Sorry, you're right, I should have mentioned something about the honey. Whether or not honey is vegan is an often-debated issue (see http://veganmeat.com/honey.html or http://www.vegan.org/FAQs/), and the answer generally depends on who you ask and what their reasons are for being vegan. Personally, I try to eat vegan mainly for environmental reasons, and for me, using honey doesn't necessarily have greater negative environmental impacts than using sugar or other sweeteners (it can often have lesser impacts in fact, if the honey is locally produced and the sugar is imported from elsewhere, which is often the case here in New York). I'm also not convinced that honey production causes any more harm to insects than ordinary vegetable production.
That said, I certainly respect any vegans who decide not to eat honey, and in that case, you can just substitute brown sugar, unrefined white sugar, or any syrup or other sweetener for the honey, and the food will turn out fine. The same applies for anything else posted to this blog.
Every definition of "vegan" I've seen clearly states that vegans do not use products made of animals' bodies or produced by animals. That's obviously impossible in this country right now, because materials like rubber for tires and plastic can contain animal fat. Honey production may have the same impact as any other sweetener on the "environment" but it does harm bees in that many are killed when the honey is taken. I put "environment" in quotes because some people consider animals to be part of the environment and some do not. In any case, if the environmental impact is the same, why not choose the option that doesn't kill animals, at least not directly? We can't know how many animals are affected indirectly by either option, like you pointed out about vegetables.
4 comments:
josh! that looks delicious! i usually eat my cream of wheat with maple syrup and fruit if i have any. honey sounds good.
i'm moving on wednesday to our old 'hod - harbord & clinton! will send out an email closer to the date with my new address & ph #.
it's rainy here today.. :/
I don't mean to sound picky, but if you use honey, doesn't that make it non-vegan?
Sorry, you're right, I should have mentioned something about the honey. Whether or not honey is vegan is an often-debated issue (see http://veganmeat.com/honey.html or http://www.vegan.org/FAQs/), and the answer generally depends on who you ask and what their reasons are for being vegan. Personally, I try to eat vegan mainly for environmental reasons, and for me, using honey doesn't necessarily have greater negative environmental impacts than using sugar or other sweeteners (it can often have lesser impacts in fact, if the honey is locally produced and the sugar is imported from elsewhere, which is often the case here in New York). I'm also not convinced that honey production causes any more harm to insects than ordinary vegetable production.
That said, I certainly respect any vegans who decide not to eat honey, and in that case, you can just substitute brown sugar, unrefined white sugar, or any syrup or other sweetener for the honey, and the food will turn out fine. The same applies for anything else posted to this blog.
Every definition of "vegan" I've seen clearly states that vegans do not use products made of animals' bodies or produced by animals. That's obviously impossible in this country right now, because materials like rubber for tires and plastic can contain animal fat. Honey production may have the same impact as any other sweetener on the "environment" but it does harm bees in that many are killed when the honey is taken. I put "environment" in quotes because some people consider animals to be part of the environment and some do not. In any case, if the environmental impact is the same, why not choose the option that doesn't kill animals, at least not directly? We can't know how many animals are affected indirectly by either option, like you pointed out about vegetables.
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