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Are carnivorous plants vegan?
by arghwhat 9y ago
Are carnivorous plants vegan?
- bitwize 9y agoNo. For example, figs aren't vegan because the fig tree is fertilized by a wasp, which dies as part of the process.
- joelrunyon 9y agoBut does not eating figs, mean that that would stop the wasp from fertilizing it?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- arghwhat 9y agoYes, but eating the butcher would also stop butchering, so I'm not sure I want to plant that idea in the head of vegans...
- ratinacage 9y agoThere is no hard-and-fast rule to determine if something is vegan or not. You could just as easily argue that figs are vegan because the figs do not suffer.
- masklinn 9y agoSuffering seems to be something of the jain rather than vegan. I don't think I ever saw vegans minding potatoes (jain very much do so).
- rebuilder 9y agoI don't think I've ever met a vegan who takes such a fundamentalist view. Generally the question is more: "does this product contribute to animal suffering or environmental degradation via unnecessary resorce use of animal husbandry?" If figs aren't acceptable because wasps get digested by the plant, then surely no food is vegan, as insects are certainly involved in pollination and probably form some small percentage of almost any food product available.
- 27182818284 9y agoI have, but it is rare. I know less of the strong fundamentalists like this--E.g., even their sugar must be special to lower the amount of field mice killed while harvesting--than I do freegans that only eat free food.
- msrpotus 9y agoThe issue with sugar is bone char—animal bones are often used to bleach white sugar. That’s similar to the problems with some beers. Guinness, for instance, uses isinglass (fish gelatin) for purification. While I believe that some vegans might have some concern about harvesting. I’ve never met anyone who wouldn’t eat conventionally-harvested vegetables. NB: not a vegan but a kosher vegetarian and so have some similar restrictions.
- mprovost 9y agoThey changed their filtration system and all forms of Guinness worldwide are now vegan.
- dashundchen 9y agoGuinness actually has switched to vegan ingredients worldwide in the past year or so. https://www.joe.ie/news/forms-guinness-worldwide-draught-bottle-can-now-officially-vegan-613586 https://www.joe.ie/news/forms-guinness-worldwide-draught-bot...
- masklinn 9y agoExcept the dead wasp (and male wasps and parasites which die in the fig) are digested by the fig to mature it. Then what? If that makes food non-vegan, I don't think you're going to find much vegan food, pretty much every plant will at one point have absorbed nutrients from dead animals.
- arghwhat 9y agoThis presents an interesting question about what renders food non-vegan. The system between wasps and figs is mutual. The fig doesn't trap wasps against their will—the wasp enters voluntarily because they have evolved to lay eggs in figs, as the fig provides a brilliant environment for the eggs to safely grow. I do not know of any mechanism where the fig benefits from the death of the wasp—that the opening is so narrow that the wasps wings detach is, from what I can gather, in order to protect the wasp's offspring, which is to the benefit of the wasp, not the fig. It is therefore not really a killer plant. The wasp is the one that keeps squeezing as its wings are torn off. If fig is not vegan because an insect voluntarily died in the process of its pollination, then I simply no longer understand the concept of veganism. Not eating fig is not about avoiding animals or animal products, nor about not contributing to their production (If you consider the fig an animal product due to this process, note that most plants absorb nutrients from dead animals through the soil). I hate figs personally, though, so I'm not trying to contribute to their consumption. And wasps.
- toomanybeersies 9y agoI talked to a vegan while ago about whether he would eat figs. Wasps dig into certain types of figs to lay their eggs, and then die and get digested by the fig. He told me that he'd just avoid eating them to avoid the question of morality. So to answer your question from what a vegan told me: possibly.
- masklinn 9y ago> I talked to a vegan while ago about whether he would eat figs. Wasps dig into certain types of figs to lay their eggs I believe all figs work that way, with co-evolved fig wasps pollinating it. The pollinating female is actually the smallest part of the animal protein digested by the fig: only the female wasps and a subset of the parasites (which managed to infect female wasps before their exit) make it out, male wasps and the rest of the parasites die inside and get digested as well.
- rsynnott 9y agoI think if you tell quite a lot of non-vegans about that it'll put them off figs, too :)
- masklinn 9y agoBut why? It's no more "non-vegan" than a fruit tree having partially fed from a carcass or dead insects having decayed and enriched the soil? It's not like you're preventing animal suffering by not eating fig, the entire thing is part of the female fig wasp's lifecycle, that's the entirety of its life. And if the issue is taking advantage of the pollinator's hard work, the vast majority of fruits are off limits.
- rsynnott 9y agoAs I say, I think it'd put off a lot of people who aren't vegan at all if they knew about it; it's unsettling.
- Sumaso 9y agoWhat is vegan and what is not vegan is going to differ depending on what each vegan believes. Diet is like being religion, you going to have different people drawing the line at different points.
- arghwhat 9y agoIf you avoid meat because you do not want the nutrients or is allergic, it is a diet. If you avoid meat because you find it wrong, it is a philosophy or religion. If the question is about belief, I would not consider "vegan" a diet in any possible meaning of the word. (The above does not state that I find veganism to be wrong—rather, it merely classifies the ideology.)
- LaGrange 9y agoThis is the "dinosaurs" argument, and it's mostly just annoying. Did humans inflict death, farming or other suffering on animals in order to make those plants? Not as far as I know. Like, go look into more interesting things, like the fertiliser and non-food products that are difficult to avoid if you want something interesting, but even then you'll find that veganism can be quite pragmatic. But don't throw non-problems like the above at people.
- arghwhat 9y agoWhat are you so hostile against a simple shower thought? My personal opinion would be that if anything is vegan (the "plants nourish on dead animals" position is an argument for another day), then a carnivorous plant itself is unquestionably vegan.
- biztos 9y agoDo you mean "are they suitable food for vegans?" Or "are they themselves vegans?" The second question is obviously No for the proverbial flytrap, but it hints at another interesting question: Can a non-human animal (or plant) be a vegan? Examples: a pet wolf you only feed with vegan food; a cow you don't force to eat other cows.
- arghwhat 9y agoAha, you are correct. I got caught by the use of the term "vegan" as a label for food suitable for vegans (to which I normally react as if the label had read "contains concentrated plutonium"). To dig into your question, one first has to answer what the definition of vegan is in the context. Is it just a diet, or is it a belief? While a pet wolf fed only vegan food would probably die from malnutrition, it is fair to assume that a cow left to its own devices would eat food that, while indigestible to human vegans, would be vegan in nature. But, does that make the cow "vegan", as the cause of this choice is merely a biological one? I do not think it would hesitate to enjoy honey if presented, nor worry if meat was its primary food source.
- biztos 9y agoYeah I guess it comes down to whether something like "a vegan" is defined by action (not eating animal-derived foods) or by intent (attempting to not eat animal-derived foods because of religion, worldview, etc.). And if it's intent, are all vegans equally vegan? If I "eat vegan" for my own health, and you "eat vegan" because you want sustainable agriculture long-term, and Suzie "eats vegan" because her religion tells her to, are we all really "vegans?" And if we are, then why isn't a giraffe? We have no insight into its motivation, and "it evolved to do so" is a slippery slope.
- delecti 9y agoWhen an industry appears that raises carnivorous plants to package them up for grocery stores for human consumption then maybe that question will stop being a needless "gotcha", but until then it can probably remain a rhetorical exercise.