I was just pointing out that if a vegan were to keep bees they might have an ethical reason to take some honey. (It prevents swarming of weak colonies.)

 

Meh.

 

Let me quote Watson's first Vegan newsletter:

 

 

Are you sure you want to follow the original definition of "vegan", Capstan? If so, I suggest you read up on the "vibrational properties of food" post haste.

 

The debate that led to the 1977 revision of the definition of veganism was very much influenced by Peter Singer's recent publication of "Animal Liberation":

 

 

Like it or not some vegans emphasize the exclusion of exploitation and cruelty over vegetarian food rules. For me the only important question is: how can I exclude exploitation or cruelty? And like Matt Ball, if someone convinces me that eating a cheeseburger will reduce exploitation, I'll eat the cheeseburger.

 

1. I was never much of a honey eater.

2. I prefer sugar and maple syrup.

 

I consider honey to be something like bone char sugar. I won't use it at home but I really don't care much otherwise.

 

 

A wide body of neuroscience literature has convinced me that insects have the ability to learn complex behaviors and could have some minimal level of awareness. Even that level of doubt is enough for me.

Why? Honey seems to be a better choice than cane sugar. I don't eat that much honey but its rather tasty on biscuits, I like to joke about putting honey on our vegan biscuits. Why avoid cane sugar at home? It seems like a better choice than maple, agave, etc.
I'm not aware of any insect that can learn "complex behaviors", it exceeds their computational capacity. What does it mean for an animal to have a "minimal level of awareness"?

Insects are a amazing thing, a demonstration of the complexity that can emerge from simple rule-based systems.

 

It began as only adding non-dairy to "vegetarianism." In 1951, the original society expanded its meaning to, "the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals," and pledged to seek an end to the use of animals "for food, commodities, work, hunting, vivisection and all other uses involving exploitation of animal life by man." It's coinage was a process, but this has been its meaning since 1951.

 

Vegetarian, as a term, is clearly defined to exclude the eating of all meat; however, there are those who argue this is unfair, short-sighted and exclusive- that fish, bi-valves, grubs, and other meats should be "allowed" to vegetarians. It's the same with, vegan. It's a clearly drawn definition, expanding vegetarianism from just diet, to include all human activity, that excludes all animal usage. These are both excellent terms, because their lines of restriction are drawn in the most logical places. Providing "exceptions" to either definition only produces etymological confusion. They are merely points of reference.

What a shame. I wanted to ask Tree Trunks more about his interpretation of ahimsa but he seems (self-evidently)  to have got himself banned for being abusive.

 

It also prevents the swarming of strong colonies. New hives form from the creation of new queen bees, who leave the old colony, and are followed by some of the bees, to start new ones. I've seen beekeepers prevent this, even to the point of capturing the new hive and returning it to the old, which requires the death of the new queen, so their own for-profit hives do not shrink or have to compete with wild hives, thereby reducing their profit. It's better for the bees to swarm and spread out. It provides better overall pollination for crops and wild flora. When bees are kept en masse in a central location, they have to fly farther to find the pollen, and carry it back much farther too, which puts extra stress on them. I don't see how stopping the normal expansion of bees can be considered ethical.

Lol. I wanted to keep giving honey-free recipes for sweet chili sauce until one was acceptable (no sriracha omg?!?)

Here's another one in case The Banned One is still reading the thread. No sriracha in this recipe, but I'd add fresh lime juice and use apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar. (And Florida Crystals sugar, amongst others, is bone-char free.)

"Ingredients

3 large garlic cloves, peeled
2 red Jalapeño or Serrano peppers, deseeded (See note #1 below.)
¼ cup white distilled vinegar
½ cup sugar
¾ cup water
½ tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon cornstarch or potato starch (See note #2 below.)
2 tablespoons water"
For recipe instructions, http://shesimmers.com/2009/02/how-to-make-thai-sweet-chili-dipping.html.

Save the bees by cooking!

 

Refined cane sugar. It's kind of irrational but it bothers me that bone char is used. I'm not opposed to honey and I've eaten honey outside of the home.  Then again I actually use splenda in small amounts which is something I expect we also disagree about.

