this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2026
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I've been on the fence about honey for a while but tbh I've heard enough. I'll just switch to maple spread or jam.
Awesome. Also worth pointing out, eating honey by choice is kind of weird too if you think about it. It's literally nectar that's been regurgitated by bugs, I don't get why so many would want that in the first place.
Because it tastes good? Anything we eat can sound gross.
Doesn't change that it's weird. And it doesn't sound gross, it is gross.
There are plenty of other sweetener options out there, with whole blended dates or date sugar in particular being a much healthier option.
I'm failing to see what's weird or gross about it, honestly. I don't think bugs or their activities are inherently weird or gross. I don't personally use honey in anything other than honey roasted peanut butter.
There are two layers to the weirdness. The first layer is that, when you remove your conflict of interest, it becomes clear right on the face of it how bizarre and macabre it is to consume the excretions or mutilated body parts of other sentient beings. The second layer builds on that, with it being a secretion that was previously consumed by a multitude of other sentient beings, partially digested inside their internal organs, and then regurgitated before being stolen from them.
To be clear, I eat a mostly plant-based diet due to environmental considerations, not because I find it bizarre to consume animal products. Do you somehow find it bizarre or gross that worms and other microorganisms breakdown dead matter from sentient creatures to produce the soil used to grow crops? Or the involvement of insects in the production of said crops? Do you find it gross for a baby to consume breast milk?
Don't let PETA form your opinions. Plenty of good honey out there. Look for actual local beekeepers (not people selling 'locally bottled honey' because many of those are just buying mass market honey and rebottling locally). I wish that wasn't a thing but it is.
My region is pretty granola. You can't throw a rock without hitting a backyard chicken, we got local cows all around, local everything small scale etc etc, I personally know two families who had apiaries (down to one—other's bees died during a winter), but meh, just easier to go without.
There is evidence that plants have some form of sentience. They react to their environment and stimuli, and communicate with each other. We honestly shouldn’t be eating anything that was previously alive.
Not saying it's the case here, but I've never heard this argument raised in good faith, like by someone who is interested in reducing the amount of suffering caused by humans to non-humans. It's always brought up as some thought-terminating catch-22 device to just keep doing wtf ever you want to do anyway.
I am genuinely curious what you think we should do with this information, though. Like how has it influenced your own actions?
I think my takeaway is that morality arguments for veganism based on subjective perceptions of sentience or suffering are not persuasive.
Many farms provide far better lives for animals than they would have in the wild. Many livestock species are far more successful and widespread because we eat them. Furthermore, if everyone was to become vegan, some livestock species would go extinct without human care. Do those who insist everyone should be vegan because animals are sentient and suffer think that we should just genocide the livestock?
Morality arguments totally depend on the perspective. I happen to agree with vegans on many points, but if your prime argument is moral, then yes I expect everyone to do wtf they want. Everyone’s morals are different.
I saw your comments further down but I want to reply here because some people do sometimes make this argument in seriousness:
Like others said, if I could get all my nutritional needs met synthetically and/or photosynthetically (and still be healthy) I would be happy to. But as it stands, going entirely plant-based is the best and most practical way to minimize harm to all life - including plants. To consume animals you need to raise them, and it takes significantly more plants to raise an animal for food than it takes to eat the plants directly.
Unless you are recommending synthesizing food from base chemicals, there isn't another option. All life, excepting that which can photosynthesize, consumes other life for energy and materials.
The best we can do is mitigate suffering and environmental harm - factory farming is abhorrent - but until we have the Star Trek replicator pumping out TV dinners from the ether, we have to eat something.
Damn I thought my sarcasm was obvious.
We are animals and part of the food web, there is nothing innately immoral about eating any other part of the food web to sustain ourselves.
There’s certainly stupid ways to sustain ourselves, such as practices that unsustainably harm the environment like factory farming, or practices that would spur other life forms to harm us, like eating other humans.
But my main point is that “sentience” is a really vague term that can’t be objectively measured.
Salad is murder!