Wednesday 25 March 2009

Veganism is crazy over the honey issue!

I'm not vegan, but I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian. That means that I eat a plant based diet with dairy and eggs. However, I am really turned off by the attitude that a lot of vegans have over the honey issue. Vegans say that honey is an animal product and that anyone who consumes it should not call themselves a vegan. Others disagree and say that honey is really processed flower nectar. Unlike meat, dairy and eggs, honey is a product that bees process, not produce from their bodies like the other three.

I believe that the vegan community should stop making a federal case over the honey issue, and accept people who call themselves vegan that use honey personally that still agree with the rest of the vegan philosophy. Making a major case over the honey issue makes the vegan movement look very dogmatic to outsiders and turns people off from considering becoming vegan. This attitude also hurts the cows, pigs, sheep, etc because less people join the vegan movement over the honey issue.

Fortunately, there are some vegan associations who are not dogmatic over the honey issue such as Vegan Outreach:
article

I hope that someday, the definition of the word vegan will be officially changed to allow for honey consumption. In actual practise, that may have largely happened already.

1 comment:

Luella said...

The definition of the word "vegan...in large practice" has changed from anything political or related to animals to "FOR THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PLANET... oh, and, maybe also the animals, but I don't really care about that so much."

Veganism is about exploitation, not about the fact that honey originally comes from plants. You are missing the actual meaning of "veganism," and that is what in my mind makes you not vegan. Well, in addition to the fact that you also consume dairy and eggs. Wait... why do you even care about the honey issue when you're still consuming eggs and dairy, since you think cows and chickens are so much more important than bees?

You wouldn't be vegan one way or the other way or the other way.

Also, you are saying the same thing heterosexual feminists said in the '60s-'70s: let's not make sexuality an issue because we don't want to be perceived as a bunch of lesbians.

Now, personally, I never make much of a big deal about honey or bees, and I've yet to have a bad encounter over the topic, although I've had many an encounter with people vehemently defending their "right" to animals' flesh, milk, reproductive systems, skin, etc. In any case, your attempt to marginalize vegans for caring about honey is not doing much for animals as far as I can tell. When I became vegan, I didn't know if insects were sentient or not, but I did know that honey was not considered vegan... so, of course, identifying with vegans and veganism, I chose not to consume honey at the outset. It's been pretty easy to avoid, except perhaps when it comes to prepackaged bread. Given how unnecessary it is to avoid honey, and knowing that honey exploits animals, why would I make excuses and alienate myself from vegans who actually gave a damn about animals unlike the rest of honey-eating society?

What animals need is solidarity, what veganism needs is solidarity. Where is your solidarity with the vegans who don't just jump on the mainstream bandwagon and define veganism however they see fit in their mainstream world?