VEGANS VS HONEY

What is the Vegan argument against honey? 

For some vegans, this extends to honey, because it is produced from the labor of bees. Honey-avoiding vegans believe that exploiting the labor of bees and then harvesting their energy source is immoral — and they point out that large-scale beekeeping operations can harm or kill bees.

Asked to clarify how migratory beekeeping is different from honey, given that bees are mistreated in both cases, PETA senior media liaison Catie Cryar wrote in an email that, while it’s challenging to avoid fruits and vegetables that have been created through migratory beekeeping, “everyone can easily avoid honey, which is made by bees for bees, and instead enjoy delicious vegan options such as Agave Nectar.” Which by the way the Agave Plant is pollinated by bees and bats... Wow!! Veganism “shouldn’t be about adhering to rigid dogma for dogma’s sake but rather about making choices that bring about positive change. 

There’s never been a better time to be a half-assed vegetarian. Five years ago, the American Dialect Society honored the word flexitarian for its utility in describing a growing demographic—the “vegetarian who occasionally eats meat.” Now there’s evidence that going Flexi is good for the environment and your health. A study released last October found that a plant-based diet, augmented with a small amount of dairy and meat, maximizes land-use efficiency. In January, Michael Pollan distilled the entire field of nutritional science into three rules for a healthy diet: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” According to a poll released last week, Americans seem to be listening: Thirteen percent of U.S. adults are “semivegetarian,” meaning they eat meat for fewer than half of all their meals. In comparison, true vegetarians—those who never, ever consume animal flesh—compose just 1 percent.  Micheal Pollan

 Even the vegans who abstain from honey end up dining on the sweat and hemolymph of exploited bees. There isn’t really an alternative: We can’t replace our insects of burden with machines.

Maybe seek out wind-pollinated grains and fruits tended by wild insects. But what about the bugs that inevitably perish in the course of any large-scale agriculture? Even the organic farmers are culpable: They may not spray synthetic pesticides, but they do make use of natural chemicals and predators to kill off unwanted animals.

 According to Matthew Ball, the  executive director of Vegan Outreach,“If we present veganism as being about the exploitation of honeybees, it makes it easier to ignore the real, noncontroversial suffering” of everything else. Ball doesn’t eat honey himself, but he’d sooner recruit five vegans who remain ambivalent about insect rights than one zealot who follows every last Vegan Society rule. 

The photo below is a worker honeybee, and taken by Ken Thomas

A bee has all of these features and is an insect.  You can contrast this with say, a spider, which is not an insect but an arachnid, having 8 legs (4 pairs), no antennae, and 2 body parts (a head and thorax which are merged into one body part,  and abdomen).

The Honey Industry and Environment

For some, the environmental benefits of a plant-based lifestyle are a major factor when deciding to go vegan. And honey production isn’t always eco-friendly. In some cases, farmed honey bees are out-competing the Wild Honey Bees.  Our wild honey bee populations are now being compromised with African Bees which are very dangerous. 

The world of bees and beekeepers is unfamiliar to many of us. The bee population as well as many of our pollinators is on the decline. Bees are necessary for 85-90% of all food grown on our Earth!!!!!  (most all vegetables, fruit trees, Nuts, and so much more). So as a Vegan do you not eat vegetables, fruit, and or nuts?? Because of the decline in our bees, and other pollinators,  Beekeepers are helping farmers worldwide and transporting their bees to pollinate their fruits, vegetables, almond trees, and more. 

Whether you are a Vegan, Vegetarian or meat-based consumers

Your Food Wouldn’t Bee Here Without Them: What and When Bees Pollinate

 

Without bees, we would not have many of the vegetables and fruits we eat every day. Pollinators such as bees, birds, bats, beetles, and other small insects pollinate over 1,200 crops, $235 and $577 billion in global food production.

All fruit and vege's one eats on a daily basis are also made possible by honey bee pollination, including but not limited to watermelons, pumpkins, squashes, zucchinis, lentils, tomatoes, strawberries, mangos, avocados, plums, peaches, apricots, pomegranates, pears, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, peanuts, macadamia nuts, mustard seeds, coconuts, soybeans, and coffee.

How long would humans survive without bees?

Bees also provide food for some bird species, so if a cataclysmic event sent all our bees into a rapture, the aftershocks would ripple up the food chain.

If bees disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live. The line is usually attributed to Einstein, and it seems plausible enough. After all, Einstein knew a lot about science and nature, and bees help us produce food. 

      “BEE KIND AND PROTECT OUR POLLINATORS ALL OF THEM”  Tia

Unfortunately, that rapture may be coming. While incidences of colony collapse disorder—or entire hives being wiped out overnight. We are losing thousands of colonies per year.  ACShilton2017

Reference: Amateur Entomology Society…London, SW7 5Z 1997-2022 Amateur Entomologists' Society

Reference: Gia Mora, updated July 5, 2022

The cultivation of plants, especially agave, is dependent on bees and bats. Since bees play a particularly crucial role in agave pollination, revered tequila-makers PATRÓN have committed to developing flavorful tequila that is mindful of all aspects of the agave-producing process, including bee pollination. Aug 25, 2021 reference Patron...

 No life is better than another and all life was created with a purpose...

We cannot measure our goodness on what we don't do or what we resist.

We can only measure our goodness on what we embrace and what we create.

Follow your dreams they are your passion

Never lose your childhood enthusiasm it is what drives you

Live spherically in many directions it is what excites you

Be an Angel of Kindness and wondrous gifts will abound you.