Ok- full disclosure: food ethics are very important to me, but I may define this term differently than most here... only about 95% vegan, so maybe take this with a grain of garlic sea-salt, so to speak!...

I don't think that eating without using honey is terribly hard to do, and I hardly ever eat it; BUT I think it's the case that consuming honey from small-scale local organic beekeepers is NOT ethically the same thing as consuming meat/ dairy/ battery-hen eggs... I also (long ago) had pet hens that came running when I called them and liked to sit on my lap for human/ bird preening time; they laid abundant non-fertilized eggs, which I felt no conscience-pricks about consuming. In each case, (assuming you know your honey-producer and they follow best ethical practices), the animal has a reasonable quality of life, and protection from habitat destruction/ predators that would otherwise threaten them... symbiosis is not the same as taking advantage.

Environmentally, the effects of small scale honey production are NOTHING like factory farming of meat & dairy; from a health perspective, the adverse effects of animal fat/ animal protein consumption (heart disease/ stroke/ cancer/ alzheimers/ arthritis/ diabetes/ etc etc etc) are not linked to honey consumption, according to what I've read over the years. I absolutely object to the unethical & destructive practices of the big corporate honey producers, and would not support them... and I respect the view that taking honey violates principles against stealing work-product of another species. But I don't think it's a  sustainable position to say that honey consumption is equivalent to meat/ dairy/ etc. It's overall impact is clearly not the same.

Ethical decisions aren't always black and white... Earth Balance uses palm oil, which causes rain forest destruction to the point of endangering several species within the last few years-- so is it still vegan? How much nonrenewable fossil fuel was used to get my vegan sugar processed & brought a thousand miles to me, vs. organic honey from the individually-owned farm down the block? Production of non-organic fruit & veg uses heavy pesticides and GMOs that have a negative impact on all the animals in the farms' whole ecosystems, for miles & miles around; so, if you're not buying organic-only, are you still vegan?! I'm playing devil's advocate here, a little... I don't have the answers to these questions, but think it's stuff that needs thinking about.... my point is that the important thing is to make the best decisions you can, to do the least harm you can do... not what you call yourself or whether honey is 'approved' or 'excluded' from a diet named 'vegan.'

I certainly respect the position of "no animal anything;" but I also think that 'ethical eating' doesn't have just one face... people have decide for themselves what to eat and why. I think it can sometimes have a negative effect on getting people to really think about the effects of their food choices, if it's presented judgmentally as, "You can't be a vegan and eat ____!"  To me, 'ethical eating' is a matter of sustaining a respectful and responsible relationship with the world around me... there are lots of yummy things that are not honey, so I'm not a frequent consumer, and am not saying that everyone should go out & eat some honey right away. If someone's goal is veganism, honey clearly doesn't fit; if the goal is sustainable ethical food choices, there may be room for honey, depending on local resources... Either way, I think we should encourage a more-vegan-than-not diet when talking about food ethics with omnis, and not get too wrapped up in absolutism regarding any one food like honey.

Sorry if that got a little rambly!...just wanted to throw in my two cents on this issue.

(That's it, I'm broke now! tee hee)

Hits the nail on the head, in my opinion. 8-)

I agree, on all counts... Veganism is it's own category, and people shouldn't confuse the issue by changing boundaries of the term on a whim! And most veg*ns are really awesome about saying, "This is MY choice, and here's why," rather than berating others for making different (often less healthy/ ethical/ sustainable!) food choices...

I don't think there's a name for my diet... Tanya-ism, maybe? No factory-farmed animal anything; no dairy from any source; chicken or duck eggs ok only if I know the farmer & happy fowl personally; high grocery percentage of local/ organic food; wine, beer, and sugar made without the mammal-bits (ridiculous that this needs to be specified!); nothing that plays, dreams, or cares for it's young; nothing whose central nervous system can be studied in order to learn about mine; nothing which, if I eat it, trashes the land, lake, stream, or sea; nothing for which I can find a more sustainable/ less-harmful-to-the-world-around-me equivalent.

That's a lot to sum up, when people ask what I eat! So I might say something like, 'For the most part, I follow a vegan diet," but I don't say I'm vegan-- though there's a lot of overlap, that wouldn't  be accurate & would just muddy the issue for SAD people trying (hopefully!) to learn about different ways of eating...  I surely wouldn't want to hinder that!

;)

Let's go on a parenting site and talk about eating babies.

I kid, I kid.

agave nectar is an amazing option.

soooo right! amazingly delicious. :)>>>

UH YES! I just had my first experience with agave yesterday... I melted a little bit inside...  :)>>>

So... you're saying agave nectar is NOT delicious?! I thought the above was a pretty accurate statement!

