I think that’s actually a very valid point. What level of involvement in producing the food makes it vegan or not vegan? If eating honey is unethical I would think so is eating food produced by the hard work of another person.
What level of involvement in producing the food makes it vegan or not vegan?
It’s about A) exploitation and B) harming the animal.
Pollination is done by all kinds of insects, but they are part of our ecosystem and happen to be pollinating the plants that we eat.
We don’t breed them, we don’t kill them (pesticides, sure), we simply coexist.
Honey isn’t vegan because we breed the bees, take their food and often kill the entire hive because they get sick and cannot survive winter without their honey. It’s also not sustainable, because honey bees are being bred en masse and are pushing out native pollinators that are highly specialized in certain kinds of plants, causing them to go extinct.
Because you mentioned killing off entire hives because they’re sick, I was wondering about what a vegans ethical stance on culling would be and what, if any, situations culls might be acceptable from a vegans perspective.
For example, the beehive which has been infected. Bees don’t understand virology or social isolation or even the concept of “passing it on”. What do you do when a hive of infected bees breaks up and starts infecting other hives? Desieses can be devastating to local domesticated and wild swarms if left unchecked. Would a cull be acceptable in this situation to prevent more death and suffering?
How about in areas where humans have already tinkered with the food chain and wiped out all other apex predators? In some places, controlled culling of heards of deer is necessary to prevent them from overfeeding and wiping out other species further down the food chain and eventually themselves?
As I understand, most vegans would prefer the natural solutions such as reintroducing apex predators but that’s not always possible. Likewise, I don’t think most vegans would advocate for a dawinist solution to infected beehives.
I’m purely asking this from a point of genuine interest and not out of any desire to be proven right or wrong so please don’t take this as any attempt at point scoring.
I don’t think there’s the one vegan stance on culling, but I can try to give you my opinion.
If we are purely talking about the ethics, the question always comes off as somewhat disingenuous to me. The vast majority of culled animals are livestock, and those animals were bred to be killed anyways. Whether a chicken is killed after six weeks to try and contain the outbreak of some disease, or killed after six months when it reaches regular slaughter age is irrelevant, as I consider both deaths to be avoidable and therefore unjust (especially considering that a lot of the diseases that would warrant culling an entire population are only an issue because of the terrible conditions those animals are being held in in the first place).
If we are talking about bees specifically, I’d consider culling a hive infested with e.g. foulbrood to be the correct thing to do - but I also consider it wrong to keep bees in the first place. Not culling the hive will inevitably cause the infection to spread to the native population, that likely already is weakened and has trouble to compete with the bee keepers hives.
[…] controlled culling of herds of deer is necessary […]
There are lots of arguments about whether hunting is truly necessary and studies (e.g. [1]) showing that it might not be, but I’m not a scientist, don’t understand those studies anyway and there am therefore not really qualified to argue either way. My personal issue with hunting (or culling in general) is, that I don’t feel like it’s being done to protect the healthy animals and the surrounding ecosystem, but for personal or monetary gain.
A farmer doesn’t kill his H5N1 infested chickens because he is worried about the well-being of the native bird population, but because the chickens are now economically worthless and he is legally required to do so. The bee keeper similarly doesn’t care about the native insect population, he will burn his hives because it is the only way to get rid of foulbrood. Both will simply turn around after culling their animals, start a new flock/hive and keep going. And hunters aren’t biologists that are able to safely identify and exclusively shoot sick animals either. I suppose it depends on where you live, but if your average Joe is able to buy a hunting license and go kill animals with minimal training, you probably aren’t exactly creating a healthy ecosystem. Instead, you got a monetary incentive for the state to sell hunting licenses and a bunch of people shooting animals for meat, trophies or just for fun, which is then again morally questionable and might, according to the aforementioned studies, counterintuitively even lead to an increase in overall animal population. Trying to get native predators back into the area is then blocked by those same people, because the farmer is worried about a wolf eating his livestock (loosing him money) and the hunter wanting to shoot a wolf. The media™ then runs a campaign about the scary wolves eating your dog and attacking your children, politicians fold over and wolves are being shot at, destroying any chance of the ecosystem recovering on its own.
most vegans would prefer the natural solutions
I’d say most vegans would prefer if animal farming just got banned. Given that 80% of all agricultural land is used to feed and raise animals, a lot of our ecological issues are directly linked to the animal agricultural industry. Giving this insane amount of land back to nature and just leaving it alone would probably do wonders to the general state and resiliency of the ecosystem.
