Tag Archives: honey

asksnanswers

Alexa is working toward a vegetarian diet, and is loaded with questions. Jennifer’s got answers. We talk about anything as long as it is vegan. Are tattoos vegan? How do I politely not eat Thanksgiving dinner? How do I order without pissing off the waitress? We know you are dying to ask!

asksalexaBy definition honey isn’t vegan, but I honestly have a hard time giving a crap! What are some good reasons to stop consuming honey and beeswax?

Those damned bees, being so damned productive and good at their damned jobs. Before going vegan I didn’t give two shits about honey or beeswax. I’d pass by stands and give a big yawn. For years I never check honey on my no-no list, and honestly I am sure I didn’t consume that much since I never actively bought honey.

Then I learned about mead and fermentation. I suddenly became obsessed about honey and making mead. It was a miracle drink, one could sweeten a cocktail with more booze! It was amazing. Till one day I asked myself, why should I care about bees? Do we really harm them to farm honey? And naturally I wondered about how “domesticated” honeybees and how they shape the environment. Now I am finding myself eliminating honey from my diet, which I am finding to be incredibly hard.

Vegans have very different views and boundaries, which can cause some arguments in the community. Bees, oysters, and many other invertebrates get the short end of the stick. Many people who adopt a vegan diet for health tend to include honey in their diet. Some vegans will eat oysters and other bi-valves since their nervous system is drastically different, and in theory don’t feel pain. Some vegans would argue that by not eating honey or bi-valves we are drawing clear and distinct lines. Some would argue that we truly don’t know how much pain we are causing to these animals. And some will argue that exploitation is still exploitation.

Humans like to think that the smaller the animal the smaller of a life it has. But insects can have incredibly long and complex lives. For example the queen bee can live as long as seven years while other bees live much shorter lives ranging from a few weeks to half of a year. Bees have complex social systems (like humans) and have a precise way of sharing information through dance. Their dance shares sources of pollen, and will calculate the change of the position of the sun.

What makes honey and bees wax a hard sell to stop consuming is that bees aren’t as adorable as puppies. But in many ways we should find bees very relatable. They have a complicated form of communication, they have a complex social structure, and they probably have a range of emotion. Yes, scientific research is showing that bees have emotions. And it makes sense for an animal to form emotions when they have a strict social structure. And if bees do have emotions, then maybe they don’t like having their wings clipped or being artificially inseminated.

Many people rationalize that bees don’t NEED the honey. Surely there is enough to go around, right? Well, the answer is not really. To put into perspective how important honey is to bees, some species die once they sting an enemy to protect their honey. If the hive is destroyed, the bees quickly gobble up their weight in honey so they can build up their reserves again in their new colony. Anyone who has done beekeeping and have collected honey will tell you that you have to feed the bees with a cheap sugar syrup– meaning we need to replace what we took from the bees.

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But what about keeping the bees alive? We are constantly hearing about how bees are dying off and it might seem that honey consumption would be a great excuse to help keep bees alive. But this isn’t necessarily true. At least in the United States, our bees used in farming are not native. They have been imported from Europe, and clearly the flowers and fruit that occur naturally in the US have pollenated just fine. In fact some produce cannot be pollenated by domesticated bees (such as early spring blooms like blueberries), and I am sure if you have been at a farm or CSA, you probably haven’t seen a bee hive. Keep in mind that pollination can be done naturally with bees, insects, mammals, reptiles, birds, and humans.

There is a difference between bee farming for honey production, and pollination. Honey farming probably isn’t what you are picturing in your mind, it more similar to cows, bees are farmed in different ways according to their purpose. The honey we eat comes from bees that are confined to specific crops. Each plant will effect the taste of honey, so humans pick the food for bees. So when you buy honey it isn’t going to help pollenate almond trees. When bees are raised for pollination, it usually implies that their colony will be shipped long distance to pollenate a crop. Sometimes the bees aren’t coming back. A lot of bees get shipped to pollenate almond trees, and they have had negative effects on bee colonies. The dependence of domesticated bees have actually caused a decline of native bees, which are better for pollination since they are less susceptible to diseases.

TL:DR; Honey isn’t vegan because

  1. It doesn’t fit the definition, it is an animal by product
  2. Bees need the honey to survive, and humans provide alternate foods to keep colonies going
  3. Bees colonies are incredibly complex and intelligent
  4. Bees may have emotions.
  5. Most produce don’t need domesticated bees for pollination
  6. Domesticated bees usually lead to declines to native bees, endangering native plants.

