10 ms·

Making honey without bees and milk without cows

64 points by elorant 6y ago

leemcd56 6y ago
I’m not vegan myself, but if the environmental costs of harvesting milk and honey can be offset by producing them in a lab and the products are safe and cost-effective then I’m all for it.
- blacksmith_tb 6y ago
  Milk has fairly significant environmental costs (cows are large animals, after all), but bees make honey while they're pollinating plants (including our crops), and we depend on that pollination. I find the idea that humans are cruelly exploiting bees to be hard to wrap my head around. Beekeepers don't rob hives of too much honey, as that would kill them. I've been a vegetarian for 35 years, and I avoid dairy products for the most part (mainly for environmental reasons, but also ethical ones), but honey doesn't seem problematic to me, I'd keep bees myself if my neighbors would let me...
  - tashoecraft 6y ago
    I'm not familiar with how honey is produced large scale, but I can't imagine it's the same image you think of when looking at small scale beekeepers. In order to get that much volume of honey that looks and tastes the same, you're going to need giant fields of monocrops, or maybe blending a massive collection of honey together. I do know that there a massive issue with honey fraud. Where honey is being diluted with other substances. That's where I see these lab grown producers being better. You're buying from the supplier, or at least know more about where the honey is coming from. If they can compete on price, then companies no longer need to import honey that comes from some country that let's slide some product that doesn't hold true to it's ingredient list. So for mass market products, I'd imagine we'd get higher quality product. So while not truly "Vegan", idk how far down that rabbit hole many Vegans will be willing to go down in order to adhere to that standard. (I myself eat >90% vegan).
    - wereHamster 6y ago
      > In order to get that much volume of honey that looks and tastes the same, you're going to need giant fields of monocrops, or maybe blending a massive collection of honey together. … or add plain old sugar. Which is what most honey what comes from China (they produce & export a lot of it) contains. They are so good at it now that you can't even tell just by tasting it, you need to do chemical analysis, and there it's easily visible if the honey was stretched with sugar or is all natural.
  - tom_mellior 6y ago
    > bees make honey while they're pollinating plants (including our crops), and we depend on that pollination Domesticated honeybees aren't the best pollinators: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/339/6127/1608 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/339/6127/1608 "Overall, wild insects pollinated crops more effectively; an increase in wild insect visitation enhanced fruit set by twice as much as an equivalent increase in honey bee visitation."
  - kaikai 6y ago
    > Beekeepers don't rob hives of too much honey, as that would kill them. Large scale beekeepers are very willing to harvest the entire store of honey, and feed the bees sugar water over the winter to keep them alive. The act of beekeeping, no matter how gentle and well-intended the beekeeper, involves killing bees. They're non-native to north america, and negatively impact our hundreds of native bee species in ways that we're just beginning to study and understand. They're not exploited on the same level as cows or pigs, and don't have the same environmental impact as factory farming, but it's not a benign industry. Source: I kept bees for ~6 years
    - VBprogrammer 6y ago
      Is this really any worse than the scale of harm to insects and small mammals which occurs due to mechanised crop agriculture?
    - blacksmith_tb 6y ago
      Ah, that's interesting to learn. That is clearly more exploitative, though again it doesn't sound like killing the hive is the idea. I guess my general skepticism comes from just how far the idea of exploiting other living creatures should go - cows are mammals like humans, chickens are warm-blooded if a little dinosaur-y, but if keeping bees is exploitation, is using yeasts to make bread or beer? Growing plants? The answer to those is 'yes' in a sense, but is it unethical? I hope not...
      - fy20 6y ago
        If you are concerned I'd suggest obtaining your honey from farmers markets and small producers, rather than shareholder profit driven corporates. In my country it's very popular for individuals to own bee hives, and I can't remember the last time I bought honey in the supermarket. The quality of the honey, the taste and the texture is completely different. Whenever I only have access to commercial honey (e.g. travelling), it just tastes like sugar syrup to me.
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    Well I watched this documentary about honeybee treatment in the US and I came away believing it is a highly abusive and exploitative industry to the bees. Take a look: https://youtu.be/n4ddWBEHlpo https://youtu.be/n4ddWBEHlpo EDIT: I should add that buying locally produced small batch honey is a good thing as it supports beekeepers that actually tend to respect the bees. The big industry stuff however is bad news as is the case with all animal industry in the US.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      It's almost as if big industry is just exploitative by nature or something...
