Excerpt from Wiki on vegans:
"The most common reasons for becoming a vegan are ethical commitment or moral conviction concerning animal rights, the environment, human health, and spiritual or religious concerns. Of particular concern to many vegans are the practices involved in factory farming and animal testing, and the intensive use of land and other resources for animal farming."
I read
loli_scarecrow's post on how people stop eating honey due to vegan lifestyles even though her family owns a bee farm (or are beekeepers?).
Here are the reasons I researched of why vegans choose not to eat honey:
- Queen bees are routinely killed in the process in commercial hives - haven't found out why.
- Bees get squished when trying to collect honey whether accidentally or intentional.
- Hives are often gassed to kill off the bees, especially in commercial hives, not in the case of organic honey though.
- It's seen as taking the bees' natural food for human's use.
A honey alternative that is the most common, I would assume to be sugar.
- Sugar comes from sugar cane -> sugar cane plantations that grow around the Amazon
- Requires clearcutting of rainforests to make space for these plantations
- Biodiversity in the the most diverse kind of ecosystem is lost.
I feel like organic honey ie if the bees have been treated humanely and not gassed when honey is ready for collecting, even if it means a few bees getting squished, is somewhat significant at least compared to the loss of biodiversity that would occur from deforestation of a plot of tropical rainforest. As for the idea of taking the bees' natural foods, I can't really argue with that but I'm sure one of the concepts of sustainability of mentioned humane beekeepers or small farms/hobby beekeeperists would include leaving enough honey for the bees to eat and taking surplus.
And one might ask - how would someone know if the beekeeper was humane or not in the way they treated their bees? This is why people should get to know their farmer. Which makes me want to make a little sidenote - do people ever wonder about the farmer that grew their food? If they were underpaid for their crops, if they had enough to eat after selling off their wheat and rice and cash crops? For a lot of farmers, even keeping some crops for sustenance would mean they would not have enough money to afford other basic necessities like clothes or education for their children so they don't see it as an option at times. I mean, it never occurred to me to wonder until today myself, so I'm just putting it out there.