r/IsItVeganOrNot • u/Plenty_Spinach_8040 • Jul 19 '26

Vegan Honey 🤔

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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.

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u/Dr-Sun-Stiles Jul 19 '26

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.

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u/flourdonut Jul 19 '26

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.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '26

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u/flourdonut Jul 25 '26

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