[Werewolf Girl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoBravo

Please let me begin by saying that my questions are present in earnest honesty. I will never ask a question idly nor to be inflammatory; these are questions with which I am concerned and often preoccupied and I post them here because it helps me work out my own path by understanding how others arrived in places similar to where I want to be.

I am considering becoming vegan but there are several questions or issues I'd have to resolve prior to adopting the lifestyle and moniker.

First, does eating honey preclude one from being a vegan? I understand this tends to be a contentious issue within the vegan community but are there vegans out there who eat honey or is the consensus that eating honey automatically makes one a near-vegan vegetarian? Eating, or rather drinking, honey alleviates my severe seasonal allergies, which prior to my discovery that it does so, were nearly-debilitating even with prescription medication.

Second, what is the common rationale in abstaining from eating eggs? I'm having trouble with the rationale as any argument I reason based on the act of eating the egg, itself, seems to contradict other beliefs I have, especially in regard to my beliefs about human reproduction (i.e., "pro-choice" beliefs).

Honey isn't vegan, so if you keep using it you'll be a strict vegetarian technically. That's not a bad thing to be though

And the rationale behind abstaining from eating eggs is all about the treatment of the chickens. Chickens on factory farms are kept in absolutely horrendous and cruel conditions, and when they are "used up" they get slaughtered for meat just like other chickens, so buying eggs still contributes to a lot of death and suffering. Even terms like 'cage free' and 'free range' are generally window dressing and the chickens still aren't kept in good conditions (plus they still kill them in the end.)

There are people who keep backyard chickens as pets and eat their eggs and don't slaughter them, that's the most ethical egg option I can see but it still isn't perfect. (Male chicks in hatcheries get destroyed so by buying chicks you're still supporting that, plus how well the chickens are treated is left up to the individual, and with the way people are that's always scary...)

Personally I find it WAY easier to just skip the eggs all together than to get mixed up in that moral quagmire. http://www.farmsanctuary.org/issues/...yfarming/eggs/

Hope that sheds some light on things, any other questions just ask.

 

[Werewolf Girl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoBravo

I haven't read too much about cruelty towards bees. I'm not sure how well I understand the concept. While, I recognize that bees have complicated nervous systems (as so most organisms in the Animal Kingdom). However, I wonder if 'cruelty' is a subjective and relative term that requires a certain amount of self-awareness on behalf of the bees. So-called "higher-organisms" are evidently self-aware enough to experience cruelty and many often cry, become depressed, and attempt escape, if they can. Is there much evidence to support the same is also true of bees?

Here's a nice overview about honey and the treatment of bees: http://www.vegetus.org/honey/honey.htm

There is plenty of evidence to show that bees have their own kind of intelligence and can feel pain, but even if there were no evidence at all I would still want to give them the benefit of a doubt because we keep discovering new things can suffer that people previously assumed couldn't feel anything. Example: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29915025...n-study-shows/

Humans tend to assume that the more different a creature is the less worthy of consideration it is, but more and more science is showing these 'alien' seeming animals have a lot more sensitivity than we thought.