• Angel Mountain@feddit.nl
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    3 days ago

    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?”.

  • bstix@feddit.dk
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    2 days ago

    Honey is a by-product of bees, the same way that all human made food is a by-products of humans.

      • Tikiporch@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Ever since a chicken killed my pet hamster, my name has been vengeance and Popeyes has been my hunting grounds.

      • ZeroTwo@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Man, I have religious people in my family that say “you can’t eat meat on Fridays” during lent. But then fish is 100% okay to them. Makes no sense to me.

        • XTL@sopuli.xyz
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          1 day ago

          That rule might not come from English language and what was translated to “meat” doesn’t necessarily mean all animal flesh. Even English has words like “beef” and “pork” and “poultry”, “red meat” etc.

          If you want to gotcha lawyer culture or religion, you’ll need the actual sources. I’d suggest avoiding that, since it will just make you behave like an asshole.

        • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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          3 days ago

          Why do you have contact with such …things? How could you take a human being somehow serious if it says things like that, especially due to being brainwashed in a fucking sect?! We don’t seem to have a collective tolerance to nazis or pedos, why do we have it for religious nutjubs?

          • RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 days ago

            A lot of religious people aren’t inherently dangerous, whereas an active nazi or pedo is likely going to end up hurting someone.

            Not that I overly disagree, fuck religion.

            • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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              3 days ago

              Sure, not every nutjob is a danger in itself. But it’s still a cog in the machinery of a retrograde force. A +1 that helps normalizing what should be shunned. But yes, fuck religion. If people wanna believe stuff, great. The universe is a mystery. But the moment they gather and start having to believe what the cult-douche says, shit gets dangerous.

  • Lux@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 days ago

    Reasons that I, as a vegan, do not use honey:

    1. I cannot guarantee that the bees consented to their product being harvested. Some beekeepers clip the queen’s wings, which can prevent the colony from leaving.

    2. I cannot guarantee that bees were not harmed in the process of harvesting (potentially getting crushed by the honeycomb frames, for example) or in the process of controlling the colony (like clipping the queen’s wings).

    • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 days ago

      Bees can kill their queen and make a new one no problem.

      If the colony would want to move away they would just do that. I don’t think clipping the queen wings would do nothing.

      But I doubt any beekeeper colony would want to move as they are keep at a perfect environment so they can produce more honey that they would actually need to survive. Even industrial ones. It’s part of basic beekeeping that bees must be in a good place so they produce the most honey.

      Hurt of mistreated bees would not produce honey. If they are mistreated the try to leave (and as stated they can just kill their Queen if she is crippled), they eat all the honey, or just die.

      Bees are really complicate to get advantage of. Our relationship with them need to be symbiotic to work.

      Not trying to convince anyone to consume honey if they don’t want to. As it’s basically just sugar so whatever.

      • Lux@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 days ago

        Bees can kill their queen and make a new one no problem.

        This doesn’t make the mutilation of the queen bee any less bad. It’s still harming the bee. I am not aware if a bee has the ability to make an informed decision on whether to kill the queen and relocate, so I cannot make an informed decision about whether the bees actually want to be in their current hive.

        If the colony would want to move away they would just do that.

        I don’t know if this is true. It’s possible the bees are being manipulated into staying at their current hive in some way.

        I don’t think clipping the queen wings would do nothing

        It would hurt the queen, which is more than I want to be involved in.

        But I doubt any beekeeper colony would want to move as they are keep at a perfect environment so they can produce more honey that they would actually need to survive. Even industrial ones. It’s part of basic beekeeping that bees must be in a good place so they produce the most honey

        Making an assumption about what the bees want is not strong enough of an excuse for me to be ok with their exploitation. I don’t believe we should have the right to make decisions for other organisms, and the bees are not able to tell us how they want to be treated, so we should not try to control them or take what they produce.

        Hurt of mistreated bees would not produce honey.

        This appears to also be an assumption. I do not know if it is true, so I cannot use it to make a decision

        If they are mistreated the try to leave (and as stated they can just kill their Queen if she is crippled), they eat all the honey, or just die.

