On 8/19/2016 6:33 PM, Ted&Alice wrote:
> Rudy Canoza > wrote:
>> This is really, *really* good.
>>
>>
>> Is honey the dairy of the insect world?
>>
>> By Daniel Engber
>>
>> There's never been a better time to be a half-assed vegetarian. Five
>> years ago, the American Dialect Society honored the word flexitarian for
>> its utility in describing a growing demographic€”the "vegetarian who
>> occasionally eats meat." Now there's evidence that going flexi is good
>> for the environment and good for your health. A study released last
>> October found that a plant-based diet, augmented with a small amount of
>> dairy and meat, maximizes land-use efficiency. In January, Michael Pollan
>> distilled the entire field of nutritional science into three rules for a
>> healthy diet: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." According to a
>> poll released last week, Americans seem to be listening: Thirteen percent
>> of U.S. adults are "semivegetarian," meaning they eat meat with fewer
>> than half of all their meals. In comparison, true vegetarians€”those who
>> never, ever consume animal flesh€”compose just 1 percent. [that figure is
>> almost certainly too high - Prof. Canoza]
>>
>> The flexitarian ethic is beginning to creep into the most ardent sector
>> of the meat-free population: the vegans. In recent years, some in the
>> community have begun to loosen up the strict definitions and bright-line
>> rules that once defined the movement. You'll never find a self-respecting
>> vegan downing a glass of milk or munching on a slice of buttered toast.
>> But the modern adherent may be a little more accommodating when it comes
>> to the dairy of the insect world: He may have relaxed his principles
>> enough to enjoy a spoonful of honey.
>>
>> There is no more contentious question in the world of veganism than the
>> one posed by honey. A fierce doctrinal debate over its status has raged
>> for decades; it turns up on almost every community FAQ and remains so
>> ubiquitous and unresolved that radio host Rachel Maddow proposed to ask
>> celebrity vegan Dennis Kucinich about it during last year's CNN/YouTube
>> presidential debate. Does honey qualify as a forbidden animal product
>> since it's made by bees? Or is it OK since the bees don't seem too put out by making it?
>>
>> Old-guard vegans have no patience for this sort of equivocation: Animal
>> products are off-limits, period. Indeed, the first Vegan Society was
>> created in 1944 to counter the detestable, flexitarian tendencies of
>> early animal rights activists. Founder Donald Watson called their
>> namby-pamby lacto-vegetarianism "a halfway house between flesh-eating and
>> a truly human, civilized diet" and implored his followers to join him in
>> making the "full journey." That journey, as the society has since defined
>> it, takes no uncertain position on honey€”it's summarily banned, along
>> with bee pollen, bee venom, propolis, and royal jelly.
>>
>> The hard-liners argue that beekeeping, like dairy farming, is cruel and
>> exploitative. The bees are forced to construct their honeycombs in racks
>> of removable trays, according to a design that standardizes the size of
>> each hexagonal chamber. (Some say the more chaotic combs found in the
>> wild are less vulnerable to parasitic mites.) Queens are imprisoned in
>> certain parts of the hive, while colonies are split to increase
>> production and sprinkled with prophylactic antibiotics. In the meantime,
>> keepers control the animals by pumping their hives full of smoke, which
>> masks the scent of their alarm pheromones and keeps them from defending
>> their honey stores. And some say the bees aren't making the honey for us,
>> so its removal from the hive could be construed as a form of theft. (Last
>> year's animated feature, Bee Movie, imagined the legal implications of this idea.)
>>
>> [the rest at:
>> http://www.slate.com/articles/life/f...y_debate.html]
>>
>>
>> The article is from 2008, and some of the embedded links in the Slate
>> page are now defunct. One of them is worth elaborating, because of
>> several great things it illustrates about the irrationality known as
>> "veganism." It's in the third paragraph: "A fierce _doctrinal debate_
>> over [honey's] status has raged for decades..." The first interesting
>> thing is where the link used to go. It went to a site called
>> VeganMeat.com that is no longer operating. "VeganMeat.com" - that's
>> simply hilarious in and of itself. I doubt that it was trying to sell
>> real meat; rather, it probably was selling products that appeal to that
>> comical "vegan" desire for foods that resemble meat.
>>
>> The second interesting thing is the idea conveyed by the literal words
>> "doctrinal debate." "veganism" is inextricably tied up with politics,
>> specifically Marxian politics regarding so-called "exploitation." I
>> explained long ago that "veganism" is nearly always a marker for far-left
>> politics. Not all leftists are "vegan" or even vegetarian, but nearly
>> all "vegans" are far-left zealots. "Doctrinal debate" evokes the image
>> of the "Disabled LGBT Maoists Club" sitting up at 3:00am in the
>> university dorm room arguing whether or not bottled water is "vegan."
>>
>> "veganism" is bullshit.
>
> Vegans tend to be far-left? Interesting.

Nearly all of them. The right-wing or libertarian "vegan" is rarer than
hens' teeth.