  - mike00632 6y ago
    It's important to note that industrial pollinating bees are different from bees used to make honey. (Similar to how leather cows are different from beef and dairy cows) Also, the European Honey Bee used to make honey is a genetic monoculture that has trouble surviving in the wild but competes with wild bees.
    - katee 6y ago
      [I know this is tangentially related to your point] Do you have a source on "leather cows"? My understanding is that cow leather is nearly entirely a by-product of beef and dairy cows.
- kitsunesoba 6y ago
  The possibility of bio-identical lab-produced dairy is particularly exciting to me. Existing substitutes only resemble the originals in the most superficial ways and fall flat outside of a very narrow band of expectations. Given that the end products are of reasonably high quality I would happily be among early adopters, even if it comes at a bit of a premium.
bpodgursky 6y ago
Hmm. Given that a lot of the purported benefits of honey with respect to allergies are from the pollens, eating honey grown in a lab seems... questionable.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  It may be a benefit but it isn't the main reason people eat it. Roughly local honey/similar biome would be the relevant one for that niche assuming the advertised benefits truly stack up.
jiofih 6y ago
Taken to the extreme, is replacing insects and animals with a microbial production pipeline any better? It feels like steps to completely lose any healthy relationships with our environment and simply industrialize everything. That is a scary vision.
- moeedm 6y ago
  Pray tell what "healthy relationship" we have with nature with the current status quo? Using science and technology for good by reimagining the antiquated methods of creating stuff like milk, cheese, beef , honey, leather, etc is a good thing. I'm vegan, btw.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    Some vegans do oppose lab-grown meat (perhaps also dairy), on the grounds that humankind will never treat our animal brothers and sisters justly until we have lost the very appetite for their flesh.
    - ur-whale 6y ago
      Every religion has extremists.
  - boo_boo 6y ago
    Replacing these "antiquated" methods with extensive supply chains (even more) dependent on non-renewable resource extraction doesn't seem like using technology "for good"
    - moeedm 6y ago
      Supply chains and process can be streamlined. A herd of cows is a herd of cows.
      - boo_boo 6y ago
        A barrel of oil is a barrel of oil.
irrational 6y ago
And money without trees.
seanwilson 6y ago
When maple syrup, molasses, maple/corn/rice/malt syrup, agave etc. and soy/rice/oat/almond/coconut milk are readily available and affordable now, it's easy to avoid honey and milk today if you want to for environmental and/or ethical reasons. I'm pessimistic that e.g. lab grown meat will have a big impact unless it tastes identical to beef while being cheaper - the above alternatives are available now for other food types but it's still not enough incentive for most people to change. Any difference in taste will be a huge downside (most won't give their tastebuds a little time to adapt to a new taste without a good reason) and there's always going to be unfounded claims about what's healthy and natural.
dgan 6y ago
So regardless of all other factors, this person tries to convince me a high tech lab food synthesis is somehow more environmental friendly than honeybees who have been doing just that (without electricity!) for millions of years? I claim bullshit. Their only motivation is to target vegan market. No way its more environmentally friendly.
- yhoneycomb 6y ago
  The pipette tips alone will generate far more waste
- boo_boo 6y ago
  It's delusional, somehow many people have convinced themselves that further abstracting food production with whatever novelty "lab" technology (which by definition require more energy input, necessitate increased resource extraction, etc.) is the solution to environmental challenges instead of an act of doubling down on their causes. Or, to take the pessimistic view, it might be the case that many individuals in these industries realize this and simply see emergent capital flows they can tap into.
- JetAlone 6y ago
  I think we have to look beyond just the vegan market - I perceive it to be about about reuniting the vegan and non vegan markets by replacing the supply chain of the actual target food to comply with veganism further down the road. As a business opportunity, the potential for growth is not limited to a relatively small percentage of the population who take on the personal baggage to hold themselves to a vegan diet (though they are a critical evangelistic user base to start from), it's to corner the entire market by making it cheap, patentable and ubiquitous. The promise of environmental benefits helps to encourage investment from all camps open to the notion. The hope that it might bear fruit would for many outweigh any risks they see, because there's a 100% chance the sky will fall, displacing sea levels upwards if we don't do enough to control our impact on it, and a less than 100% chance that this research will backfire enough in this department to not be worth exploring. You'd have to be either be highly risk-averse about some physical possibility like pollenization/natural immunity/unforeseen consequences (prepare for them), or have some kind of philosophical/religious reason at a metaphysical level to oppose it.
