As for the exploitation, all living things have their own lives. Even plants seem to be able to communicate to some degree and can be stressed and stuff. Either you’re OK exploiting living things to some degree or you die. The level of exploitation is what should be discussed. Is beekeeping harmful to bees? I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like it.
As for it being sugar, sure. Sugar isn’t bad though. Sugar is bad when consumed in the quantities the average American consumes it. It also has other properties that make it pretty good for your health. For example, I think it’s good for preventing allergies because it contains pollen (I might be making this up, but it seems like I’ve read that somewhere).
Plus, it’s just weird to want to eat the vomit of other species anyway.
Do you realize that fruit is the ovary of a plant? Life is weird. Get over it. Weird is not a word that should come into a discussion of ethics.
The “what about plants” argument is such a thoroughly debunked joke argument that it’s amazing anyone would continue to make it. Eating animals and their secretions requires harming significantly more plants than eating the plants directly because animals need to be fed too, and animals as food is by far the least efficient and most environmentally destructive way to have a food system.
Eating plant based sugar will kill and harm more animals that bee produced sugar.
Or do you think that agricultural process does not kill bugs?
I would argue that eating honey instead of plant based sugar would be more vegan.
In general drawing the line of veganism with bugs is… Complicated. As you really cannot have agriculture without killing bugs.
You need pesticides, or some form of plage control. You need to harvest plants that surely will have animals in them. And you’ll need to clean the vegetables of bugs before consumption.
The answer they gave is the gotcha answer. The real answer is that vegans currently don’t consider plants worth moral consideration. Its a non-issue, although I’m sure you could find some vegans who are concerned they are harming plants.
To put it another way, you can harm a plant as much as you can harm a rock. Of course our understanding might change as time goes on.
As for the exploitation, all living things have their own lives. Even plants seem to be able to communicate to some degree and can be stressed and stuff. Either you’re OK exploiting living things to some degree or you die. The level of exploitation is what should be discussed. Is beekeeping harmful to bees? I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like it.
As for it being sugar, sure. Sugar isn’t bad though. Sugar is bad when consumed in the quantities the average American consumes it. It also has other properties that make it pretty good for your health. For example, I think it’s good for preventing allergies because it contains pollen (I might be making this up, but it seems like I’ve read that somewhere).
Do you realize that fruit is the ovary of a plant? Life is weird. Get over it. Weird is not a word that should come into a discussion of ethics.
The “what about plants” argument is such a thoroughly debunked joke argument that it’s amazing anyone would continue to make it. Eating animals and their secretions requires harming significantly more plants than eating the plants directly because animals need to be fed too, and animals as food is by far the least efficient and most environmentally destructive way to have a food system.
Not with bees not.
Eating plant based sugar will kill and harm more animals that bee produced sugar.
Or do you think that agricultural process does not kill bugs?
I would argue that eating honey instead of plant based sugar would be more vegan.
In general drawing the line of veganism with bugs is… Complicated. As you really cannot have agriculture without killing bugs.
You need pesticides, or some form of plage control. You need to harvest plants that surely will have animals in them. And you’ll need to clean the vegetables of bugs before consumption.
The answer they gave is the gotcha answer. The real answer is that vegans currently don’t consider plants worth moral consideration. Its a non-issue, although I’m sure you could find some vegans who are concerned they are harming plants.
To put it another way, you can harm a plant as much as you can harm a rock. Of course our understanding might change as time goes on.