In my opinion, being vegan is not as simple as avoiding the consumption of animals. For me, that is a just a symptom of the mentality gained when I realized that sentient beings are not ours to simply use as products.
With this new vegan mentality, I have gained much knowledge. And, as we all know, knowledge is power. But knowledge can also be quite hard to manage and confusing at times.
The other day I learned that commercial honeybees are used to pollinate many of the crops often consumed by vegans and non-vegans.
In a nutshell, beekeepers lend their bees to farmers and these bees pollinate many of our crops, such as almonds and sunflower seeds. The process of commercial honeybee pollination is not pleasant and certainly involves exploitation. These honeybees are deprived of their natural habitat, the diet fed to them is generally devoid of essential nutrients, and viruses are easily spread due to the vast number of bees in a single location.
The conditions these bees face are a far cry from what vegans would consider ethical. Since there are so many reasons to deem this practice unethical, you can learn more about it by going to either here or here.
If nothing else, this information is humbling. It shows that we truly live in a non-vegan world, where vegan foods can still be considered non-vegan because they truly do involve exploitation and suffering. At the beginning of my vegan journey, the following statement served as my mantra:
If it doesn’t contain animal products, it is perfectly ethical and OK to consume.
In the months that I have learned more about veganism, I have realized that nothing is further from the truth than this statement. Exploitation can (and does) exist even when animal products are not in the products we purchase. Prime examples include the commercial honeybee example above and even the destructiveness of palm oil.
While veganism should never be the moral baseline or a means to an end, for the average person, veganism is already a huge transition and presenting people with even more changes can easily overwhelm them. This may even cause them to revert to a less compassionate lifestyle.
I believe the key here is to give others (and yourself) time to make better choices and continue to make more informed decisions each day. While it would be wonderful if there were a clear path to a completely cruelty-free way of living, this is simply nothing but fantasy. We need to understand the difficulties each of us face and utilize trial and error to learn better habits.
Like I mentioned before, the reality of commercial honeybee pollination is humbling. It unveils the stark reality that none of our lifestyles come without harm to other sentient beings. I think this is just another reason not to completely condemn those who do not follow a vegan lifestyle.
Don’t get me wrong though–I believe that a vegan lifestyle is much more compassionate than a non-vegan lifestyle, everything else being equal. It is something each and every one of us should strive for, but it shouldn’t be the end goal.
This is the exact reason that I named this website veganismplus. We should not be content with just being vegan and we have to realize that the definition of vegan is not black-and-white, and we shouldn’t immediately judge people for not following all of the rules associated with it. Likewise, we should not assume that we can’t do more as vegans.
Now, I understand that some non-vegans may perceive the use of commercial honeybees as an excuse not to go vegan. Often used by non-vegans is the “you cannot be 100 percent vegan fallacy.” Put plainly, non-vegans argue that if we can’t be completely vegan, we shouldn’t even try, which (to non-vegans) justifies supporting animal agriculture.
But just because there are more obstacles than we originally thought existed, this unethical industry is not justified.
I would like to know what you guys think about commercial honeybee pollination. Do you believe it’s ethical?
Can we still call ourselves vegans even if we purchase products pollinated by these exploited beings?
Should we go out of our way to avoid the crops pollinated by these beautiful black and yellow creatures?
