This is in response to the 100th Vegan Freaks blog entry, which discusses an article where Dr. Michael Greger argues that honey is vegan. I was going to post it as a comment, but it ended up being kind of long, so I’m posting here instead.

For the longest while, I always presented the “honey issue” as “not a big deal” to people when I told them what a vegan was. “Most vegans don’t even really make a big deal of it,” I told them, for the very reason that I thought it marginalized us even more. I’ll even admit to eating trace bits of honey for a few months after becoming vegan. I figured, “insects, eh… no central nervous system, it’s not a big deal to use their vomit.”

These days, I’m not so sure. Now, I avoid honey altogether, even when it means not eating my favorite whole wheat bagels. I scoot bugs out of the house rather than squash them. I’ll avoid stepping on a cricket not just because it would be messy, but because, eh, it’s just a little extra effort to avoid getting death on my shoe. I still don’t think the issue is a big deal, but the difference is that now it’s not a “big deal” to avoid honey rather than it not being a “big deal” about whether somebody does or doesn’t. Does that make any sense?

It’s one of those things that just seems to make sense. It seemed like a hassle at first, but before long it just seemed like the obvious thing to avoid honey. While I don’t break into tears if an insect hits my windshield, giving up honey’s simple… it ain’t a thing but a chicken wing. Or something.