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Comment on Honey

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?”.

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Toofpic@feddit.dk ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
But it will ruin the achievement badge I want to show in my profile!

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AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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- Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.
  
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  - AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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.
    
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    Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.
    
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    daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Not with bees not.
    
    Eating plant based sugar will kill and harm more animals that bee produced sugar.
    
    Or you think that agricultural process does not kill bugs?
    
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    commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    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.
    
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- Comment105@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Honey, the food of the gods by ancient opinion, is suddenly weird?
  
  I will never like vegans.
  
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  - Sunshine@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Someone is acting hateful.
    
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    Comment105@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Someone?
    
    Half the country, honey.
    
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  - AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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.
    
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    Comment105@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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.
    
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    Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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.
    
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- Dutczar@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.
  
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  - starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Unfortunately, honey bees aren’t the bees we need to bee helping
    
    pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36457280/
    
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starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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

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- AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.
  
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- homicidalrobot@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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).
  
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  - lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I think the point was that some numbskulls try to pull a “checkmate vegans” claiming that. You probably know the type, obnoxiously trying to butt in on vegan discussions and go “but if you’re fine with breastfeeding, you’re not really vegan”, misunderstanding (or misconstruing) the motivations in the same vein as mentioned before.
    
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    homicidalrobot@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It just struck me as weird. Really strange thing to add in an edit considering the rest of the post, just extremely confusing in context.
    
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  - starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah, I’ve never seen a vegan say that either. Didn’t say I did. It’s always carnists trying to catch vegans on some imagined technicality to show how hypocritical they are. I put the word “debate” in quotation marks because there isn’t one—it’s not a debate if one side is founded entirely on if orance of the other’s position
    
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xx3rawr@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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Rekorse@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.

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- JayObey711@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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.
  
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  - Rekorse@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    That would make them an environmentalist then.
    
    Veganism is about reducing the harm our actions cause. You can’t pick and choose pieces of it you like and say you are a vegan.
    
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    nBodyProblem@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    The point is that you shouldn’t base your decisions on whether or not you can say you are “vegan”. You should base your decisions on your own sense of ethics.
    
    Whether or not beekeeping harms bees is a matter of debate. If a person believes honey is ethical, that’s their decision. Who gives a fuck if it meet someone else’s standard for a particular label?
    
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- angelmountain@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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?
  
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shasta@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
This question is still valid from a marketing standpoint. If you’re selling honey, are you able to advertise it as vegan?

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- angelmountain@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  True. Though marketing is a cancer in itself. But I guess that’s a different discussion 😬
  
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