But I don't think it's a  sustainable position to say that honey consumption is equivalent to meat/ dairy/ etc. It's overall impact is clearly not the same.

Ethical decisions aren't always black and white... Earth Balance uses palm oil, which causes rain forest destruction to the point of endangering several species within the last few years-- so is it still vegan? How much nonrenewable fossil fuel was used to get my vegan sugar processed & brought a thousand miles to me, vs. organic honey from the individually-owned farm down the block? Production of non-organic fruit & veg uses heavy pesticides and GMOs that have a negative impact on all the animals in the farms' whole ecosystems, for miles & miles around; so, if you're not buying organic-only, are you still vegan?!

I have a hard time understanding logic like this.  Well, I understand, but I don't buy it.  

My thing is this:  vegan and sustainable are not the same thing.  Being vegan doesn't imply being sustainable, necessarily.  No one said that purpose of veganism was to be the most sustainable diet possible.  The point of being vegan is to live in a way that exploits animals for food/products to the smallest extent possible.

The fact that GMO's and non-organics have a negative impact on animals (which they do) doesn't have anything to do with eating honey.  The fact that there are larger injustices in the world doesn't mean that fighting a smaller injustice on one front is senseless.  Omni's tend to use that logic ALL THE TIME--"I care about animals, but I care about people more, so I'm not veg*n."  It's not an either/or situation!  It's an "all of the above" statement.  

Also, vegan and ethical aren't equivalent all the time.  We can do unethical vegan things, or ethical non-vegan things.  Again, that doesn't mean that, since some vegan actions are unethical, we should eat honey.  Where is the logic in that?

Honey is the easiest thing to avoid.  Really.  If you can avoid milk, it is 1000 times easier to avoid honey.  And yet people make all these loopholes for honey.  Why?  Sure, there are lots of greater injustices out there, but why give in to eating honey?

Also, the palm oil used in Earth Balance apparently comes from a sustainable source.  I know I doubted this, but I looked into it further and was convinced.  I can find links if you want.

But again, what does palm oil have to do with honey?  Nothing.  Saying you might as well eat honey because palm oil is worse is like saying you might as well eat chicken because veal is worse.  Yeahhhh, not really buying it.

eta: I don't really think eating honey is a small injustice, I actually think it's quite a big deal, but I'm borrowing that mindset from others for argument's sake.

Glad to know, about Earth Balance... thanks! I was going by info on veganbaking.net-- kudos to EB for not participating in unsustainable practices.

My points above weren't intended to rationalize eating honey; and I don't call myself vegan, because sometimes I occasionally make choices based on sustainability that a purely vegan eater wouldn't make. I DO have a problem with human-caused insect deaths; but if the lesser-harm situation were local honey (for me, right now, it isn't-- no local producers I'm comfortable with) vs conventional sugar-cane production (high pesticides= tons of insect deaths, plus problems for birds etc. that eat the insects), then I might go with the honey. And I stand by my position that, from the combined effect of environmental issues and health impact, local organic honey is not as negative a food as meat or dairy... That said, I don't remember the last time I ate any.  I just think the goal should be to do the least harm possible to other living things-- and people have to determine what that means, within their own personal ethics/ spiritual system of figuring out the world. If that task is approached selfishly, with conclusions reached ahead of time, I guess it could be used to rationalize eating whatever you want to eat; but if approached honestly it's just an ongoing process of thinking things through, in order to make the most positive decisions you can. Palm oil and honey are related because choosing to eat them can  impact a lot of other living things... I don't want to assume either is the 'least-harm' choice without looking carefully at all the facts and choices available.

I just think sometimes there are some 'big picture' more harm/ less harm decisions that aren't always black & white, and for me honey falls in this category. Since the thread started as 'why would people who care about animals eat honey' (paraphrasing), I thought I'd share a slightly different viewpoint than most here... I respect your views very much, & bet we agree on more than we don't.

Why do people come onto a vegan site and talk about eating honey?  It's rude.

I was under the assumption this site was not only for vegans, but for vegetarians as well.

I think a discussion about honey fit this site rather well. It helps people discuss something that is important to them, that they may not be able to express elsewhere. Food Fight was intended for this, right? Sometimes it is fun to play devil's advocate, and  I think some people need that person whether they want to admit it or not. Being vegan is not a competition.

Honey is an animal product and we all know that, but not all sources of honey come from large operations which harm their bees. In my area honey is one of the only means of income for certain families, and this is something I care about. Although I do not buy it(because I don't eat it), I couldn't see arguing against it with one of these family members. I would feel a little foolish, to say the least.It is easy to demonize it on an internet forum, but when you are talking to someone who produces honey face to face, it is a little more difficult to turn this person into a villain.This is the message I think certain people are trying to point out.No one is saying it is vegan to eat honey. I think it was just a discussion.  right? :o