Today I Learned
What did you learn today? Share it with us!
We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.
** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**
Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Partnered Communities
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
view the rest of the comments
If it was that they like just scraped bug shit off trees maybe, but shellac industry is ultimately a farming industry that kills millions of insects. Many vegans don’t eat honey either.
Some vegans do eat shellac and honey, of course. It’s not there’s official rules aside from “no animal products”. Do insects count? That’s up to you. Some people are vegan for health reasons, some for moral reasons.
Insects absolutely do count. The only shellac products I have (that I know of) are some old records from the '40s. Lac bugs are kind of cute so that makes me sad.
Edit: I'm not vegan but I'd like to be once I figure out some personal issues, both financial and dietary.
*real vegans dont eat honey, it's an animal product. Insects are part of the animal kingdom. Same could be said about shellac as it is the animal product of the lac bug. I know a few "vegans" that are vegan EXCEPT they eat honey. These are exceptions outside of being vegan, by definition. Not trying to be a prick and demean anybody that identifies as vegan yet consumes honey just stating the facts here ... The lac bugs that produce shellac are very odd creatures! But all insects are part of the animal kingdom no matter how u dice it
re: "real vegans"
There's more than one way to define veganism. Primary distinction: is it about avoiding animal products whenever possible or is it about minimizing animal suffering/exploitation whenever possible? (Sub-argument, what counts as "exploitation"?)
I feel that no matter what you do, there will always be some level of suffering by something.
Unless you’re entirely lab growing all of your food in some sterile environment, but then it’s a matter of how you’re sourcing energy and disposing of waste to prevent harming creatures. I believe we’re still a ways off from entirely lab grown foods being a sustainable/economically viable option for most people as well.
Transportation of any kind will lead to the deaths of animals and insects. Even if you’re not operating a vehicle.
Personally, I feel that drawing the line at insects being non-vegan is a bit arbitrary, since at that point why is plant suffering not taken into account? Plants are multicellular organisms that respond to stimuli. They are living organisms, they reproduce, and they have a form of respiration.
I’m not vegan but I like to live based on harm reduction where I can. I’m thankful to the organisms that are helping to fuel me and it is for that reason I try my best to avoid being wasteful. I’m from a family that has hunted for food and we always made sure that no parts went to waste from an animal’s sacrifice. We also only ever went for as much as we needed, not the maximum allowed.
This is pretty much the point I aim for whenever I talk about veganism. It is arbitrary, but strong proponents tend to frame it as an obvious moral truth. I'm with you: be aware of and grateful for everything that contributes to your life and livelihood.
My own brand of "harm reduction" means eschewing plastic whenever possible, this means leather and wool instead of polyester and vinyl (cotton and linen can't do everything, and vegetable leather just isn't durable)
That’s a brand of thought I could subscribe more to, thank you for sharing your perspective.
Ultimately I agree with you but semantically there are absolutely people who call themselves vegan that do not closely read labels for things like shellac. They just concern themselves for dairy, meat, etc either because it is a health concern or they don’t consider insects animals.
Similarly there are people who consider themselves vegetarian and eat tons of gelatin based candy despite the fact that gelatin cannot be made without killing an animal.
Doesn’t even get into refined/white sugar and the whole bone char thing!