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> and may possibly be important to people eating vegan diets I just wanted to chime in and say that it's not important, at least not for the vast majority of v
by grardb 5y ago
> and may possibly be important to people eating vegan diets
I just wanted to chime in and say that it's not important, at least not for the vast majority of vegans or others following vegan diets.
Most of us are aware that plant foods are not without consequence to animals (e.g. there are likely some ground-up insects in flours). Veganism is more about not willingly/knowingly exploiting or violating the consent of animals, rather than achieving a perfect diet free of even the smallest animal inputs. Even if the latter was the driving force behind a vegan diet, I don't really see the difference between how a fig is pollinated and a tree absorbing nutrients from the decomposing corpses of dead animals buried nearby.
I suppose fig farming may include the farming of wasps to ensure pollination or something, which is perhaps the actual reason behind your comment. Stuff like that is a topic that most vegans don't seem to dive into, just as most don't research to see if their produce was grown with manure instead of synthetic fertilizers. I suppose that if that's the method used for growing figs, then it may get on people's radars one of these days (along with other plants which I know are farmed in a similar fashion), but at least for the moment, we have bigger tofu to fry.
- throwawaylinux 5y agoSadly, "plant food" has huge consequence to animals, and the mechanical destruction of insects is the least of it. Fields and plantations and orchards are chemical holocausts, pesticides and herbicides and fungicides wipe out most living things, some of them bioaccumulate and start attacking other parts of the food chain, others leech into ground water or rivers or oceans and quite often have horrible effects on aquatic life from amphibians to coral reefs. In some places and for some crops, larger pests might be culled (mice, rabbits, wild pigs, birds, fruit bats, deer, kangaroo, you name it). In food storage and processing is the same pest and fungacides with generally more emphasis on rodenticide chemicals which can also bioaccumulate and poison birds of prey, owls, snakes, etc. Then habitat destruction. A person basically can't live in the modern world without destroying animals. Although I do admire vegans who do it to try to make a difference there.
- johnthedebs 5y agoThe only reason I mention it is that - maybe in an effort to make these articles more enticing - they seem to all bring up the fact that you may be eating some amount of wasp when eating figs. I agree with you in that I don't think anyone I know who is vegan would care at all about this; not to mention the fact that many figs we eat don't need to be/aren't pollinated by wasps at all.
- UncleOxidant 5y agoI consider myself a vegan, but I guess I'd be rejected by the orthodox vegans because I really don't care if I consume honey and wonder why there's any fuss about it. I also consume oysters and sardines occasionally just to ensure I'm not running short on some nutrient that I'm not aware of - yes, I know I transgress especially in regards to the sardines (some vegans make exceptions for lifeforms that don't have a face like oysters) but it's only every couple of weeks or so. So the potential for wasps in my figs is just something that seems silly to worry about.