrup (it may actually be more dangerous, because it often also contains harmful bacterial contamination), it is better not to eat it. It is a myth, and marketing hype, that have deceived people into believing honey is healthy (like cow milk).
That said, bees are not cows in terms of level of sentience, so harm to bees is not something we should be fighting over while cows, chickens, and pigs are made to suffer and are being killed in immense numbers.
The argument that honey cultivation helps bees is even more absurd than the argument that leather helps cows.Herbalist wrote:I've heard both sides of the argument one states (i believe it does) that it destroys the bees system and their way of adapting to the environment after being in their artificial homes through bee keeping and the other argument on the opposite end of the spectrum is it provides a home and can help their population.
Bees are kept primarily as pollinators for our commercial crops, not for honey. This pollination is an essential duty, and will happen whether people eat honey or not. It is from pollination service that huge beekeepers make most of their money. Honey is just an additional revenue stream that, for bees, adds injury by taking their hard earned food and replacing it with inferior products like sugar and mass produced pollen -- resulting in likely nutritional deficiency, and contributing to the problem of Colony Collapse.
Because Honey harvesting is likely injurious to bees (although modern commercial breeding of bees has managed to stabilize the population through replacement despite the population crashes taking honey probably contributes to), and because honey has roughly the nutritional qualities of high fructose corn syrup (it may actually be more dangerous, because it often also contains harmful bacterial contamination), it is better not to eat it. It is a myth, and marketing hype, that have deceived people into believing honey is healthy (like cow milk).
That said, bees are not cows in terms of level of sentience, so harm to bees is not something we should be fighting over while cows, chickens, and pigs are made to suffer and are being killed in immense numbers.