The Green Watch, part 11.

[conformer]

If there's a particularly sticky sticking point that sticks in the craw of veganism more so than others, it's the issue of honey.

We've touched on the subject of bee spit before, and there appear to be at least three camps of belief:

1. Honey is an animal product, created by bees and exploited by Man. Don't eat it.
   
2. Honey is a product manufactured by animals and harvested by Man. It's okay to eat.
   
3. Bees are not animals.

While Your Humble Narrator would like to subscribe to axiom #3, I can't in good faith. An insect, despite its flaws and lack of a central nervous system(a caveat that has allowed many an otherwise penitent ovo-lacto-vegetarian get away with scarfing down the odd serving of sushi) is still a living creature. It even has a face, which is often a dealbreaker. At the same time, a bee may or may not have the mental capacity to know when it is being exploited, similar to the debate over whether pastured animals headed for slaughter have the ability for suffering. As for #2, both milk and honey are transformed from external material sources(grass for milk, nectar for honey) into viable foodstuffs. Both industrial cows and bees are urged to overproduce, and both have their surplus applied to human wants and needs. So what makes dairy unacceptable for most vegans and honey only for some? Is it the paths that the two foods take thru the respective animals? Grass must pass thru four ruminant stomachs before being broken down and reassembled, but nectar need only sit in the bee's honey stomach briefly before being regurgitated.

Whatever the answer, it changes from person to person, because vegan rationales differ from person to person, just like any dietary modification. But because veganism is the most extreme change a person can make without getting ridiculous(i.e., fruitarianism, airtarianism, etc.), it has a stronger ethical note running underneath it. Barring biological inability to tolerate dairy, one of the primary reasons for eschewing animal products is out of respect for the animals from where they came, which translates into ancillary abstinence from other products derived from the leavings of creatures, such as leathers, cosmetics, silks, etc.

While I don't actively seek it out, I do eat honey, because I don't believe bees suffer when honey is taken away from them(there's even a semi-derogatory term for heathens like us: "beegans"). Then again, there's no doubt that cows and chickens suffer to a degree when they are forced to produce beyond their natural means; however, there still exists a carryover wall of ignorant denial from years of being an ovo-lacto-vegetarian that prevents me, so far, with equating the suffering of milking and laying with the cruelty of full-body slaughter. This is the same barrier that allows omnivores to dine with a relatively clear conscience.

Unfortunately, this kind of thinking is also probably what gives vegans reputations as hysterical, preachy, holier-than-thou, faux neo-hippies. It's people like us that give people like us a bad name. And that's precisely the kind of vegan I do not want to be, just like the kind of vegetarian I like to think I never was: a proseltyzer, an advocate, judgemental, exclusive, irrationally pious. It's not that I mind being "the vegan" in a group, I just don't want to be that vegan. Like a job, being a vegan shouldn't burden you with an excess of identity, but at the same time, it does more precisely color your self. Declaring "I am a vegan" has the same psychological reinforcement as "I am a writer," or "I am a musician," or "I am an alcoholic;" which may be the core rationale of this recent change. When something as base as your diet becomes routine and rote, switching things up can sometimes help to revitalize one's passion; like renewing wedding vows. And while it sounds like I'm showing off, at the moment the primary reason for making the move to veganism is because I can.

It's easier than I thot it would be. So easy that there are times that I think I'm doing something wrong.

⎋