Thursday, January 21, 2010

Bees!!! and a canker sore

I have this stupid canker sore. Not as bad as the one I had at the end of last winter though. At least I can eat and talk and be alive without thinking about this one. It really only annoys me when I brush my teeth. I feel like I'm making it worse. I'm not though. These things are all the same; they show up suddenly, stick around without changing for whatever period of time they seem fit, and they they disappear just as quickly as they came. They don't get worse or better, they are either there, or gone. This one is not gone. Maybe a few more days.

Whatever, that's not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about the weather I think. There's a January thaw happening right now and it feels nice. The weather has been above freezing for most of the day and then everything gets icy again at night. The news man on the radio said that bees need a warm day or two every month to leave their hives and take a dump. I feel like my brain might need sunny days like that as well to take a spiritual dump. Whatever that means. I clearly need more sun.

I'm reading a book called Generation A (yeah, I put the plant book on hold and didn't update my website. Oh hush, you don't even care). It's all about the not-distant future where bees are extinct. No bees. None of those pollinators we've come to rely so heavily on. An exotic species in this country, but so are most of the crops we grow, so it makes sense. We've changed our eco system and it's working out. Except bees really aren't doing so well, so this book isn't so unbelievable. It's fiction by the way, not some kind of apocalyptic sustainability book.

Anyway this brings me to my next point: honey. I know, I know, honey is not vegan. I got it. But put the whining on hold for a second and let me point out my thoughts on my own personal honey consumption. I eat honey. I eat it rather frequently. I realize the issues with large-scale commercial honey farms (if you don't, then you might want to check this out). I agree with honey being an animal product that is collected in ways which I would consider cruel. I won't buy silk because I think silk production is cruel, so why include honey in my diet?

The reasons, which I have thought very hard about, are simple. I have terrible allergies in the spring. I can not function as a normal human being without medication. Medication is tested on animals in the cruelest ways possible. However! eating local honey in the winter can help your body become immune to pollen in the spring. It's like a delicious and sweet allergy shot to go with my morning oatmeal. If eating some honey in the winter, which I get from a beekeeping friend (who does not kill his bees, or clip their wings, or burn their hives) will mean that I won't need to purchase allergy medication, then I'm going to eat honey. I'm not buying honey from anyone else. I don't buy pre-packaged food which might contain honey and I pretty much cook all of my meals, so the honey thing doesn't come up often in my life. It would be awesome if, in a few seasons, I didn't need allergy medication or immune system building honey, but right now I'm certainly choosing the lesser of two evils.

I realize I'm probably going get a huge lecture on this at some point. The honey debate is a huge one in vegan communities and I would say that I agree with the non-honey eating vegans. I do agree with them. I also think that bees are important pollinators and if they do disappear (which they have been doing, though we don't really know why), we are pretty much fucked. So if my local friend (who worships his bees by the way), can raise a happy, healthy colony, then more power to him. He's an incredibly irresponsible guy and his hives will probably end up swarming and creating wild hives anyway.

Bzz

1 comment:

  1. I agree with your local honey eating. Also, spirulina capsules and L-Lysine will help a lot with your canker sores.

    ReplyDelete