Why don’t vegans eat honey?

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I remember (many years ago) a classmate who was fashionably vegematarian (and had long hair) carefully explaining to me why his new shiny (very desirable by all in them days) leather Adidas daps were perfectly acceptable to vegetations as leather was only a byproduct - he'd totally missed the point that it was a byproduct of whacking a cow across the head with a sledgehammer, stringing it up by the feet then slitting its throat until it bled out before being butchered into barbecue fodder!!
We're all turning fifty now and according to those who still keep in touch with him, he still lives in lala land, is a yoof worker (and still seldom cuts his hair!!)

 

[stenyacki]

Reminds me of the story about Alan Clark, when Thatcher was horrified to discover his vegetarianism...


Mrs Thatcher: "You eat meat don't you?"

Alan Clark: "No, I do not, prime minister."

Mrs Thatcher: "Well, you wear leather shoes, don't you?"

Alan Clark: "I am sure, prime minister, you would not wish to see your ministers walking around in plastic footwear ..

 

[Ely]

An adult vegan with with a varied and careful diet can get all the nutrients and proteins they need from a plant based diet. If they are malnourished, they haven't been eating the right foods or have been too limited. You also find a different type of vegan or 'obeseararian' that tend to print off long lists of carbohydrate and sugar heavy food from the internet and also become malnourished. I very much doubt a growing child can get enough protein from a plant based diet. Research has shown that a careful plant based diet for adults is healthier than a diet including meats. It certainly shows in the complexion of a sensible vegan that also exercises and drinks plenty of water. Personally, I once tried to be vegan to see if it would make a difference to my mood and energy levels. It lasted a week because I like my bacon sandwiches too much. As for beekeeping...I think the positives we do for the environment and flora and fauna far out weigh the negatives. All for the greater good.

 

[tonyofarr]

Vegetarians do NOT eat fish, but a lot of restaurants (and even hospitals) assume that they do eat fish and offer it as the only alternative to meat dishes.

 

[Ely]

Can anyone help me and explain why vegans draw a blank at eggs? Like a lot of "backyard" chicken keepers, none of my chooks run with a cockerel but they still produce eggs. An egg may be an animal product, but nothing is killed, and my chooks are certainly not exploited - unless keeping them protected from foxes and ensuring that they are properly provided for counts as exploitation? Yes, I realise that I am controlling an animal, but a lot of other beasties, most of them too small, perhaps, to care about, are controlled in the production of veganly foodstuffs.

Having said that, I don't understand lacto vegetarians either. And "vegetarians" who eat fish?

I had a discussion similar to this with a vegan. Their argument was that I was exploiting an animal. I explained that these were rescued chickens, ex bats, that would have been killed. I have given them a happy end to their life and I take the unfertilised eggs that would otherwise rot and cause a mess. They didn't have much of a reply because how can you find anything immoral in rescuing animals and providing a caring and safe home for them?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I know a person who sanctimoniously claims he is a vegetarian but is doing his very best to single handedly eat every fish that swims the seas.

 

[Ely]

Pescatarian. Or should that be 'pestatarian'

 

[For want of a better word]

I have just bitten the head of a large maggot that unreasonably was sharing the James Grieg that I was enjoying....... now that would be a dilemma for a vegetarian let alone a vogon?

Nos da

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Pescatarian. Or should that be 'pestatarian'

I prefer to call him a greedy obese lazy alcoholic, but that's just everyone's opinion

 

[Beeconcerned]

I have just bitten the head of a large maggot that unreasonably was sharing the James Grieg that I was enjoying....... now that would be a dilemma for a vegetarian let alone a vogon?

Nos da

I would guess that you didn't enjoy the maggot? Neither would a Veggie or a Vegan, but accidents do happen to them too.

My understanding is that Vegans mainly object to the concept of animals as commodities, and in particular to the capture or the breeding of animals for the harvesting of their parts, eggs or secretions. -I think this is the answer to the OP's question.