        If this is true, there is likely to be a minimum amount of mistreatment before they take action. I do not know how much mistreatment a bee can take, so I cannot use this to make a decision.

        Bees are really complicate to get advantage of. Our relationship with them need to be symbiotic to work.

        I do not know if this is true. We take advantage of many animals without giving them much in return, so I am not sure if the bee-beeker relationship is actually symbiotic.

        • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 days ago

          Now I’m just curious.

          How do you manage the amount of animals that are hurt during agricultural process then?

          Tons of invertebrates are killed by pesticides, while harvest or during the cleaning process of the vegetables.

          It seems to me that being killed by pesticides or drown with water is worse fate that beeing in a nice artificial honeycomb where they may or may not clip the wings of one queen or make you a little sleepy once in a while with smoke.

          On matter of animals hurted/killed during production process honey seems more vegan that most vegetables.

          • Lux@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 days ago

            This comment section has led me to more deeply consider the effects that all types of food production have on animals. I previously have just been ok with any non-animal product, but I now realize that this is not enough, and I am still causing harm to animals with the products that I do use. I will try to ensure that I buy the lowest-impact food available in the future, but I don’t think it is even be possible to stay alive without causing harm to some animals.

            I think using products produced by animals is generally going to be worse than harming animals to stop them from destroying crops, but I will need to consider this more deeply to make the best choice I can.

    • too_high_for_this@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Do you personally grow everything you eat? If not, animals (and humans) are absolutely harmed in the process. Commercial agriculture, even organic, kills huge numbers of small animals and destroys habitat just to prepare the soil, not to mention all the insects killed by pesticides. Farmers will also kill deer, wild pigs, birds, etc. to protect their crops. And agriculture in some places still relies on child and/or slave labor.

      • Lux@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 days ago

        You are correct. There is more that i can and need to do. That still does not make it good to use honey.

        • Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 days ago

          Hey no wait you’re supposed to throw your hands in the air and just eat industrially farmed animal corpses because there are also negative outcomes of vegetable production so obviously the two are completely equivalent

          • too_high_for_this@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Nice strawman, strawberry. The point is that avoiding honey to reduce possible harm is vain at best.

            But since you want to talk about meat, I’m curious about your opinion of hunting.

            Do you know how animals die in the wild? The lucky ones get hit by a car and die instantly. The rest die from disease and starvation, both agonizing slow deaths, or they are literally eaten alive by predators.

            If the aim of veganism is to reduce animal suffering, surely you would support ethical hunting, right?

        • Szyler@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Do you avoid all sugar products, or just honey?

          Sugar growing also kills animals. You cannot avoid all harm, so why discount honey for the harm you know, but not discounting harm from growing sugar?

          Reducing harm, sure, but it seems selective to discount honey for small amount of harm, when other things you (assumed) eat do equal (potentially unknown to you) harm.

          Do you need to know every process of growing/transporting something to eat it? Or does you list of edible products shrink as you learn every new form of harm?

          • Lux@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 days ago

            The list of edible products shrink as I learn of new harm. As a modern human, I am addicted to sugar, but I do need to make more of an effort to use less of it, as well as lessen the impact of what I do use.

    • Akareth@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Regarding your second point, you also cannot guarantee that small animals like rodents are not harmed in the process of harvesting plants.

      • Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org
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        3 days ago

        But renouncing honey is very easy, while not eating plants would mean starving to death. Since veganism is about reducing harm as far as possible, unavoidable suffering doesn’t make anything non vegan.

        • Szyler@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          (Strawman)

          Killing a few bees when collecting honey

          Vs

          Killing a lot of insects and rodents when plowing/tilling land to grow sugarcane/corn(sirup).

          Why discount one but not the other if they are equal?

          • Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org
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            2 days ago

            I assume that for many vegans the specifically exploitative element of farming honey does make a difference to the rather unavoidable collateral damage of agriculture in general (since if we don’t want to starve to death; each and everyone of us, vegan or not, will have to accept that those are happening) - but if you assume that honey comes with less suffering than corn syrup you’re very welcome to replace them accordingly. Based on your tone I assume you’re not a vegan and not actually interested in reducing animal suffering, but I could be wrong.

