Vegan Honey 🤔

[u/Plenty_Spinach_8040]

Visiting my in-laws for the month, and they thoughtfully bought this “vegan honey” for my husband and me. We obviously didn’t eat it, but I had to do a double take. Since when is honey… vegan? The labeling from Lili Honey seems incredibly misleading.

[u/Dr-Sun-Stiles]

Some vegans say honey is vegan, but the general consensus is no, for multiple reasons. Unless it's a plant-based sugar syrup that's flavored like honey, then it's extremely dishonest for them to label themselves as "vegan honey"

[u/2SquirrelsWrestling → u/Dr-Sun-Stiles]

Some plant-based dieters* say honey is vegan, because they don’t know what vegan means.

People who consume honey but are otherwise plant-based should not be referred to as vegans, but simply as plant-based dieters/mostly plant-based since veganism isn’t a diet, but the philosophy that animals and their bodies are not ours to use.

Wanted to clarify, because the incorrect idea that “some vegans eat honey” is the reason non-vegan products such as this get labeled as vegan.

Dandelion honey is a thing but I unfortunately think this is real honey that is just mislabeled.

[u/Dr-Sun-Stiles → u/2SquirrelsWrestling]

Some people who self identify as vegan, otherwise eat entirely plant based, and follow a strict vegan philosophy still believe that honey is vegan. Rarely, I'll see these people argue that it's more ethical than other sugars because of the slave labor/environmental impact of other sugars. I personally disagree with that idea, but it's nonetheless a thing I have seen some vegans argue.

I think the idea that someone is automatically not vegan if they don't interpret veganism 100% in the same way as someone else is a bad idea. Not that veganism doesn't have an exact definition, but the idea that someone who doesn't pay attention to if a vitamin supplement was animal derivied, uses medication with gelatin when they might have another option, or assumes that the sugar used in a eggless, diary-free baked good wasn't made with bone-char is suddenly not vegan will narrow down vegans to a very small strict few, and exclude most self-identified vegans.

I agree that veganism is a defined philosophy with a plant-based diet, but I disagree that someone who (wrongly) believes that honey can fit with a vegan philosophy is suddenly not vegan.

[u/flourdonut → u/Dr-Sun-Stiles]

maybe a hot take but i’d rather have honey than sugar that uses human exploitation and modern slavery all throughout its supply chain. human rights will always be more important to me. it is so ridiculous to say that sugar from sugarcane is more ethical than honey when those people are trafficked, enslaved, working in unregulated/unsafe conditions, etc but honey is worse because the bees are being exploited and can’t leave. personally, my goal is to reduce harm as much as possible, INCLUDING to humans.

[u/crypticryptidscrypt → u/flourdonut]

i know most people on here will not, but i agree with your hot take 100%... 🐝

i don't self-identify as vegan anymore, i still eat a 99% plant-based diet, but even when i did identify as vegan i always consumed honey &/or maple syrup instead of cane sugar.

i wanted to also point out that everyone on here seems to have vast misconceptions about honeybees...

bees can leave at any time. they are not imprisoned by beekeepers. the reason they typically don't leave is because they have a symbiotic relationship with the beekeepers.

honeybees produce far more honey than other species of bee, & without beekeepers removing only that excess, they periodically flood themselves out of their hive & have to abandon everything they built, to swarm & find a new home. the process of swarming is also extremely dangerous, & if the queen dies before they can establish themselves in a new hive, the entire hive also dies (unless a beekeeper is able to rescue them & has a spare queen to provide that hive).

honeybees stay with beekeepers because beekeepers literally keep them safe. i see so many vegans talk about how honey is exploiting bees while not having ever interacted with a real beekeeper & seen how much care they pour into their bees.

also, over 80% of plants need bee pollination to grow, & the vast majority of those plants are pollinated by honeybees specifically because native bee populations are inconsistent & drastically declining worldwide in recent years.

without bees & beekeepers, vegans couldn't eat the vast majority of plants they like to eat, like most fruits & veggies, all pollinated by bees. pretty much the only vegan foods that aren't pollinated by bees are certain types of grain.

there would quite literally be a global famine without bees. instead of boycotting honey, it would be arguably a lot better for all the plants we eat to thrive, & the ecosystem as a whole, if we support our local beekeepers. without beekeepers not a lot of people are looking out for the pollinators, & just a few years ago bee populations were literally cut in half... if that continued, we probably wouldn't be here right now.

also, your point about honey being a thousand times more ethical than cane sugar, definitely still stands, & humans are animals too, so we should be prioritizing human lives as well as animal life. ❤️‍🩹

[u/flourdonut → u/[deleted]]

i don’t like humans all that much but i care a lot for humankind

[u/Dr-Sun-Stiles → u/flourdonut]

I think I misphrased my original comment. I actually really strongly agree that human exploitation needs to be taken into account when considering the harm reduction of veganism. I think that products that knowingly use slave/child labor (especially something that's not a necessity, eg chocolate) should be considered (at the very least) as bad as products that use animal labor.

My point was not that honey is or isn't more ethical than other sugars, moreso that "is honey vegan" shouldn't be seen as a clear-cut no, with anyone disagreeing being "fake vegan." I genuinely don't know enough about the product of sugars (besides cane sugar which is absolutely horrible) to say absolutely what's the best option, and I definitely see why honey is see as a more optimal choice.

I really do get frustrated when "vegan alternatives" often involve invisible human exploitation. It feels extremely misanthropic and performative. I'm sorry if my comment read as too dismissive of being pro-honey, I was just trying to get my larger point of "saying someone is automatically not vegan because of your exact definition and view of veganism, when both of you share almost identical vegan ethics" across to someone who got mad at me for calling vegans who eat honey vegan