aaron695 6y ago
Honey is one of the most faked foods in the world https://www.insider.com/fake-honey-problems-how-it-works-2020-9 https://www.insider.com/fake-honey-problems-how-it-works-202... I simply don't believe we wouldn't be risking harm to the environment or farming (which also means harm to the environment) by cutting back on bee production. Honey is just flavoured sugar water. So it shouldn't be technically hard to replace. Arguably that's what jam does. The Chinese had some bumper crops when they hand pollinated after the bees went missing. Which allows super pesticide use which also helps I guess.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dillondoyle 6y ago
Does anyone know the comparative environmental/climate change damage between soy (for milk) versus cows? Seems soy isn't great: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200507104446.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200507104446.h...
- csnover 6y ago
  A quick online search for “soy vs dairy milk environment” will give you plenty of comparative environmental research to digest. Growing food far away from where it is consumed is an environmental disaster regardless of what that food is. The ScienceDaily release you linked doesn’t say anything about the relative impact of soy versus dairy milk, it simply quantifies the transportation cost of Brazilian production. Since ~77% of soy is used as animal feed[0], your dairy cow is probably also consuming soy imports, so your dairy milk now combines the negative environmental impact of soy-based feed with the negative environmental impact of animal husbandry and the efficiency losses of feed conversion. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/soy#more-than-three-quarters-of-global-soy-is-fed-to-animals https://ourworldindata.org/soy#more-than-three-quarters-of-g...
  - dillondoyle 6y ago
    Thanks that's the same link I found too! makes me feel slightly better that US is soy country. I never drank milk, even as a kid. But lately I've been doing more dairy and milk actually tastes ok in small quantities and it absorbs protein supplements better. Though if you've never had actual food fresh soy milk it's very very good the store stuff is weak water in comparison.
estaseuropano 6y ago
I'm vegetarian and try my best to reduce milk and egg products (while having to feed kids and eat in canteens on occasion). But I don't really see any compelling reason to stop eating honey Yes, some bees die during 'harvesting', especially when you go to the industrial scale. But just eat local honey from a beekeeper you know and that problem is minimal. More importantly there is simply no way to avoid insects dying for out food, unlrss you hand-plant and hand-harvest everything, and probably even then its impossible. I eat organic as much as possible. The best standards can guarantee that there is no toxins leaking into the ground, killing frogs, polluting rivers and seas, and making the soil a barren dessert, but it simply cannot work without bees. I think the most bee-friendly thing we could all do is to eat as much (locally/small-scale produced) honey.
- brailsafe 6y ago
  There usually isn't a good argument for entirely excluding foods, and in part for that reason, I haven't really done so. There does seem to be mounting evidence that sugar causes quite a few health issues though. If that's a concern, it might be worth flipping the question around and asking why you should eat honey at all, or other sources of sugar, besides its delightful flavour. I looked, and didn't find much other than hearsay that there was a compelling difference between adding honey or other sugars to other food.
  - Bancakes 6y ago
    Because it's better than whatever candy bar you'd buy in the store or granulated sugar which is easy to overdose.
    - brailsafe 6y ago
      What is it that makes it better? That was the main question. I quite like a candy bar, and I quite like honey, but both seem to me like equivalent indulgences, unless the honey is added to something substantially more filling and nutritious. I wasn't able to *quickly* find anything that indicated a tablespoon of honey being different from the equivalent granulated sugar, so I just stopped buying it. It's too expensive for the little it adds to my food.
jariel 6y ago
I don't think the bees mind if we borrow some of their surplus. A more organic approach to cow's Milk I think might be sustainable as well.
wodenokoto 6y ago
I hadn’t thought about this before, but the reason vegans don’t eat honey is basically because it is forced animal labor, right? But isn’t industrial scale pollination also forced labor of bees? How do those two square up?