            • Szyler@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              I am not vegan, but simply trying to understand how honey is bad, but as you say “unavoidable collateral damage of agriculture” or not.

              There are many ways agriculture could be less harm, less pesticides, less monotone growing practices, more spread out growing. We do not have to accept these practices to not starve.

              I don’t think honey collecting is worse than agriculture (even of direct plants for human consumption), so I don’t think vegans should discount honey.

              • Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org
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                2 days ago

                I am not vegan, but simply trying to understand how honey is bad, but as you say “unavoidable collateral damage of agriculture” or not.

                Is bad as well, we simply have no good way of avoiding it.

                Think about it this way: Beekeeping is bad, agriculture is bad. Can we avoid both? No. But can we avoid at least one of them? Easily so. So let’s do that - half a win is better than nothing.

                There are many ways agriculture could be less harm, less pesticides, less monotone growing practices, more spread out growing. We do not have to accept these practices to not starve.

                I agree, which is why many (if not all) vegans strive to support those more sustainable forms of agriculture. But economic constraints are a real thing for many people. Not everyone can always decide to buy the higher quality produce. If we can - good, let’s do that. While and if we can’t, same thing with the honey: Can we avoid all the problems at once? No, but at least we can do as best as reasonable possible, so let’s do that. That’s veganism for many people.

                I don’t think honey collecting is worse than agriculture (even of direct plants for human consumption), so I don’t think vegans should discount honey.

                Even if it’s just 1% worse than agriculture wouldn’t we reduce a bit of suffering by replacing it? And I mean it’s not even like we need honey for anything. We consume too much sugar anyway. Even if honey is exactly as harmful as sugar cane farming (which is debatable), by omitting it we would save not only agricultural resources but animal exploitation as well. Not consuming it is better than consuming it in terms of animal suffering. Since we don’t need to consume it, from a vegan perspective I think it’s understandable why that’s seen as preferable.

                • Szyler@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  I agree with your arguments. We’re on the same side of all of this.

                  I disagree on having to remove one if both are bad. It would be like the trolley problem. 10 people suffer repeatedly indefinitely vs infinitely many suffering eventually. Moving all use to sugar cane will be worse for the environment than spreading some honey and some sugar cane. See my previous monocultulturalism point.

                  Personally I think honey vs sugar cane is equal, so for me the choice is bad either way. I don’t know which is worse, I try to use less, but what I use I feel is ambivalent, so I use both.

  • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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    3 days ago

    Kinda tongue-in-cheek questions, but: Honey isn’t an animal body part, it isn’t produced by animal bodies, so if it is an animal product because bees process it, is wheat flour (for example) an animal product because humans process it? How about hand-kneaded bread? Does that make fruit an animal product because the bees pollinated the flowers while collecting the nectar?

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      it isn’t produced by animal bodies

      Sure is, it’s concentrated bee spit with sugar. And spit is made of water and body cells.

    • OrnateLuna@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 days ago

      Well basically yes, tho would need to get into the topic of exploitation and all that if we are talking about if something is viewed as acceptable to consume.

      • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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        3 days ago

        Beekeeping is exploitation, but don’t the bees benefit from it too vs. being in the wild?

        • CountVon@sh.itjust.works
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          3 days ago

          Is it exploitation? I’d argue slave or prison labor is exploitation because the workers have no freedom of choice. Bees are free to leave, and the queen will in fact do so if not content with the conditions in the hive. If the queen leaves, all of the bees will swarm with her and you’d be left with an empty box.

          Beekeeping strikes me more as symbiosis. The beekeeper provides ideal conditions, far better than the average location that would be found in the wild, and can help protect the hive against threats like mites. In exchange the beekeeper receives a share of the honey produced by the hive.

          No beekeeper takes all of the honey from the hive. Only the top box (the “honey super”) of a typical hive stack is harvested. A grate below the top box (a “queen excluder”) prevents the queen from entering it so no larva are laid in the top box. The workers bee are smaller and can pass through the grate to build out comb and produce honey. The comb and honey in the bottom boxes are left to the hive to feed its workers and produce the next generation of bees, ensuring the survival of the hive.