As far as I am concerned there are lots of reasons to reduce consumption of bee products. But it can be hard since we eat honey and use beeswax in many other contexts. We rub beeswax on our hands and on our lips. It can also be used in lost-wax casting, candles, art, bow making, sewing threads, shoe laces, etc, etc. The list is so long that it will be featured in next week’s Alexa Asks.


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Can I make a confession? I kind-of hate watermelon. I know, that is totally un-American of me. It is actually a curse. I love the FLAVOR of watermelon, I just can’t stand the seeds. I am a chewer so I manage to crunch into each and every seed before I can spit it out. I know you are thinking “Well then just get seedless watermelon!” Yeah, I have tried farm fresh watermelon, and now seedless watermelon tastes like bland water pulp. So I am stuck craving watermelon but regretting the first bite.

This leaves me with a problem. Melons are doing really well at my farm. Just last week I took home THREE cantaloupe. Yup. That’s right three. I had to give one away since they were huge. This week I only got one small cantaloupe, and we got one watermelon. Then my mother in law pointed out that there was a huge watermelon that they were having a guessing contest for. Winner takes the watermelon. I never back down from a competition.

Low and behold the skills I picked up from working a restaurant kicked in. I thought “Wow this feels like a 25 lb bag of beets, only minus a pound.” So I guessed 24 lbs even, and I found myself taking a 24 pound watermelon home with my already huge pick from my share. I figured if I was going to get these watermelons gobbled up by the end of the week, I should probably drink them.

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Summer is in full swing and that means it is the season for frozen treats. The bad thing about not having dairy is that it really limits your options. Most store bought snacks have milk or full of dyes and chemicals. And the ones that are better for you have a high price tag. I would make my own ice cream, except it makes a lot of dishes to wash at the end of the night. So I’ve been trying to make popsicles as much as I can. It is an easy clean, and I only need two things: a blender and popsicle molds.

So I’ve been making a bunch of different pops, experimenting and learning in the process. I have even posted a recipe from awhile ago on Mexican Chocolate Pops. I recently made a new favorite- Matcha and Avocado Pops. It might sound weird, but hear me out. They are REALLY yummy.

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I was so excited about this new recipes I posted it RIGHT AWAY. Yup no tweaking, nothing. I had to post it as soon as I could. I pretty much only eat raw foods for breakfast. I don’t like heavy foods in the morning, especially since I don’t have much time to digest before exercising. I’ve been getting bored of smoothies and chia pudding, so I wanted to go back to classic cereal.

I’ve seen a few raw recipes for buckwheat cereal, so I figured I would give it a try. But as most people know, raw foods can be expensive. I always hate tossing the almond pulp from making almond milk. So I figured I would try and make it a binding agent for the cereal. It worked really well.

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One of the most disappointing moment for some vegans is trying to get a hot creamy drink. Sure if you go to a coffee shop they almost always have soy milk (heck even almond milk sometimes!) but you might not be able to advance past a simple latte. See, most baristas are unaware of all the ingredients in their mixes. Although I read that Starbuck’s tea lattes are vegan, most smaller shops use powders that have whey in it.

Although I find that some chai tea mixes by Tazo (used at Starbucks) and Zhena’s Tea, they tend to be very sweet. In fact I have to mix them with unsweetened almond milk, and still find them to be too sweet. Not to mention, they are technically not vegan as they contain honey. I then go on a frenzy of making the perfect vegan chai teas. Most have resulted in being dumped in my kitchen sink.

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My friend Ian has a problem- Tom Collins. Every time he orders it, it never gets made right. I suggested one night that we go to a bar in Philadelphia called The Farmer’s Cabinet. It is a throwback speakeasy that has an impressive list of cocktails. I suggested we go there, since I figured if there was going to be a bar who knew how to make a Tom Collins, it would be this. We all drank this yummy bubbly concoction, and loved it. Alexa asked why Ian never made it himself, and his response was “it is too complicated to make at home.”

I beg to differ!

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This is actually pretty easy, though I might suggest to make or prep a few things ahead of time. All a Tom Collins is composed of is gin, sugar, lemon, and fizz. So it is basically a spiked-fizzy-lemon-aid. It is such a great drink since it is so simple, yet steeped in such a rich history. Wikipedia has a lot of fun information on the drink, talking about how it changed over the years. Being a history nerd, I loves it. Continue reading