64 points by elorant 6y ago

I’m not vegan myself, but if the environmental costs of harvesting milk and honey can be offset by producing them in a lab and the products are safe and cost-effective then I’m all for it.

blacksmith_tb 6y ago
Milk has fairly significant environmental costs (cows are large animals, after all), but bees make honey while they're pollinating plants (including our crops), and we depend on that pollination. I find the idea that humans are cruelly exploiting bees to be hard to wrap my head around. Beekeepers don't rob hives of too much honey, as that would kill them. I've been a vegetarian for 35 years, and I avoid dairy products for the most part (mainly for environmental reasons, but also ethical ones), but honey doesn't seem problematic to me, I'd keep bees myself if my neighbors would let me...
- tashoecraft 6y ago
  I'm not familiar with how honey is produced large scale, but I can't imagine it's the same image you think of when looking at small scale beekeepers. In order to get that much volume of honey that looks and tastes the same, you're going to need giant fields of monocrops, or maybe blending a massive collection of honey together. I do know that there a massive issue with honey fraud. Where honey is being diluted with other substances. That's where I see these lab grown producers being better. You're buying from the supplier, or at least know more about where the honey is coming from. If they can compete on price, then companies no longer need to import honey that comes from some country that let's slide some product that doesn't hold true to it's ingredient list. So for mass market products, I'd imagine we'd get higher quality product. So while not truly "Vegan", idk how far down that rabbit hole many Vegans will be willing to go down in order to adhere to that standard. (I myself eat >90% vegan).
  - wereHamster 6y ago
    > In order to get that much volume of honey that looks and tastes the same, you're going to need giant fields of monocrops, or maybe blending a massive collection of honey together. … or add plain old sugar. Which is what most honey what comes from China (they produce & export a lot of it) contains. They are so good at it now that you can't even tell just by tasting it, you need to do chemical analysis, and there it's easily visible if the honey was stretched with sugar or is all natural.
- tom_mellior 6y ago
  > bees make honey while they're pollinating plants (including our crops), and we depend on that pollination Domesticated honeybees aren't the best pollinators: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/339/6127/1608 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/339/6127/1608 "Overall, wild insects pollinated crops more effectively; an increase in wild insect visitation enhanced fruit set by twice as much as an equivalent increase in honey bee visitation."
- kaikai 6y ago
  > Beekeepers don't rob hives of too much honey, as that would kill them. Large scale beekeepers are very willing to harvest the entire store of honey, and feed the bees sugar water over the winter to keep them alive. The act of beekeeping, no matter how gentle and well-intended the beekeeper, involves killing bees. They're non-native to north america, and negatively impact our hundreds of native bee species in ways that we're just beginning to study and understand. They're not exploited on the same level as cows or pigs, and don't have the same environmental impact as factory farming, but it's not a benign industry. Source: I kept bees for ~6 years
  - VBprogrammer 6y ago
    Is this really any worse than the scale of harm to insects and small mammals which occurs due to mechanised crop agriculture?
  - blacksmith_tb 6y ago
    Ah, that's interesting to learn. That is clearly more exploitative, though again it doesn't sound like killing the hive is the idea. I guess my general skepticism comes from just how far the idea of exploiting other living creatures should go - cows are mammals like humans, chickens are warm-blooded if a little dinosaur-y, but if keeping bees is exploitation, is using yeasts to make bread or beer? Growing plants? The answer to those is 'yes' in a sense, but is it unethical? I hope not...
    - fy20 6y ago
      If you are concerned I'd suggest obtaining your honey from farmers markets and small producers, rather than shareholder profit driven corporates. In my country it's very popular for individuals to own bee hives, and I can't remember the last time I bought honey in the supermarket. The quality of the honey, the taste and the texture is completely different. Whenever I only have access to commercial honey (e.g. travelling), it just tastes like sugar syrup to me.
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  Well I watched this documentary about honeybee treatment in the US and I came away believing it is a highly abusive and exploitative industry to the bees. Take a look: https://youtu.be/n4ddWBEHlpo https://youtu.be/n4ddWBEHlpo EDIT: I should add that buying locally produced small batch honey is a good thing as it supports beekeepers that actually tend to respect the bees. The big industry stuff however is bad news as is the case with all animal industry in the US.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    It's almost as if big industry is just exploitative by nature or something...
- mike00632 6y ago
  It's important to note that industrial pollinating bees are different from bees used to make honey. (Similar to how leather cows are different from beef and dairy cows) Also, the European Honey Bee used to make honey is a genetic monoculture that has trouble surviving in the wild but competes with wild bees.
  - katee 6y ago
    [I know this is tangentially related to your point] Do you have a source on "leather cows"? My understanding is that cow leather is nearly entirely a by-product of beef and dairy cows.
kitsunesoba 6y ago
The possibility of bio-identical lab-produced dairy is particularly exciting to me. Existing substitutes only resemble the originals in the most superficial ways and fall flat outside of a very narrow band of expectations. Given that the end products are of reasonably high quality I would happily be among early adopters, even if it comes at a bit of a premium.