          A queen excluder cannot be used to prevent swarming long-term as the drones that gather the pollen also won’t for through the grate! An excluder might be used to delay swarming and buy time so the beekeeper can offer another solution, like adding more boxes to the hive or splitting it into two hives. Better beekeepers proactively manage their hives, e.g. by setting up an empty hive in advance to essentially offer a swarming hive a new ideal home whenever they’re ready for it.

          • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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            3 days ago

            it’s also important to differentiate between someone with a backyard hive, vs industrial scale beekeeping where they might do all kinds of terrible shit because $$$$$$$$$$$$

            we live in an age where if you’re willing to spend some dosh on a fancy hive, you don’t even have to open it to drain honey, you can just turn a lever and it uncaps the back of the cells and the honey flows out through a pipe.

        • Kalkaline @leminal.space
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          3 days ago

          What’s fair compensation to the honey bee? Humans aren’t allowed to speak on behalf of the honey bees. We don’t actually know if this is a fair trade on the side of the honey bee, we can only look at it from our very biased opinion.

    • Droggelbecher@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Bees make honey for their hive. Honey also does indeed contain bodily fluids from the bees.

      The bread making human consents to you taking the bread (presumably). Breast milk and other human bodily fluids can be vegan for the same reason.

      And insects pollinate plants not because they use the fruit, but for the nectar. They don’t care what happens after they leave the flower.

        • Droggelbecher@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          I didn’t want to go into it in the original comment, but yes. It is a relevant debate whether it’s vegan to swallow another humans semen, or even saliva. And yes, it is, if the human consents. Consent is the more or less the basis of whether vegans find it moral to consume something. Humans can give consent to sharing their fluids. Other animals cannot.

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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      3 days ago

      I’ve always found it interesting that using animals is a bad thing, but using plants in similar ways is fine. I guess there has to be a line somewhere, otherwise such a person would simply starve to death.

      • Rozaŭtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 days ago

        Animals aren’t just used, they are tortured on a industrial scale. That’s mainly why vegans oppose animal products.

          • millie@beehaw.org
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            3 days ago

            They’re certainly exposed to a very different living situation than would be typical for them in most cases, to their detriment. For example, bees that make their combs in frames lose substantial heat from their hives, which usually helps protect against disease and even predation. They’re also often given a sugar water substitute to eat when their honey is drained off for human consumption, which is nowhere near as nutritious. They’re also moved around on the bee keeper’s schedule, which may be a substantial stressor compared with a hive that stays in one place. Never mind that they may be exposed to climates that substantially differ from where that particular variety of honey be evolved.

            Given issues like colony collapse disorder, it’s pretty clear that many forms of bee keeping aren’t really great for bees. Does that constitute torture? That’s hard to tell, but it certainly does put pressures on them in multiple aspects of their lives and the lives of their hives as a whole that they wouldn’t be dealing with otherwise, and which probably aren’t pleasant.

            Would you consider it torture, or at least cruel, to forcibly relocate the population of a city to an area that’s freezing cold, force them to live in poorly insulated homes, make them eat food that isn’t healthy for them, and steal the product of their labor in exchange for their efforts?

            • LyD@lemmy.ca
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              3 days ago

              This is suggesting that we should be using hive covers. What exactly changed in the mid 20th century?

              • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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                3 days ago

                We stopped using hive covers because they’re more expensive than the increased mortality. They naturally nest in tree hollows in winter, whose thicker walls (and living material) allow the hive to maintain a higher internal temperature than uncovered hives (or covered hives).

          • flora_explora@beehaw.org
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            3 days ago

            Well bees are definitely objectified and seen as industrialized honey producing machines. They’re starved of their own resources and are given mostly sugar water in return. Bee keepers are not concerned with their well-being other than for production yields. It is a form of factory farming. Isn’t this reason enough?

      • Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org
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        3 days ago

        One good argument for this: A vegan diet not only minimizes animal deaths but plant deaths as well, since livestock obviously has to be fed on many, many individual plants before they can get slaughtered. So even if we for some reason prioritized saving the lives of plants going vegan would still be the way to go.

        • within_epsilon@beehaw.org
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          2 days ago

          I respect this argument. I would like to know how Humans fit into the ecosystem.

          Humans tend to remove predators from population centers to prevent Humans from becoming prey. The culling of predators allow more prey animals to survive. Humans find themselves competing with prey animals for fruits and vegetables. Humans hunt prey animals to increase yields of fruits and vegetables.

          How do we reconcile that our population centers are built on the culling of predator and prey species?

          How do Humans balance protection and food production with the morality of minimizing animal and plant death?

          What should Humans do with the bodies of culled predators and prey?

          • Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org
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            2 days ago

            I think if you ask 10 people this questions you will get 11 opinions, at least.

            I personally would prefer the reintroduction of predators into their native habitats because the human tendency to squeeze economic profit out of every square centimeter of the planet we inhabit reads absolutely bizarre to me. This kind of instrumental world view where everything has to have a purpose for us is in my opinion an epoch in the development of humans we should strive to leave behind, because although for a time it shaped our progression as a species like nothing else, it’s also about to destroy the world we live in and come crushing down on us if we find no better way forward. I believe that in the long term we will have to withdraw from at least some parts of the ecosystem and let the predators do their thing. Our population centers can be (and for a good part already are) so sealed off to them that it should very well be possible to do our thing without being mauled by wolves.

            …All this does go a bit beyond the question of honey though. Sorry for the rant there.

      • flora_explora@beehaw.org
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        3 days ago

        It is really tricky to genuinely discuss this topic. Many omnivores use this as a straw man argument to discredit vegans for not being fully consequential. On top of that, reasons for being vegan and where people draw the line also vary hugely.

        Anyways, I would argue that eating plants and also fungi is very different to eating animal products. First of all, if you are vegan for ethical reasons (as I am) then usually the argument is that one can infer from one’s own feelings onto other animals. Sure, this isn’t always that easy and we will never know how other animals really feel. This includes fellow humans btw. But it is certainly very definitive that many animals feel pain, discomfort and many other emotions not unlike we feel them.

        Plants and fungi on the other hand have completely different body plans. Plants are modular organisms and you simply cannot relate cutting your arm off with cutting a branch. We may deepen our understanding on plants and maybe we will find some form of conscience one day. But this is still far off and for now we can only speculate. Fungi are very different as well and we usually just eat their fruiting bodies anyways.

        Secondly, as someone else pointed out, for ecological reasons and for the sheer quantity that is necessary to sustain humans, going vegan is always the better choice. Animals live on plants, too, and just use a lot of the plants’ energy on their own metabolism.

      • v_krishna@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        There are varieties of Jainism that won’t pluck fruits (will only eat what has naturally fallen) and many mainstream varieties of Jainism that won’t eat any root vegetables (because digging them up would harm insects), or seeded vegetables (eating it harms the plants ability to reproduce).

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      3 days ago

      Think about it as if its about consent. The bees don’t consent to their honey being taken. Cows don’t consent to be repeatedly impregnated and milked. Pigs don’t consent to their butts becoming bacon. Chickens don’t consent to their eggs being taken.

      However, the miller and the baker both consented to milling/kneading, and later selling their wares.

      Human breast milk can be vegan, though, if given freely. If you forcefully take human breast milk, then it is no longer vegan.

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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          2 days ago

          Technically, yes.

          Assuming the canabee is consenting freely, and likely has to be done in a way not violating other laws. Like some variety of a pain kink where people slice of small portions of each others meaty bits and eat them. That’s probably a thing, though likely not very popular among vegans.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Honey can be vegan. I have a friend who keeps endangered bees and as an unintended side effect of fostering their growth has honey that she has to give away because she doesn’t want it

    • Lux@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 days ago

      Genuine question, I would like to know if there is a reason. Why doesn’t she just let the bees keep it?

