Milk is an important source of nutrients that you and your family shouldn’t miss out on. If someone in your family has lactose intolerance and the rest of the family still want to enjoy the taste of real milk, try Lactofree - the UK’s first virtually lactose-free dairy drink.
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Food
: I've just been told that vegans don't eat honey. Is this true and if so, why?
(111 messages)
I'd always thought that vegans don't eat animal products that have been produced by causing pain or exploitation. Does honey fit with this? I'd have thought that bees can, well...buzz off ...if they don't like where they are.
Ah, but yeast is also a living organism. Vegan friend of mine used to get her knickers in a knot because of that ... she was a bit intense and prone to over-thinking these things though! Most vegans are OK with it given that it is not animal in origin.
Do be aware, though, that some dried yeasts contain emulsifiers, which can be of animal origin - fresh yeast is OK, but read the label of any dried you use and check it states that it's suitable for vegans.
My friend's argument was that yeast differs from mushrooms because it continues to live and multiply until it is killed by the action of baking it ... but as I said, she was a bit intense about these things!
You have to be very careful if using Human manure. Or you can spread disease. You have to make sure that any composting has been done very well and the composts has gor high enough to kill off the bacteria.
A 1/3/ to a half of the mass of human faeces is bacteria....most will be dead, but not all, and obviously there is the resk of contamination
WWB, well, point our that her veg is still busy respiring until it is cooked or eaten.....that is why veg and fruit produce water that you see inside a plastic bag.
Or I see in a plastic bag, if she is that intense she probably spurns plastic !
The site suggests urine which is pretty much sterile. I know that they mean people should collect it in a bucket or something, but now I've got the image of vegans squatting in their vegetable patches stuck in my head.
I can sort of understand vegy but imo vegan is barking.
How do they know the plants don't suffer? wtf is wrong with eggs? and manure? I mean an animal has to crap, it will do so regardless of whether said crap is going to be spread over the plants, no?
yes, you could open up a nursery in both senses of the word. at the back you could have the children's nursery, at the front you could have the plant nursery, with the plants all being cultivated using the "manure" obtained from the former.
I'm not vegan, but the egg thing does bother me. To have eggs, you need chickens (whichever came first) and so you end up with vast numbers of unwanted male chicks which are gassed on an industrial scale.
I'm soppy and sentimental I know, but I did cry when I saw footage of them being dropped from a shute onto a conveyor belt (alive)like grain, piled on top of each other, to be 'processed'.
Eggs are potential chickens, wannabe. Plus the exploitation of the laying hens, their slaughter at an early age, the killing of day-old cock chicks because they are of no use to the egg farmer. That's why vegans don't eat eggs in any form.
wannabe. That's the problem, they often don't lay infertile eggs. There was a news thing recently about a boy who had hatched three chicks from supermarket eggs.
I'm no chicken expert but I think they lay anyway. I imagine in the same way that humans release an egg or sometimes more each month whether it will be fertilised or not.
So I don't really think that eating unfertilised eggs can be seen as exploitation or stealing eggs from hens. What would happen to the eggs if they weren't collected and eaten?
My mum had a friend whose daughter would only eat the parts of plants that the plants 'discarded' - mostly fruit - the idea being that the plant meant the fruit to be eaten so that the seeds were dispersed, though when you start talking about what a plant means to happen I think you probably need a reality check....
I can understand vegans not eating unfertilised eggs, frequently laid as a result of giving chickens the chicken equivalent of Clomid.
But I can't understand why eggs produced infrequently by a celibate chicken as part of it's natural cycle are out of bounds.
Someone responded earlier that honey isn't eaten by vegans as the honey has been stolen from the bees. But what use does a chicken have for an unfertilised egg?
I once innocently asked where the honey was in the Unicorn Grocery in Manchester. I got the most chilling look in response. You might have imagined I was proposing to kill and eat bee meat, by the look I got.
RE Honey- a friend of mine asked at Unicorn, a local lentil-weaving store, where the honey was- she was told quite curtly that they don't sell any animal exploitative products. I think it's run by Jain Monks.
Mr Bubble (theology grad) has just told me that the Jains would go to war with and kill neighbouring humans but would wear mouth covers so that they didn't inadvertently swallow and therefore kill insects.
I have never forgotten the moment when, at a Steiner parent and toddler group I heard a very thin, earnest mum telling another that she didn't eat honey because it was like a bee's breastmilk.
Yeah. Pinkyminky, yes. It was the episode where the new security system locked Manny in, and he used an SAS survival manual. The absinthe was 'keep your fluids up', the bees for food (found dead on the window ledge) and 'maintain radio contact' was listening to Radio 4.
If they were wild, would there be more chance of them being fertilised? MY brain is beginning to hurt.
lol bees breastmilk. Little breastfeeding bees. Bees are extremely brutal animals, if we are anthropomorphising for a mo. The drones get their wings bitten off and are starved to death by the workers.
Bubble,as a student I shared house with a hunt sab for a time. I was a vegetarian, long term, but he was soo earnest. He'd eat the same strange pan of goop all week, then I'd end up throwing the pan (mine) away as it was ruined form the seven days of reheating this goop. Not sure what the environmental impact of going through so many pans was. I've known other vegans who were less earnest, but yes, I know exactly what you mean.
You knew him, too? You kind of felt your life ebbing away as he spoke. Another house mate used to get into ethical debates with him just to see how many knots he could tie himself up in.Very cruel.(but very funny)
Oh cross post there. No I'm not. I've had trouble with anaemia all my life (before being veggie) and when I got pg they discovered my body doesn't retain iron very well at all, so I eat meat now, along with taking iron supplements. I always liked meat, but wasn't keen on animals husbandry methods in factory farming, but I drew the line at bees. They are fair game, IMO.