bpodgursky 6y ago

Hmm. Given that a lot of the purported benefits of honey with respect to allergies are from the pollens, eating honey grown in a lab seems... questionable.

Nasrudith 6y ago
It may be a benefit but it isn't the main reason people eat it. Roughly local honey/similar biome would be the relevant one for that niche assuming the advertised benefits truly stack up.

jiofih 6y ago

Taken to the extreme, is replacing insects and animals with a microbial production pipeline any better? It feels like steps to completely lose any healthy relationships with our environment and simply industrialize everything. That is a scary vision.

moeedm 6y ago
Pray tell what "healthy relationship" we have with nature with the current status quo? Using science and technology for good by reimagining the antiquated methods of creating stuff like milk, cheese, beef , honey, leather, etc is a good thing. I'm vegan, btw.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Some vegans do oppose lab-grown meat (perhaps also dairy), on the grounds that humankind will never treat our animal brothers and sisters justly until we have lost the very appetite for their flesh.
  - ur-whale 6y ago
    Every religion has extremists.
- boo_boo 6y ago
  Replacing these "antiquated" methods with extensive supply chains (even more) dependent on non-renewable resource extraction doesn't seem like using technology "for good"
  - moeedm 6y ago
    Supply chains and process can be streamlined. A herd of cows is a herd of cows.
    - boo_boo 6y ago
      A barrel of oil is a barrel of oil.

irrational 6y ago

And money without trees.

seanwilson 6y ago

When maple syrup, molasses, maple/corn/rice/malt syrup, agave etc. and soy/rice/oat/almond/coconut milk are readily available and affordable now, it's easy to avoid honey and milk today if you want to for environmental and/or ethical reasons. I'm pessimistic that e.g. lab grown meat will have a big impact unless it tastes identical to beef while being cheaper - the above alternatives are available now for other food types but it's still not enough incentive for most people to change. Any difference in taste will be a huge downside (most won't give their tastebuds a little time to adapt to a new taste without a good reason) and there's always going to be unfounded claims about what's healthy and natural.

dgan 6y ago

So regardless of all other factors, this person tries to convince me a high tech lab food synthesis is somehow more environmental friendly than honeybees who have been doing just that (without electricity!) for millions of years? I claim bullshit. Their only motivation is to target vegan market. No way its more environmentally friendly.

yhoneycomb 6y ago
The pipette tips alone will generate far more waste
boo_boo 6y ago
It's delusional, somehow many people have convinced themselves that further abstracting food production with whatever novelty "lab" technology (which by definition require more energy input, necessitate increased resource extraction, etc.) is the solution to environmental challenges instead of an act of doubling down on their causes. Or, to take the pessimistic view, it might be the case that many individuals in these industries realize this and simply see emergent capital flows they can tap into.
JetAlone 6y ago
I think we have to look beyond just the vegan market - I perceive it to be about about reuniting the vegan and non vegan markets by replacing the supply chain of the actual target food to comply with veganism further down the road. As a business opportunity, the potential for growth is not limited to a relatively small percentage of the population who take on the personal baggage to hold themselves to a vegan diet (though they are a critical evangelistic user base to start from), it's to corner the entire market by making it cheap, patentable and ubiquitous. The promise of environmental benefits helps to encourage investment from all camps open to the notion. The hope that it might bear fruit would for many outweigh any risks they see, because there's a 100% chance the sky will fall, displacing sea levels upwards if we don't do enough to control our impact on it, and a less than 100% chance that this research will backfire enough in this department to not be worth exploring. You'd have to be either be highly risk-averse about some physical possibility like pollenization/natural immunity/unforeseen consequences (prepare for them), or have some kind of philosophical/religious reason at a metaphysical level to oppose it.

