Why aren't figs considered vegan? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why aren't figs considered vegan?

#51

Post by croisillon » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 10:22 AM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #36

croisillon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bees and hens don't produce "naturally" food for humans, they have their own use of honey and eggs [addendum to people answering "bees don't produce for bears either" or "plants don't produce food for humans either" : that's a strawman, I merely commented the term "naturally produced honey and eggs"]

Bees don’t survive in the wild where I am in New Zealand and there is no way they can eat all the honey they make, which is an average of 65kg more than they use, per hive. If they swarm, the swarms will die from varroa. Having the honey there weakens their hive as it’s too large an area to warm during winter. What’s the ethical thing to do?

I don't know the details of honey in NZ but I can imagine it's similar to cows overproducing (and endangering themselves with) milk: they have been bred to do that

Re: Why aren't figs considered vegan?

#52

Post by ma2rten » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 10:24 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #27

ma2rten wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean by "there are different kinds of vegans". The term vegan was coined by the Vegan Society. They have the following definition: "Veganism is a way of living that seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing and any other purpose."

> I'm not sure what you mean by "there are different kinds of vegans". The term vegan was coined by the vegan society. Etymology is not use. Use defines language. The "Vegan society" of mid-20th century is an insignificant part of the history of vegan ideas. It's just where the term originated in the US as a standalone term. Millions of peoples call themselves vegans, and have adopted this or that part of veganism (o…

I highly doubt that there are millions of people who call themselves vegan without having heard of this definition. People don't just wake up one day and stop eating animal products.

It's kind of like the term hacker. The general public understands it to mean one thing, but vast majority of people who apply the term to themselves understand it to mean another thing.

Re: Why aren't figs considered vegan?

#53

Post by pbhjpbhj » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 10:31 AM UTC

jjgreen wrote: post #30

croisillon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to meet an omnivore who would do it [edit: omnivore instead of carnist]

Omnivores are generally polite enough to call vegans that which you call themselves, perhaps you'd like to return the favour?

Were you offended by the parents use of a term for meat-eater? Your's seems like a needless correction; it didn't seem at all impolite.

People choose all sorts of inaccurate terms for themselves, your reasoning doesn't seem particularly sound either.

Re: Why aren't figs considered vegan?

#54

Post by Arnt » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 10:36 AM UTC

croisillon wrote: post #17

jlg23 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visit arid Africa: eating an animal before it was /used properly/ (could be as simple as fertilizing the land here in southern Morocco) is considered wasteful.

do they eat animals dead of old age?

I wouldn't know about Africa. But I know a thing or two about keeping animals at the edge of the arctic.

If you butcher when the animals are old, you have quite a bit lower risk of losing the meat due to disease, because old animals fall ill more than young ones.

If you butcher, you have some control over the timing, which helps with using the food. You don't have perfect control, but more than random, and you reduce the risk of having to throw anything away.

So if you use the animals both live and dead, it makes sense to optimise for keeping them alive long and die while still healthy (healthy enough to eat/use, if you want to be cynic).

Re: Why aren't figs considered vegan?

#55

Post by lostlogin » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 10:38 AM UTC

croisillon wrote: post #51

lostlogin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bees don’t survive in the wild where I am in New Zealand and there is no way they can eat all the honey they make, which is an average of 65kg more than they use, per hive. If they swarm, the swarms will die from varroa. Having the honey there weakens their hive as it’s too large an area to warm during winter. What’s the ethical thing to do?

I don't know the details of honey in NZ but I can imagine it's similar to cows overproducing (and endangering themselves with) milk: they have been bred to do that

My queens pick their mates and so do most - open mating is standard as artificial insemination is hard with bees. Bees are bred for certain traits but it’s a long way from the levels seen in diary for many reasons. A beekeeper can interfere, and often does if a colony is defensive or has poor brood. Productivity is harder to measure as the situation in a given hive can be markedly different across an apiary. Queen age, disease burden, hive site, equipment differences etc.

Most the control comes from killing the bad and reproducing from the good (and then hoping the queen finds good drones, avoids birds and finds her way home).

Re: Why aren't figs considered vegan?

