Non vegan here. 🤔

Soooooo honey is not extracted directly from the bees, so that would be an argument to declare honey vegan.

On the other hand, even with modern beekeeping tech and modular hives, one could argue the act of taking honey to be a serious intrusion on the bees' life, so that could be an argument that honey is not vegan.

One could argue where the line lies with eusocial organisms. Do you consider the individual bees or do you consider the whole hive? Whole hive? Honey may not be vegan. Individual insects? Honey could be vegan.

It really depends on your standards. One vegan friend of mine does drink mead (honey wine, for the uninformed) for instance.

Stupid discussion. It does not matter whether something is in the box "vegan". Ask yourself why you would or would not eat something. If you don't want to eat(/drink) dairy because of the way the animals that produce the dairy are treated, would you be ok when they are treated differently? Are bees treated in the same way? Does it matter if you treat them in this way? Those should be your questions, not "does it belong in this box?".

I feel like instead of a giant push for veganism, there should just be a push to eat what's sustainable.

Beef and dairy? Causes huge amount of greenhouse gasses and with current methods of production, it is not sustainable

Blue fin tuna? These things have been way over fished and are endangered. Not sustainable, just try it once and move one with your life.

Tilapia ? These things grow like weeds and can be fed efficiently. Go ahead, good source of protein for your diet.

Honey? We need bees and they are an important pollinator for crops. Go nuts (just watch your sugar intake}

Almonds? Takes huge amounts of water to grow and exacerbates droughts in the areas they are farmed. Eat less of these.

Potatoes? Grow stupid easily in all sorts of conditions. Go nuts.

fungi?