Given that 80% of all agricultural land is used to feed and raise animals
that’s not a given, though. about 93% of all soybeans are used by humans, but about 77% of the cropweight is fed to animals. how can this be reconciled? because we press about 85% of the soybeans for oil, and the byproduct is fed to animals. so we can’t say 77% of the land used to grow soybeans is used for animals. 93% is for humans. this myopic focus on distilling all facets of the industry into discrete datapoints fails to understand the system as a whole.
edit:
and it should come as no surprise that poore-nemecek has also infected this link as well.
Fair enough. The whole world changing their diet in a short time frame is a fictional scenario with many unknowns anyway. We might as well use some of the area and convert it from soy to palm oil or lower our overall food oil usage, if we are changing our diet anyway.
this myopic focus on distilling all facets of the industry into discrete datapoints fails to understand the system as a whole
My focus is more on the ethical side, trying to point out that the system as a whole is abusing and exploiting innocent beings for economical gain. That the way we feed ourselves has a huge ecological impact, however large it may be exactly, is more of a side note.
poore-nemecek is bad science that misused LCA data and drew wild conclusions by, as i said, myopically distilling disparate studies with disparate methodology into discrete datapoints. we cannot rely on this methodology to understand the industry.
I think the point was that many veggies are harvested by farm workers who may also be exploited. The concern about bee exploitation but not focusing on human exploitation is the rub.
Honey is an animal product and so is avoided by vegans. Bees produce honey for themselves, not for humans. They are often harmed in the honey gathering process. There are plenty of ways to protect insect populations, support crop pollination, conserve the environment and sweeten our food without farming bees or buying honey, propolis, beeswax or royal jelly. To replace honey in your diet, try golden or maple syrup, date syrup, agave nectar or even dried fruits. For more information read our page on the honey industry.
That’s fine, but this organization isn’t the same as saying “vegans” any more than the Catholic Church is the same as saying “Catholics”. The church disapproves of birth control, extramarital sex and a lot of other things Catholics commonly do. I’m sure there are endless debates about whether individual vegans are vegan enough.
The comparison doesn’t apply here as using honey goes against the very definition of veganism.
”Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."
Following the pope’s dictums is the very definition of Catholicism. As a former Catholic myself, the comparison seems entirely apt. Clearly we disagree. Continuing to just say “No U!” seems like the kind of pointless waste of time that belongs on reddit.
I think that’s actually a very valid point. What level of involvement in producing the food makes it vegan or not vegan? If eating honey is unethical I would think so is eating food produced by the hard work of another person.
It’s about A) exploitation and B) harming the animal.
Pollination is done by all kinds of insects, but they are part of our ecosystem and happen to be pollinating the plants that we eat. We don’t breed them, we don’t kill them (pesticides, sure), we simply coexist.
Honey isn’t vegan because we breed the bees, take their food and often kill the entire hive because they get sick and cannot survive winter without their honey. It’s also not sustainable, because honey bees are being bred en masse and are pushing out native pollinators that are highly specialized in certain kinds of plants, causing them to go extinct.
Because you mentioned killing off entire hives because they’re sick, I was wondering about what a vegans ethical stance on culling would be and what, if any, situations culls might be acceptable from a vegans perspective.
For example, the beehive which has been infected. Bees don’t understand virology or social isolation or even the concept of “passing it on”. What do you do when a hive of infected bees breaks up and starts infecting other hives? Desieses can be devastating to local domesticated and wild swarms if left unchecked. Would a cull be acceptable in this situation to prevent more death and suffering?
How about in areas where humans have already tinkered with the food chain and wiped out all other apex predators? In some places, controlled culling of heards of deer is necessary to prevent them from overfeeding and wiping out other species further down the food chain and eventually themselves?
As I understand, most vegans would prefer the natural solutions such as reintroducing apex predators but that’s not always possible. Likewise, I don’t think most vegans would advocate for a dawinist solution to infected beehives.
I’m purely asking this from a point of genuine interest and not out of any desire to be proven right or wrong so please don’t take this as any attempt at point scoring.
I don’t think there’s the one vegan stance on culling, but I can try to give you my opinion.
If we are purely talking about the ethics, the question always comes off as somewhat disingenuous to me. The vast majority of culled animals are livestock, and those animals were bred to be killed anyways. Whether a chicken is killed after six weeks to try and contain the outbreak of some disease, or killed after six months when it reaches regular slaughter age is irrelevant, as I consider both deaths to be avoidable and therefore unjust (especially considering that a lot of the diseases that would warrant culling an entire population are only an issue because of the terrible conditions those animals are being held in in the first place).