I agree. And you get into the whole bee, even jainism type thing- which is fine if you want to be a monk, but not terribly compatible with normal everyday living. Where does it end? Do we humans actually have a right to exist?
lol at this thread. Yes, my sister is an ethical vegan. Very earnest, but neither thin nor pale. She's a huge foodie, as well. And much healthier since she's gone vegan (previously had cholesterol issues).
Picking up on an earlier point, chicks are frequently gassed or minced alive.
And as for vegans keeping chickens, if you look at the bigger picture, where do they get the chickens from? Probably somewhere that discards the male chicks...
And then there are the poor dairy cows....
If everybody went vegan, there would be more than enough food to feed the world.
Tooticky is right. I got my two organic reared chickens from a farmer who probably disposed of the male chicks at some point in the process. So, 5 years ago in the same batch as my two girls was born some male chicks would have been killed.
Obviously they don't need a cockerel to lay as I have eggs every day. Obviously we are not vegan, though dh is veggie.
I think it is very difficult to have any type of farming where some animal at some point has not suffered in the process and that's why we just do the best we can without being insane about it. Applies for us to environmental issues, we have to have a car but we just drive as little as possible.
I'm vegan and not thin or pale. Don't eat honey cos it yucky but we do have 2 rescued hens that produce infertile eggs. Its either throw them away or eat them. I think the stereotyped ideas of vegans in this thread is pretty funny
I am definitely not thin-not even 'thinninsh'- much more 'fattish' if I am honest and not pale either-quite dark skinned with rosey cheeks. I know quite a few vegans now-no skinny ones amongst them. Lots of healthy well informed people though.
Have been meat eater all my life until the last few years-become vegan as I was dairy free for health reasons. Hubby became ill with gall bladder/pancreas problems and couldn't have surgery because of another medical problem, so he had a very low fat diet and couldn't tolerate any meat without severe pain. Already had one veggie daughter and one vegan one. SO cooking separate meals for one veggie, one vegan, one dairy free and one low fat diet PLUS the worlds biggest meat eater, my ds was simply not possible. Vegan food was the one thing we could all tolerate/accept so that's what i cooked. vegan food -with meat on the side for son.
Have found the food to be lovely, have become a more adventurous cook. Not difficult when you have the internet, just Google vegan recipes and you come up with all sorts of information.
Don't miss meat at all. Don't eat honey, do eat yeast.
I was astounded to read the UN report 'Livestock's' Long Shadow' states that;
10 Hectares of land = meat for 2 people, or maize for 10 people, grain for 24 people or soya for 61.
and
Water is interesting also - 1 kg wheat uses 1000 liters of water whilst 1 kg of beef needs 100,000 liters. !!
I do think each person has to make their own judgements of what is right for them/how far they take this. My children have a condition that will need treatment at some point. The choices are having human derived substances-and risk infection from various diseases such as HIV etc or use GM animal derived products. The best I can do is give the girls information about the facts and they can make their own choices (they are both now committed vegans). They both recognise that the choices they would make now, are likely to change when potentially a child's life is concerned -for they will both need treatment if/when they get pregnant.
don't commercial bee keepers kill the bees at the end of each year?
When i was first vegan 20 odd years ago there wasn't a great deal of choice. Now there's vegan everything, and often organic too. Vegan organic junk food! How fab is that! Kids were raised as vegans. 2 of them chose to eat cheese at some point, maybe 6, one remains vegan. One decided to eat meat at 13 (influnece of friends/teenage rebellion) but didn't eat it in the house. I don't let meat in doors. Yuck. That one is now vegan again (influence of friends, teenage rebellion )
As Juliethingy says, land use is way more efficient for vegan diet than a meat based one and given the whole food shortgage/oil crisis thiing changing over to a plant based diet is the only way to avoid mass starvation and famine. Its cheaper too (if you avoid the vegan junk food) And feeding grain to cars makes me
I used to be a commercial beekeeper, bees are certainly NOT killed at the end of each year.
Actually you could kind of argue bees "like" being kept, as beekeepers give them extra space for the colony to grow and to produce a surplus (which is what is harvested, you always leave the bees enough for winter).
Some beekeepers will eat the drone larvae, apparently they're quite tasty.
I remember reading in the Times a couple of months ago (in the 'sex' questions section) a question from a Vegan who was concerned if she , ahem, swallowed when performing oral sex she was contravening the rules of vegan living.
How the hours must fly by at their house, I thought.
I remember reading in the Times a couple of months ago (in the 'sex' questions section) a question from a Vegan who was concerned if she , ahem, swallowed when performing oral sex she was contravening the rules of vegan living.
How the hours must fly by at their house, I thought.
May I just remind you all that no matter how sweet, honey is bee sick.
eewww
I was vegan for years and much healthier for it, had to go back to being veggie as my thyroid meds were nulled by the soya i was eating.
But not a day goes by really when i dont lament my vegan days, i really was so much healthier. not at all thin and pale (i wish-exgoth you see)
Being just a veggie now i do have honey in the house and can eat it but only until i remeber thousands of tiny little bees puking their guts up for my jar of honey.
Milk is an important source of nutrients that you and your family shouldn’t miss out on. If someone in your family has lactose intolerance and the rest of the family still want to enjoy the taste of real milk, try Lactofree - the UK’s first virtually lactose-free dairy drink.
. 