 

I think the spider links above suggest the possibility for the possibility of experiencing pain as something more than just a reflex. Insect nerve and neuronal structures are very different from mammalian ones -- the cells are far smaller, neurotransmission is faster, and evolutionarily their brains may be more optimized. Moreover, insect cognition in even the lowly fruit fly has increasingly been revised upwards over the past few decades. As a utilitarian I attach a little more value to some insects than plants so I eat plants and avoid harming insects (at least to some small extent).

Veganism is not a definition about what we should or should not eat. It's always been rooted in ethical principles.

 

 

possible and practical is an exception wide enough to drive a bus through. and to be blunt many of those who argue for a strict definition of veganism often completely ignore the "using animals for other purposes" part of the vegan society definition. for example, low occupancy vehicles have been estimated to kill ~400 million animals in the usa each year. as a vegan that gives "using animals for other purposes" (e.g. indirect harm) equal weight i feel angry that many vegans seem to care little about the ways they indirectly exploit animals.

vegans use animal products trivially and routinely. moreover, the "lines" that are drawn vary depending on the flavor of veganism and are frequently inconsistent.  i believe veganism should be based on reason, not arbitrary food rules. and I'm clearly not the only vegan who feels this way since beegans are increasingly accepted in the vegan community as vegans.

 

a famous example that i hoped marked the end of vegan honey-shaming:

 

http://satyamag.com/sept05/greger.html

 

 

 

But why just eat it outside the home? This is what I don't understand about the "vegans" that argue that this and that should be accepted but then they don't fully embrace their reasoning by changing their actions. I'm not sure how splenda is produced but I'm assuming its some lengthy industrial process.....but I don't use artificial sweeteners at home. Here and there I'll drink a diet soda but I think they usually have aspartame.
I would never suggest that insects just have reflexes, but there is a lot in between reflexes and behavior that requires some sort of awareness. I'm pretty fond of occam's razor, if you can come up with a model for insect behavior that doesn't involve awareness of any sort, and you can do just that, then I see no reason to posit awareness on their behalf.

I'd suggest that is is just nothing or may even be worse. Vegans like to focus on their direst use of animal products and ignore their indirect use but the animals don't care whether they are being killed directly or indirectly. All the "vegan" replacements for honey are environmentally intensive. Maple orchids take up a lot of land and it takes a lot, around 10~30 gallons, of maple sap to produce one gallon of maple syrup and the sap has to be boiled down which commercially would use fossil fuels (a small traditional sugar house would use wood). Agave is probably worse, it takes years to grow the agave plants and the process to produce agave nectar is not much different than corn syrup (you have to use chemicals to break down complex carbs into sugars).

So in order to say that honey is "better than nothing", you'd have to show that honey results in more animal suffering, etc as a whole than the alternatives. As far as I know vegan groups have not made this argument.

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/weirdest-bees-dance

Then I guess my favorite would be shegans! 

Thanks for your interesting post logic. Any reason why you've focused on maple syrup, which comes third in the list of ingredients of "Just Like Honey", rather than brown rice syrup and chicory syrup. Agave, of course, is not amongst the ingredients at all. Wouldn't want any of your followers to think that you've drifted towards straw-manism in your comments.  

I actually wasn't posting about that product but common "vegan" sweeteners in general. Brown rice syrup is just like corn syrup, you cook brown rice flour with some chemicals that breakdown the starches into sugar and then purify the result to get a pure sugar product. Chicory syrup is like cane sugar.

The general point here is that the production of many "vegan" sugars makes intensive use of agricultural resources and energy and all these have indirect harm on animal life while honey production has fairly minimal indirect impact. So by favoring maple syrup, brown rice syrup, etc over honey vegans are just favoring indirect harm over direct harm. So,in terms of ethics and the environment, the delineation made by vegans appears to be arbitrary. Vegans would need to make an argument that honey is worse, as a whole, than the alternatives and as I said before I'm not aware of any vegan group that has done that.

i don't particularly enjoy the taste of honey so i will eat it as a contaminant or when it's socially convenient but not otherwise.

 

well done. this is the crux of the issue.

 

in my experience, many members of the vegan moral majority don't try to make this argument because they don't care much about indirect harm.