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        I believe it’s to encourage them to increase numbers, but I haven’t discussed that with her. She’s the type of nerd I know probably has a good reason so I never asked

      • TassieTosser@aussie.zone
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        The bees make more than they need. They’ll keep filling up cells till there’s no room for larvae then swarm. That takes a while but in a meantime, the honey sitting there attracts pests and predators that can harm the colony.

        • davidwkeith@lemmy.world
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          And this is where I have problems with strict veganism. Animal husbandry can be ethical and beneficial to the species. Animals do produce excess nutrients that can be reused for other animals (culling chickens to feed carnivores for example) and some byproducts can benefit humans in a non exploitative manner.

          The real issue is capitalism. Or the exploitation of others for personal benefits.

    • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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      Playing devil’s advocate, this could be sidestepping the issue, because the honey is only an unintended side effect from your friend’s POV, not the bee’s.

    • gjoel@programming.dev
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      3 days ago

      So, if they were endangered cows and your friend didn’t like milk, the milk would be vegan…?

      • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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        Well veganism is about reducing suffering. If the cows didnt suffer to produce that milk, like no forced insemination, calfs aren’t separated from their mother, male calfs aren’t slaughtered, the cows don’t have unnaturally large udders, you only take the over production and not steal the food from the calf and the cows live a good life then you could argue that the milk is vegan. But milk is not produced like that so milk is not vegan.

      • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        “It’s complicated”.

        It’s the same category of dispute as the “eggs or milk can be vegan under certain circumstances” one. The argument is that rescued farm animals have been so warped by human intervention that it’s actively harmful for you to not use their produce - dairy cows can in rare cases die, and otherwise will just be miserable, if left unmilked. Chickens lay too many eggs, and leaving unf. chicken eggs in the coop can lead to the chickens learning to eat their own eggs, so you have to remove them. (I don’t hold a position on these claims, I’m just reporting what I see come up in the argument.) Bees fall into the same sort of category, they’ve been so selectively bred that they now produce far more honey than they can possibly use, so removing and eating some of it helps to mitigate the negative impact that humans have had on the creatures.

        Regardless though: cows, chickens and bees are all still animals. I don’t think any vegans are gonna argue that one.

        • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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          Seems like a weird thing though. A lot of domesticated animals can’t survive in the wild. And even the ones that can, it would only be in certain parts of the world, and they’d be an invasive species.

          So do we want all of those animals to go extinct? If you eliminate all farm related activities with these animals, give them a place to live out the rest of their lives, but then what? But do you not allow them to breed? Or just let them all die off so they go extinct?

          Or do you keep some of them in zoos? Given they’ve been bred to live on a farm, does that mean you have zoos that are identical to farms? And if you can get milk, eggs and honey from these animals if they’re technically living in zoo (which is exactly like a farm in every way) what’s been accomplished?

          • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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            This is a very common argument and it’s a little shortsighted, because the answer is broadly “yes”. Reducing the number of cows/chickens/etc in the world is a net positive, and would only require us to stop force breeding them like it’s some kind of degenerate poultry hentai. Allowing the species to reduce in population is only of benefit to the species (cough humans cough) and is overall desirable. Keeping some in zoos would be fine, maintaining the native wild populations is also a good plan, small scale farms (“family” or “hobby”) farms where they don’t brutalize the animals is also a feature of most vegan utopias. Take india, where most of the population is vegan: there are still cows on farms, cow-derived produce is still available, it’s just the cows aren’t kept in American-style stock farms.

            YMMV, and like any ideology there are other opinions with equally valid outlooks, this is just what I see most often. (full disclosure, I am not a vegan (there’s plenty of evidence to that in my post history), I just sleep with a lot of vegans and quite like chana masala)

            (There’s also a pretty… sane… subgroup that proposes ‘corrective breeding’; a process wherein we undo the destructive changes humans introduced to the species and return them to what would be found in their ‘natural’ state. “Contentious” is probably the best description.)

