Aibu to be pissed off that vegetables and nuts aren't vegan?

[autyspauty]

I was watching a clip from QI where they said that avocados and other fruits and vegetables and nits aren't actually vegan because Bees are boxed up and sent to the farms/ orchards etc to pollinate the crops.

I can't believe it.

I'm not even vegan but I do my best to be as eco conscious as I can and there are just so many ways that even a peice of fruit is ladder with tonnes of CO2. Not only do I have to consider the moles my food has travelled to get to the warehouse/ factory to be transported to be packaged and then transported to the shops, but now I have to think about BEES being transported in lorries to pollinate the food before its even fucking grown?

You can't avoid plastic packaging on your food, you can't avoid air miles or road miles on your food but I didn't even think about the fucking road miles on the pollinators to pollinate the food.

There is a photo doing the rounds of a fruit cup picked in Thailand, packed in Venezuela and then shipped to US. Its a joke, the fruit in that cup has travelled more miles than most of the people buying it but you wouldn't even guess about the fucking Bees being shipped over to pollinate in the first place. (countries may be wrong but you get the ideA)

No commercial fruit or veg is ever really vegan in the strictest sense.

It's all grown using blood and bone meal fertiliser, which are animal products (obviously).

I don't see why bees are any worse

Veganism that supports intensively farmed and factory-produced, processed food that is reliant on artificial fertilisers, toxic pesticides and herbicides, run by and for big business with dubious labour practices is not an ethical choice.

As PP’s have said the better choice is to eat locally produced, seasonal food and buy organic produce wherever possible because organic farming avoids harmful and persistent chemicals and herbicides and embraces diversity and natural habitats for insects and pollinators and guarantees animal welfare.

even plants like a meaty dinner…..

Grow your own then.

Talk about first world problems!

🤣

No it’s a real world problem, how our food is farmed, manufactured, transported and stored affects us all. We cannot keep going how we are. It’s impossible.

I don’t think we have to worry about this right now. All of us could be doing more right now to combate climate change. We can worry about this when we’re at a better stage to deal with it.

Eat local. Is there a food co operative near you?

Organic if can.

And I agree with pp that the current guise of vegan food is not sustainable nor environmentally friendly given a lot of it seems to be meat replacement and processed.

Just do what you can, no one can do 100pc.

I doubt anyone eats a complete diet of food which has been produced in a way that sees no animals killed - many crops that are grown will still have shooters out clearing rabbits, birds, rats and other legal quarry to allow those crops to grow to the point they can be harvested.

And no trade deal with America as food production is so intensive. Plus food miles.

Crazy that the U.K. govt thought that trade deals with countries on other side of the planet is ok

I check country of origin on labels but have noticed some don’t include it.

Piers Morgan was debating this with a vegan ages ago. Grow your own food is basically the only answer.

I hate when people say grow your own though. It’s really not as easy as that - 1) it costs a lot of money to get land ready for crops 2) it’s really expensive to buy seeds and soil and plant food and tubs and tools 3) it takes a long time to start and it’s a lot of work to maintain it and 4) it’s really temperamental- I’m in Scotland and this is the worst year I can remember for growing conditions. A huge amount of ours rotted or didn’t start growing in the first place. We hardly have any raspberries this year and normally they’re a sure thing.

@EveningOverRooftops worrying about a bee being put in a box is a first world problem. You must have a lot of time on your hands.

As PP has said. Millions of animals and in insets are killed in order to grow the fruit and veg that you tuck in to daily (unless you grow your own)
We have too many people to feed to just let the wild bees pollinate and that’s with the majority of us eating meat for protien. How on Earth would we feed 70 million on a vegan diet?
Vegans are very keen on pushing their ideology’s but what I don’t understand is that we can’t all be vegan. It just wouldn’t work or be sustainable!

But we could all be doing more without even going vegan. We could all be walking instead of taking the car or eating less meat or taking fewer flights or buying second hand or reducing waste.

A bee being put in a box and shipped to wherever it’s needed is an environmental issue. It uses vital resources and adds to climate change. All for us to have out of season avocados.

It might seem like a small irrelevant thing but when you think about what is happening you realise it isn’t small.

I agree it is not possible to be 100% vegan.
Most electronic devices contain animal derivaties- stearate adhesives, animal cholesterol for screens.

This.
All I have managed this year is a glut of yellow courgettes and one pumpkin. My green courgette plant would sprout new courgettes that would just rot straight away.
Still spent a fortune on compost, enviromesh to keep cabbage whites out, not to mention time deweeding, feeding etc.

It is far easier and cheaper to buy from Lidl.

I have a relative who does grow her own, and she rarely buys any veg. But she grows in her garden at home, and has 2 large allotment plots. That feeds just 2 people.

Avocados are in the spotlight- not because they contain meat, but they have a huge carbon fruit print.

I try to seasonally and locally wherever possible.

Easiest way to avoid this is to buy as local as possible so eat in season or buy from Europe. Yes this will mean less choice but that is what is needed.

Almonds are problematic for lots of reasons so not necessarily better than dairy.

Veganism is about avoiding animal exploitation where it is possible to do so.

You can drive yourself mad by taking anything to the nth degree. You just have to do what you can to help the environment and accept it's not perfect.

And I agree it isn't always possible to grow your own.
Growing food crops require some skill and knowledge and an outlay for equipment, seeds, trays for germination etc.

How did you not know this? Bees are dieing. There arent enough bee populations left for pollination of our food sources to happen naturally.

Colonies have been rented out for years. Without it, we wouldn't have enough food for everyone.