few questions

[euphoric1dr]

hi guys, thanks for your encouraging words on my last post =) you're right - we can't beat ourselves up for mistakes; the most important thing is the intention to do good and live a vegan lifestyle, because we truly want to and believe i in these values. thanks again

Comments

[amolibertas]

I don't really know the answer to the first one-- Honey is like throw up that they feed their babies-- so it's like going up to a mama bird. punchin her in the stomach, taking the "food" and leaving her to go find more for her nest. I also know that the most likely method of extracting honey is gassing/smoking them to leave them unable to attack-- I would assume their might be some deaths in this process

Friendly wikipedia

[amolibertas]

a lifestyle promoting the consumption of un-cooked, un-processed, and often organic foods as a large percentage of the diet. Raw foodists typically believe that the greater the percentage of raw food in the diet, the greater the health benefits. Raw foodism or a raw diet is usually equated with raw veganism in which only raw plant foods are eaten, but other raw foodists emphasize raw meat and other raw animal products. Depending on the type of lifestyle and results desired, raw food diets may include a selection of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds (including sprouted whole grains such as gaba rice), eggs, fish (such as sashimi), meat (such as carpaccio), and non-pasteurized/non-homogenized dairy products (such as raw milk, raw milk cheese, and raw milk yogurt). Raw foodists can be divided between those that advocate raw vegetarianism or raw veganism, those that advocate a raw omnivorous diet, and those that advocate a diet of only raw animal foods (carnivorous

Re: Friendly wikipedia - honey

[amolibertas]

Vegans and honey
During early vegan movements in the 1940s, The Vegan Society in England defined veganism as "the practice of living on the products of the plant kingdom to the exclusion of flesh, fish, fowl, eggs, honey, animal milk and its derivatives, and encourages the use of alternatives for all commodities derived wholly or in part from animals."[60] Vegans do not eat honey as it is considered an animal product.[61] There is active debate in the vegan community on the status of honey as an animal product and its appropriateness for human consumption, though it is regarded as non-vegan on food labels, and most vegans consider honey a non-vegan product. [62]

Vegans will usually eat agave nectar instead of honey, which some consider superior due to its low glycemic index (GI), longer shelf life, similar taste, and quality as it stays smooth and doesn't crystalise like honey does

Re: Friendly wikipedia - smoking the bees

[amolibertas]

The fact that smoke calms bees has been known since ancient times; however, the scientific explanation was unknown until the 20th century and is still not fully understood. Smoke masks alarm pheromones (which include various chemicals, e.g., isopentyl acetate[1]) that are released by guard bees or bees that are injured during a beekeeper's inspection. The smoke creates an opportunity for the beekeeper to open the beehive and work while the colony's defensive response is interrupted. In addition, smoke initiates a feeding response in anticipation of possible hive abandonment due to fire. When a bee consumes honey the bee's abdomen distends, making it difficult to make the necessary flexes to sting. (The latter has always been the primary explanation of the smoker's effect, since this behavior of bees is easily observable.)

[ehhhhnotreally]

Numbers 1 & 2, at least to me, are answered with the idea that exploiting animals for any human purpose isn't vegan. We tend to believe that we can survive without needing things that are from animal sources, and there's no need to do that. Just the ideas that "they aren't harmed" or "eggs that you eat aren't fertile" are irrelevant. It's not ours, they don't make them for us, and we don't need to take it and eat it. (Also with the egg thing--even if the bogus "un-fertile egg" argument was plausible, chickens are FORCED to lay them for the specific purpose of us eating them, and factory chickens are harmed in MANY ways).

#3--raw food is food that is not cooked. Raw food does not cut out plants (although some people, fruitarians, do cut out many plants) but it does cut out anything processed or cooked above a very low temp, like 115 degrees or something like that??

[miss_bonzai]

What do you mean 'the bogus "un-fertile egg" argument'? This is not bogus - they eggs are not at all fertilized. Not that it's an argument for eating them, but it's not bogus.

Also just fyi, fruitarians eat plants - fruits are plants! =D

[seattleotaku]

The un-fertile egg is irrelevant, as the chickens that lay them are not treated humanely. Even in the rare cases of free-range, they are still treated as simple property, objects of profit: they are marketed as chicks, most male chicks are killed in infancy, and adult females are killed when they are no longer profitable egg layers.

Fruitarians do not eat all plants. Many plants are not fruits; so therefore fruitarians do indeed cut out many plants.

[miss_bonzai]

Eggs - Totally agree! The way you originally wrote it made it sound like you were saying the fertility part was bogus. I understand what you meant now.

Fruitarians - Holy moly, totally missed the 'many'. Sort of key. My bad!

[miss_bonzai]

1) Honey is not vegan because bees are animals, and vegans don't eat or use animals. Further, any system that seeks to exploit animals is immoral. And before we wonder if bees are really harmed, or if honey-taking exploits bees, let me just say that any system wherein one group with all the 'power' (that's humans) is making money off of another group with no choice in the matter (the bees), then that system is inherently exploitative. There can be NO humane/non-exploitive animal agriculture, because the system itself is always skewed in this way

[kirbyish]

Veganism for me is not simply an issue of avoiding harm, but avoiding exploitation. Animals exist for their own sake and not to be used as commodities. Bees do not make honey so that humans can consume it.

[mindfulness]

Look at colony collapse disorder for why bee farming isn't good news for bees. We don't know what causes it, but it's only come about since bees have been intensively managed.

Male chickens are killed. Old non-laying hens are killed. Thus eggs are intimately connected to killing animals. The industry can't support roosters, and most small farms buy their hens from farms that kill the males.

There was a time when I ate raw foods and it included sashimi. I do neither now.

You know there's lots of tags and memories about all these issues? It looks like a very common set of questions and it's worth researching. I usually don't think it is necessary to say that sort of thing, but these are some of the fundamental questions relating to veganism.