Um…why would it be?
Is the farmer harvesting your grain taking precautions to avoid killing insects?
It’s not fish-scales, it’s gelatin, which is made from cooked animal parts. I’ve heard that Kodak (in neighboring Rochester, NY) has warehouses filled with animal bones, to make gelatin.
Some vegans also won’t watch movies, for the same film / gelatin reasons.
How do they feel about medicine?? Most modern medicines have been tested on or are synthesized from animals. Things like anti-venoms which are made from horse plasma and anthrax vaccine which I believe is made with cow protiens. Also for the ones who wont use film because of gelatin, do they use anything made of rubber?? Latex is made with milk protiens.
I won’t put cruelty on my toast! :mad:
Actually, a lot of grain farmers go out of their way to kill insects - specifically those that damage the grain in question. Large-scale pesticide application is common for many crops. Google for diamondback moths and canola, for example, and see what kind of polysyllabic stuff is being applied so you can have margarine. (How’s that for cruelty on your toast?) Not that vegans would have anything to do with canola oil products, I don’t suppose, what with the glyphosphate-resistant GM stuff being grown.
Vegans seem to think that they can eat without participating in processes which result in harm to animals. They cannot. Fields displace many, many animals, resulting in death for many of them. Of course, most of those animals are long dead by now, but that’s beside the point. In order for those soy beans to be grown, natural habitat was destroyed on a massive scale, wiping out innumerable animals. To be consistent, vegans should subsist on berries and roots that grow in the wild, and even that’s iffy since they’ll be stealing the food supply of animals. Probably they need to climb into a hermetically sealed capsule and use solar power to synthesize food from their waste products.
Whatever. We’re a part of the ecosystem. Things die because we’re alive. Get over it.
BURNER -
A lot of vegans are against testing medicines on animals - is that news?
Whether or not to use what’s already been discovered through animal testing is something vegans (and other people) deal with separately - some will and some won’t. I’m sure you aren’t in favor of what Mengala did to humans, but if he had turned up a cure for a disease, or a useful medicine, whether or not to use it would be a separate moral choice.
Not all rubber uses milk proteins.
Finally, the post with a link debunking Backster notwithstanding, the article you linked to posits there exists a plant neuro-system, but only speculates that they might feel pain. That’s a whole lot different than your post, which claimed plants do feel pain.
A whole lot of this has become a ‘are vegans silly?’ debate. The OP asked if vegans eat honey. Some do. Some don’t. The end.
So would a hardcore vegan still not comsume milk if the cow lived the life of luxury and ease on an organic farm, and was allowed to keep her calf 'cause the people only took a little milk every day?
Flunked Biology 101? A mature seed/fruit is a living organism, fully fertilized & all. It’s a “baby tree”. The pulpy part is there to nourish the baby tree.
Of course, some fruits have no seed, having been changed by us humans to be nothing but food. Some fruits are designed to be eaten, and the pulpy part is there to attract us. Maybe we should ask the tree… :rolleyes:
As to honey- it used to be not only OK, but a hallmark. Now, the “mainstream vegans” are starting to consider it “bee exploitation”. Whatever. :rolleyes:
Now- just to be clear with all this eyerolling. As long as dudes don’t tell ME what I can or can’t eat, or try to pass laws making my cheeseburger “animal exploitation”- then they can eat whatever they want to. Live & let live. Being a vegan- even the most radical vegan- is fine by me. But come over and point to my steak and start calling it “murder”, and you have crossed the line.
Some gentle ribbing is allowed, of course.
OP: Honey. Hard core, no. Some people who call themselves vegans do.
Other issue: People choose veganism for a variety of reasons. For my sister-in-law it had nothing to do with cute fluffy animals, and everything to do with food allergies and the belief that veganism was a healthier lifestyle. Others do it because of the cute fluffy animals. Some vegans wear leather, some don’t (my sister in law did - because it was about her health - leather didn’t make her break out in a rash - meat/dairy/eggs made her ill). I know a vegetarian who hunts - then gives the venison away to needy families.
I don’t recall anything about bone torehouses whe I lived in Rochester. It doesn’t seem right, though – Kodak’s gelatne plan is in Peabosy, Masachusetts, near where I live now. Curiously enough, the Gneral Foods gelatine plant isn’t all that far away, just off Route 93 in, think, Woburn. There’s probably a good reason the major gelatine producing factories are here in the Boston area, but I have no idea why. They use hides as well as (probably more than) bones, and think hooves are usable, too. (Hence the British expression “calf’s foot jelly”)
Certainly live and let live, but when I read that a Vegan man and his pregnant wife lost their newborn, because when they had complications with their home birth, they refused to go in an ambulance, because TIRES are made from ANIMAL FAT…c’mon man!
Also I was told once by an active member of PETA that they were trying to ban the use of the term: Kill two birds with one stone.
Methinks I smell a potential Darwin Award winner.
Wow. If there were ever a thread risking exile to GD, it’s this one.
To check my understanding, there is, in theory, nothing to prevent the production of “vegan friendly” eggs, milk and honey. Is that correct?
I would think this would even be philosophically attractive. As a member of society, I must earn my living and contribute to the general societal welfare. There is nothing inherently exploitative about requiring animals, as members of society, to earn their livings, so long as they have safe, pleasant working conditions, sick leave and paid vacations, pensions, etc.
I asked exactly this question on the board some time back (but I think the thread was lost in the winter of missed content); a beekeeper responded, stating that it is terribly naive to imagine that honey is produced without causing the death of bees; apparently hives are routinely ‘de-queened’ (IIRC a process where the beekeper kills the queen and replaces her with a younger one to keep the hive in production) and worker bees are often culled (although I can’t remember the reason for this), not to mention the inevitable causalties that must happen when frames are removed/replaced in the hive.
I’m pretty sure that strict vegans don’t eat honey.
Re: Production of milk/eggs - although it is undoubtedly possible to produce milk and eggs without causing the death of animals, it would be very wrong to assume that this is actually what happens in commercial production - cows produce milk after giving birth to a calf; in most cases the calf is slaughtered.
Chickens reared for egg production don’t go to retirement homes when their egg-laying abilities start to slow down; they go into pet food.
- Mangetout (who is not a vegan)
Cecil has addressed the Backster controversy. Do plants have ESP?
The OP’s question has been answered, so I’ll close this thread. Any debate may be continued in the appropriate forum.
bibliophage
moderator GQ