Can you please settle the honey debate for me?

J

Julie

New member
Can vegans or can't they have honey? I consider myself a strict vegan. I bought a body polish today at the Body Shop. I looked for the ingredients and I didn't see honey. So I went home and used it and then I saw that it did have honey. I don't know how I missed it in the store. It has organic honey. Is that different from regular honey? Is it extreme to say that vegans shouldn't have honey? Bees are insects. They say that bees feel pain but what about the pain they cause people when they sting. I would appreciate any feed back.
A bee isn't an animal--it's an insect. How can you compare a bee to a cow, chicken, pig, etc. So, did I break the vegan rule if I killed a spider or step on an ant?
 
"Vegan" is a lifestyle you choose for yourself.. You eat and not eat according to what you believe follows the general principles of that particular lifestyle. The opinion of others should not even be a factor in your decision. It's your life, not theirs. The problem with this obsession with labeling is that the main purpose often gets lost in all this bickering and nit picking about everything.
Which is really more important anyway, to live your life according to the best way you know how, in this case as a vegan or to live your life according to the "rules" and opinion of others based on their own set of principles? Some vegans eat honey, some don't. What they do with their lives does not affect you in anyway and vice-versa.


FYI- a bee is an animal.. it may not be a big animal but it is an animal nevertheless
 
If you think you can eat any animal product if there's a possibility the animal could attack you in defense, you may as well eat goat meat and steak.

I don't feel honey is vegan - I come from a family of a lot of vegans, and they don't eat it. They don't eat anything where an animal basically has to be controlled. And plenty of bees are killed in obtaining honey.

Edit: I pose the question then - crustaceans aren't animals; is it okay for vegetarians to kill them? What about a vegan that eats scallops - after all, it has no nervous system? How do you justify killing something that has a nervous system just because it doesn't fall under the kingdom Animalia?

I'm not saying you're wrong... I just don't understand, quite, your reasoning?

It's up to you what you want to do, of course. Just giving my two cents. BTW, I'm not a vegan, and I DO eat honey.

Edit 2: Really? Bees aren't killed? Because when I went to the honey processing factory, there were hundreds of squished bees because the processors aren't exactly exacting when it comes to smoking the combs. They don't scrape off all the little bees before they chuck the boxes into the centrifuge. Gee whiz. I must be so stupid... heck, I only had 2 years working as an agricultural inspector for the Ministry. Dumb little old me. But by all means, Sweetroll, find some information to correct me.
 
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