If we are talking about bees specifically, I’d consider culling a hive infested with e.g. foulbrood to be the correct thing to do - but I also consider it wrong to keep bees in the first place. Not culling the hive will inevitably cause the infection to spread to the native population, that likely already is weakened and has trouble to compete with the bee keepers hives.
There are lots of arguments about whether hunting is truly necessary and studies (e.g. [1]) showing that it might not be, but I’m not a scientist, don’t understand those studies anyway and there am therefore not really qualified to argue either way. My personal issue with hunting (or culling in general) is, that I don’t feel like it’s being done to protect the healthy animals and the surrounding ecosystem, but for personal or monetary gain.
A farmer doesn’t kill his H5N1 infested chickens because he is worried about the well-being of the native bird population, but because the chickens are now economically worthless and he is legally required to do so. The bee keeper similarly doesn’t care about the native insect population, he will burn his hives because it is the only way to get rid of foulbrood. Both will simply turn around after culling their animals, start a new flock/hive and keep going. And hunters aren’t biologists that are able to safely identify and exclusively shoot sick animals either. I suppose it depends on where you live, but if your average Joe is able to buy a hunting license and go kill animals with minimal training, you probably aren’t exactly creating a healthy ecosystem. Instead, you got a monetary incentive for the state to sell hunting licenses and a bunch of people shooting animals for meat, trophies or just for fun, which is then again morally questionable and might, according to the aforementioned studies, counterintuitively even lead to an increase in overall animal population. Trying to get native predators back into the area is then blocked by those same people, because the farmer is worried about a wolf eating his livestock (loosing him money) and the hunter wanting to shoot a wolf. The media™ then runs a campaign about the scary wolves eating your dog and attacking your children, politicians fold over and wolves are being shot at, destroying any chance of the ecosystem recovering on its own.
I’d say most vegans would prefer if animal farming just got banned. Given that 80% of all agricultural land is used to feed and raise animals, a lot of our ecological issues are directly linked to the animal agricultural industry. Giving this insane amount of land back to nature and just leaving it alone would probably do wonders to the general state and resiliency of the ecosystem.
that’s not a given, though. about 93% of all soybeans are used by humans, but about 77% of the cropweight is fed to animals. how can this be reconciled? because we press about 85% of the soybeans for oil, and the byproduct is fed to animals. so we can’t say 77% of the land used to grow soybeans is used for animals. 93% is for humans. this myopic focus on distilling all facets of the industry into discrete datapoints fails to understand the system as a whole.
edit:
and it should come as no surprise that poore-nemecek has also infected this link as well.
Fair enough. The whole world changing their diet in a short time frame is a fictional scenario with many unknowns anyway. We might as well use some of the area and convert it from soy to palm oil or lower our overall food oil usage, if we are changing our diet anyway.
My focus is more on the ethical side, trying to point out that the system as a whole is abusing and exploiting innocent beings for economical gain. That the way we feed ourselves has a huge ecological impact, however large it may be exactly, is more of a side note.
Care to elaborate?
poore-nemecek is bad science that misused LCA data and drew wild conclusions by, as i said, myopically distilling disparate studies with disparate methodology into discrete datapoints. we cannot rely on this methodology to understand the industry.
I think the point was that many veggies are harvested by farm workers who may also be exploited. The concern about bee exploitation but not focusing on human exploitation is the rub.
The working class gets human rights, is able to unionize, go on strike and rise up against their oppressors.
Animals don’t. They just get fucked.
There is no ethical consumption, afterall. Pick the hill that works best for you, and die on it I suppose.
deleted by creator
Sounds like it’s not the honey it’s the production system, so honey from wild bees would be vegan. Okay.
No, because it comes from an animal. Honey can never be vegan.
Apparently there are conflicting standards.
Source: https://www.vegansociety.com/resources/general-faqs
That’s fine, but this organization isn’t the same as saying “vegans” any more than the Catholic Church is the same as saying “Catholics”. The church disapproves of birth control, extramarital sex and a lot of other things Catholics commonly do. I’m sure there are endless debates about whether individual vegans are vegan enough.
Using animal products is not vegan.
Edit:
The comparison doesn’t apply here as using honey goes against the very definition of veganism.
Source: https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism
Following the pope’s dictums is the very definition of Catholicism. As a former Catholic myself, the comparison seems entirely apt. Clearly we disagree. Continuing to just say “No U!” seems like the kind of pointless waste of time that belongs on reddit.