 

My link to Michael Greger's Satya essay makes the same points:

 

It does take energy to tap maple trees and boil the sap down into syrup. But the maple groves themselves don't take watering, pruning or feeding. No maintenance to speak of unless a tree falls and threatens other trees, in which case it's removed and turned into firewood or lumber. And the maple trees, like trees everywhere, take in carbon dioxide and emit oxygen.

Gene Hamshaw of choosing raw on honey:

 

www.choosingraw.com/you-ask-i-answer-why-dont-you-eat-honey/

 

 

 

Isa Chandra Moskowitz on honey:

 

 

http://forum.theppk.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=14455&hilit=honey

 

 

Vegan Outreach on honey:

 

 

 

Matt Ball on honey:

 

 

 

 

 

And the argument made by logic and Greger can be found here:

 

From the Animal Activists Handbook written by Matt Ball and Bruce Friedrich and endorsed by Peter Singer, Gene Bauer, Paul Shapiro, Erik Markus and Ingrid Newkirk.

 

let's not get bogged down on maple syrup. some of the other sweeteners logic mentioned are more ethically problematic than honey (at least if you care about animals and the environment as opposed to "level 5 vegan purity*").

 

 

 

 

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFBeeBSIH5Q

Should we be using sweeteners at all?

That looks interesting. I use very little sweeteners when I cook, as we aren't big dessert people. I use maple syrup or Florida Crystals. don't like agave's taste, don't use honey, don't use artificial sweeteners, but do buy foods with sweeteners in them (except honey.)

It's not that I as a vegan "don't care" about the insect deaths and honeybee abuse in growing fruits and vegetables, grains, etc. It's that I have the least control over that.

I chose to live in a tropical place where there is lots of local produce nearly year-round. I buy organic when possible because it always tastes better, and I don't like all the pesticides. A local organic farm sells shares of its crops, and I buy a share each year, a combination of money and farm work hours. Another organic produce company delivers a yummy box of food to my door, much of it local.

I have fruit trees in my yard, and would have a vegetable garden if it were feasible. I did at our previous home, a raised organic plot that fed the local wildlife a little better than it did us.

Point being, we do what we can. There is no public transport to speak of here, and it's spread out, so I drive my subcompact, leather-free car bought used. I buy many products second-hand. I make the choices I feel do the least harm without having to live naked in the jungle living off of low-hanging fruit.

Sure, why not? The primary problem with sweeteners is that they are empty calorie and may have metabolic consequences when consumed in excess....but when consumed in small amounts, as recommended, there is no known issue.

That documentary seems unfortunate, yet another health scapegoat. Doesn't help that they are interviewing people like Gary Taubes as if they are some authority on the matter of nutrition and obesity.

If you have two products and they are, as for as one can tell, equivalent in the total amount of harm it takes to produce them then what basis, ethically speaking, does one have to avoid one and use the other? This is, I think, the key question when it comes to honey and veganism.

Honey is just such direct, easily preventable harm. Just don't take the honey, problem solved.

What problem did this solve? You ignored my question and instead focused on direct harm while ignoring indirect harm. To ask again, if you have two products that result in the same total harm (direct + indirect) what basis, ethically, does one have to use one and avoid the other? Avoiding honey doesn't prevent harm if the alternatives result in more or equal total harm.

 

Rice syrup and sugar are just such indirect, easily preventable harm. Just don't eat rice syrup or sugar, problem solved.

A total amount of harm caused by alternatives to honey is difficult for me to calculate. I grew up in New England, saw maple trees being tapped, the sap boiled down. The amount of energy needed to do this is not as obvious to me as the direct walking over to a man -made hive, dressed in sting resistant clothing, and taking the honeybees' honey.

Probably not logical to you, but I'm not going to calculate indirect harm, I will instead avoid the obvious direct harm. I absolutely don't want to and won't debate honey, or the environmental damage done to my beloved everglades by Big Sugar. I just live my life avoiding direct harm as best I can by not consuming or using obvious animal products.

I miss the maples in New England in the autumn.

Interesting images I stumbled on while getting a maple tree image.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/05/09/how-to-make-maple-syrup-like-a-vermonter/
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

 

Should we eat fruit at all?