            • phx@lemmy.ca
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              Degenerate poultry hentai

              Excuse me sir/madam, but I’d request that you respect the preferred literary sub-genre of some without resorting to terms such as “degenerate”. Poultry Hentai may not be overly popular and only have a niche following, but it truly is an art form in and of itself. Whether it’s “2 hens, 1 cob” or the better-known “Lady Chookerlee’s Lover” it truly does represent a formidable contribution to the art.

            • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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              There’s also a pretty… sane… subgroup that proposes ‘corrective breeding’; a process wherein we undo the destructive changes humans introduced to the species and return them to what would be found in their ‘natural’ state

              Yeah I feel like that is just forcing animals to live in the way humans want them to live under a weird assumption that we know what they want.

              I could live out in the wild if I really wanted to, but I don’t because living in a heated home, having access to healthcare, and having a grocery store nearby is way better than starving to death, getting frostbite, dying of a disease, or getting eaten by wolves. I don’t know how an animal wants to live their lives, so who knows, maybe they’d rather die of disease over being poked by a few needles by a veterinarian, starving because there’s no mangers filled by humans, or getting eaten alive by a pack of wolves. Maybe animals want that, but there’s no way of knowing and it’s a really weird thing to assume given humans don’t want to live that way. We live happy an fulfilling lives without having to constantly worry about being eaten by wolves, why would that be a requirement for an animal to be happy?

              I think people see nature from a Disney cartoon perspective where the only danger is a human hunter. But the reality is nature is extremely brutal.

              I don’t think a perfect ethical solution to domesticated animals really exists. Best we can do is just treat animals better. If they seem like they’re happy enough, then that’s probably alright.

            • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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              Indian economics and laws regarding dairy produce their own sort of hell. If the unwanted non producing animals aren’t smuggled across the border for slaughter, they’re abandoned and left to starve due to laws about culling. Nobody’s really feeding unproductive animals except for the goshalas and there’s nowhere near enough of those for India’s dairy cattle production.

              • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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                Yeahhhh… I was drunk and I probably could have thought that example through better. My apologies.

            • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              Most indian population is definitely not vegan. there have been various surveys that show the percentage of the vegetarian population is between 23% and 37%. That means 63% to 77% are non-vegetarian. It’s a myth, a big one, that India is mainly a vegetarian country.

              Not even the majority of Indians are vegetarians, much less vegans.

              • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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                Very poor word choice on my part, I will freely admit that. The veg population of inda in is roughly larger than the entire US population, which is the much more useful statistic. I’m also aware that the vast majority of people who eat a vegan diet do so for economic reasons. Sorry about that.

              • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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                Many Indians I’ve worked with are sort of semi-vegetarian, eating meat but only on certain days. I think that’s specific religious doctrine rather than a general attitude about animals - like Catholics eating fish on Friday.

          • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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            The response I’ve heard for that one is that domesticated animals are dependent on us because we’ve bred their survival capabilities out of them. People originally just captured wild animals and put a fence around them. Selectively breeding only the more docile ones has turned them into something they wouldn’t have been without our interference. To me that part makes sense, but the present reality is still what it is, and what you’re saying is still true.

  • mhague@lemmy.world
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    How is there 4 posts but one reply? Who said something first, the “bees, not animals” thing?

  • rekabis@lemmy.ca
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    Any that’s the hypocrisy of Vegans. Milk and honey are the only two animal-based food sources that don’t involve the killing of animals. And in the case of most cow breeds, milking is actually needed as they have been bred to produce far more milk than their calves drink. And with careful management of the hive, you can harvest a lot of honey from a mature hive without negatively affecting the hive itself - it just delays/defers new queen production and swarming, which is desirable anyhow - no beekeeper who has hives primarily for crop pollination wants to have hives swarming each and every year.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    The whole “Vegans against Honey” thing is so stupid… like… brah, Bees are the one critter that has already unionized.

    Not like there’s much sense to begin with in a diet where you need a thousand supplements in order to not go insane from a Vitamin B-12 Deficiency and start blaming Carnist Voodoo for your Anemia… Ya know instead of going “Oh wait, I was getting my iron from chicken…”

    Edit: On that note, I actually do need to take Iron for a defiency, this post reminded me… Not a vegan though.