....There was an old vegan who swallowed a fly...etc..

 

[oliver90owner]

IMO vegans are simply extremist vegetarians. Let the minority get on with their fads. Their choice, but don't be seen with any animal derived clothing, etc. How would they, i wonder, have fared as Innuits before man-made fabrics, I wonder? Darwin had the answer, I would guess!

Humans have always been omnivores. Been good enough for us and our ancestors (going back about 4 million years when the first hominid ancestors climbed down out of the trees and started walking on two limbs. Their ancestors were omnivores, too...

 

[BeeJayBee]

It begs the question where do you stop because a lot of produce wouldn't exist if it wasn't for bees etc., so strictly speaking they are "animal products"

I think this argument could tie their brains into a myriad of knots.

 

[Ely]

IMO vegans are simply extremist vegetarians. Let the minority get on with their fads. Their choice, but don't be seen with any animal derived clothing, etc. How would they, i wonder, have fared as Innuits before man-made fabrics, I wonder? Darwin had the answer, I would guess!

Humans have always been omnivores. Been good enough for us and our ancestors (going back about 4 million years when the first hominid ancestors climbed down out of the trees and started walking on two limbs. Their ancestors were omnivores, too...

The difference is our ancestors didn't have supermarkets full of unimaginable choice of foods. It is more of a moral choice now rather than a question of survival. I'm sure murder and rape was pretty standard too to our animal ancestors but you don't see many people saying 'Well, if it was good enough for my ancestors for millions of years, it's good enough for me'.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

And "vegetarians" who eat fish?

Many vegetarians create an exception for endangered species. DO NOT look for consistency.

 

[madasafish]

"


Vegetarian, vegan and raw diets can be healthy — likely far healthier than the typical American diet. But to continue to call these diets "natural" for humans, in terms of evolution, is a bit of a stretch, according to two recent, independent studies.

Eating meat and cooking food made us human, the studies suggest, enabling the brains of our prehuman ancestors to grow dramatically over a period of a few million years.

Although this isn't the first such assertion from archaeologists and evolutionary biologists, the new studies demonstrate, respectively, that it would have been biologically implausible for humans to evolve such a large brain on a raw, vegan diet and that meat-eating was a crucial element of human evolution at least 1 million years before the dawn of humankind.


At the core of this research is the understanding that the modern human brain consumes 20 percent of the body's energy at rest, twice that of other primates. Meat and cooked foods were needed to provide the necessary calorie boost to feed a growing brain. [10 Things You Didn't Know About the Human Brain]
One study, published last month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined the brain sizes of several primates. For the most part, larger bodies have larger brains across species. Yet human have exceptionally large, neuron-rich brains for our body size, while gorillas — three times more massive than humans — have smaller brains and three times fewer neurons. Why?

The answer, it seems, is the gorillas' raw, vegan diet (devoid of animal protein), which requires hours upon hours of eating only plants to provide enough calories to support their mass.

Researchers from Brazil, led by Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neuroscientist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, calculated that adding neurons to the primate brain comes at a fixed cost of approximately six calories per billion neurons."
http://www.livescience.com/24875-meat-human-brain.html

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

"

Vegetarian, vegan and raw diets can be healthy — likely far healthier than the typical American diet.

Eating plutonium risotto seasoned with arsenic is probably far healthier (and more nutritious) than the typical American diet!
And putting American and diet in the same sentence is a bit silly anyway IMHO

 

[REDWOOD]

I believe we were veterinarians before the great flood, and after omnivores.

 

[BeeJuice]

Vegans are just spoilt children whose parents should have given them a damn good slap and told them to eat what's in front of them or they wouldn't be allowed to leave the table.

Sounds like you might have Vegan Intolerance

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Sounds like you might have Vegan Intolerance

 

[Gilberdyke John]

I believe we were veterinarians before the great flood, and after omnivores.

Can't a veterinarian be an omnivore or is akin to eating ones patients and incurring the wrath of the association?