aaron695 6y ago

Honey is one of the most faked foods in the world https://www.insider.com/fake-honey-problems-how-it-works-2020-9 https://www.insider.com/fake-honey-problems-how-it-works-202... I simply don't believe we wouldn't be risking harm to the environment or farming (which also means harm to the environment) by cutting back on bee production. Honey is just flavoured sugar water. So it shouldn't be technically hard to replace. Arguably that's what jam does. The Chinese had some bumper crops when they hand pollinated after the bees went missing. Which allows super pesticide use which also helps I guess.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dillondoyle 6y ago

Does anyone know the comparative environmental/climate change damage between soy (for milk) versus cows? Seems soy isn't great: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200507104446.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200507104446.h...

csnover 6y ago
A quick online search for “soy vs dairy milk environment” will give you plenty of comparative environmental research to digest. Growing food far away from where it is consumed is an environmental disaster regardless of what that food is. The ScienceDaily release you linked doesn’t say anything about the relative impact of soy versus dairy milk, it simply quantifies the transportation cost of Brazilian production. Since ~77% of soy is used as animal feed[0], your dairy cow is probably also consuming soy imports, so your dairy milk now combines the negative environmental impact of soy-based feed with the negative environmental impact of animal husbandry and the efficiency losses of feed conversion. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/soy#more-than-three-quarters-of-global-soy-is-fed-to-animals https://ourworldindata.org/soy#more-than-three-quarters-of-g...
- dillondoyle 6y ago
  Thanks that's the same link I found too! makes me feel slightly better that US is soy country. I never drank milk, even as a kid. But lately I've been doing more dairy and milk actually tastes ok in small quantities and it absorbs protein supplements better. Though if you've never had actual food fresh soy milk it's very very good the store stuff is weak water in comparison.

estaseuropano 6y ago

I'm vegetarian and try my best to reduce milk and egg products (while having to feed kids and eat in canteens on occasion). But I don't really see any compelling reason to stop eating honey Yes, some bees die during 'harvesting', especially when you go to the industrial scale. But just eat local honey from a beekeeper you know and that problem is minimal. More importantly there is simply no way to avoid insects dying for out food, unlrss you hand-plant and hand-harvest everything, and probably even then its impossible. I eat organic as much as possible. The best standards can guarantee that there is no toxins leaking into the ground, killing frogs, polluting rivers and seas, and making the soil a barren dessert, but it simply cannot work without bees. I think the most bee-friendly thing we could all do is to eat as much (locally/small-scale produced) honey.

brailsafe 6y ago
There usually isn't a good argument for entirely excluding foods, and in part for that reason, I haven't really done so. There does seem to be mounting evidence that sugar causes quite a few health issues though. If that's a concern, it might be worth flipping the question around and asking why you should eat honey at all, or other sources of sugar, besides its delightful flavour. I looked, and didn't find much other than hearsay that there was a compelling difference between adding honey or other sugars to other food.
- Bancakes 6y ago
  Because it's better than whatever candy bar you'd buy in the store or granulated sugar which is easy to overdose.
  - brailsafe 6y ago
    What is it that makes it better? That was the main question. I quite like a candy bar, and I quite like honey, but both seem to me like equivalent indulgences, unless the honey is added to something substantially more filling and nutritious. I wasn't able to *quickly* find anything that indicated a tablespoon of honey being different from the equivalent granulated sugar, so I just stopped buying it. It's too expensive for the little it adds to my food.

jariel 6y ago

I don't think the bees mind if we borrow some of their surplus. A more organic approach to cow's Milk I think might be sustainable as well.

wodenokoto 6y ago

I hadn’t thought about this before, but the reason vegans don’t eat honey is basically because it is forced animal labor, right? But isn’t industrial scale pollination also forced labor of bees? How do those two square up?