#56

Post by jjgreen » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 10:42 AM UTC

croisillon wrote: post #50

jjgreen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Omnivores are generally polite enough to call vegans that which you call themselves, perhaps you'd like to return the favour?

sorry the term didn't come to my mind, I updated my comment

Thank you

Re: Why aren't figs considered vegan?

#57

Post by telesilla » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 10:44 AM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #36

croisillon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bees and hens don't produce "naturally" food for humans, they have their own use of honey and eggs [addendum to people answering "bees don't produce for bears either" or "plants don't produce food for humans either" : that's a strawman, I merely commented the term "naturally produced honey and eggs"]

Bees don’t survive in the wild where I am in New Zealand and there is no way they can eat all the honey they make, which is an average of 65kg more than they use, per hive. If they swarm, the swarms will die from varroa. Having the honey there weakens their hive as it’s too large an area to warm during winter. What’s the ethical thing to do?

The ethical thing is to halt the husbandry of farmed animals and let the bees die out naturally, so there is no longer a source of honey (except for that delicious beech honeydew, but I don't know if those insects can be farmed).

https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/1436-honeydew-ecos...

Re: Why aren't figs considered vegan?

#58

Post by ianai » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 10:47 AM UTC

cannonedhamster wrote: post #37

oeuviz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But neither do plants produce "naturally" food for humans. The produce it to reproduce and make the fruit delicios so animals eat it and transport the seed somewhere else to spread. Humans are very bad in spreading plants by means of eating and deposing the seed.

Plants that humans eat are literally some of the most widespread plants in the face of the Earth. Apples, tomatoes, potatoes, corn, soy, and rice are all massive successes for the plants in spreading, that doesn't even get into sugar producing plants. This started as humans eating and distributing seeds. Farming just made this process not need to involve eating. It's not just about delicious either. We eat some bitte…

Pulses are some of the best, nutrient dense sources of vegan protein. And they’re called pulses because they grow very quickly from seed to crop.

Re: Why aren't figs considered vegan?

#59

Post by coldtea » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 10:50 AM UTC

ma2rten wrote: post #52

coldtea wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure what you mean by "there are different kinds of vegans". The term vegan was coined by the vegan society. Etymology is not use. Use defines language. The "Vegan society" of mid-20th century is an insignificant part of the history of vegan ideas. It's just where the term originated in the US as a standalone term. Millions of peoples call themselves vegans, and have adopted this or that part of veganism (o…

I highly doubt that there are millions of people who call themselves vegan without having heard of this definition. People don't just wake up one day and stop eating animal products. It's kind of like the term hacker. The general public understands it to mean one thing, but vast majority of people who apply the term to themselves understand it to mean another thing.

>I highly doubt that there are millions of people who call themselves vegan without having heard of this definition.

You can doubt it, but you'd be wrong. At best they'd chanced about some historical background piece that contained the definition. But the huge majority wont tie it to some 19th century "Vegan Society" or know/remember anything about some "original definition".

>It's kind of like the term hacker. The general public understands it to mean one thing, but vast majority of people who apply the term to themselves understand it to mean another thing.

Well, the latter are wrong in your sense (etymology, history) too. There are references to the term "hacker" to mean intruder on other systems from decades before people self-identified and pushed for the supposedly benign-only definition. (E.g. there are reports of "hackers" messing with telephone services and bringing them down as far back as the early sixties (literally mentioned as "hackers", not phreakers).

Re: Why aren't figs considered vegan?

#60

Post by dgellow » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 10:51 AM UTC

seanwilson wrote: post #44

I wish people wouldn't generalise that because 1) some people might consider figs non-vegan and 2) this line of reasoning might be weird/stupid, then 3) most vegans must think this therefore veganism is weird/stupid as a whole. How many people that say they are vegan consider figs non-vegan? Are there surveys on this? I'm going to guess most haven't thought about it (figs aren't daily in most places), don't have a st…

> It would be like looking for fringe cases of things meat-eaters do (e.g. eating animals while they're still alive, eating dogs and cats) and using that to attack meat-eaters.

Don’t worry (or do worry), newspapers will attack veganism, vegetarianism, AND carnivorism (or omnivorism) if they have ways to create inflammatory headlines. That’s not something reserved to only one subset.