Is Honey Vegan? Truth About Bees & Ethical Alternatives

Is Honey Vegan? Truth About Bees & Ethical Alternatives. Honey is the energy source of bees; without it they would starve. Honey also provides essential nutrients during poorer weather and the winter months. The honey bee, the genus of bee used in commercial honey production, will visit up to 1500 flowers in order to collect enough nectar to fill its ‘honey stomach’; a second, separate stomach in which enzymes begin to break down the nectar into honey. After returning to the hive, this is regurgitated and chewed by ‘house bees’ to complete the honey-making process. The hive works as a collective to provide each member with an adequate supply, each bee producing just a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime: significantly less than most people would expect. Honey is fundamental to the hive’s wellbeing.

What is honey?

Honey is a thick sticky substance created by bees as a source of food. It’s mostly sugar, with fructose and glucose making up around 70 to 80 percent. Water makes up the rest (approximately 17 percent), alongside small amounts of pollen and minerals.

This nutritional profile gives honey a sweet taste, which has led humans to use it in a variety of food and beverages for centuries, including teas, cakes, and sauces. Honey is sometimes found in cosmetics and other beauty products, too.

What the Vegan Founders Say

Is Honey Vegan? Truth About Bees & Ethical Alternatives. One of the advantages of being vegan is that the Vegan Society can be used as a reference of standards as far as vegan practice is concerned. It’s handy to still have available for consultation the organisation that created the word “vegan” and first defined veganism. When doubting if something is suitable for vegans or not, it is worth checking with the Vegan Society, because although this does not mean you have to agree, it does mean you will have a good idea about what the “orthodox” lifelong vegans are likely to think about it. 

So, what does the Vegan Society say about honey?  It has rejected it from the very beginning, even if with time the honeyvores beegans fought back. In 1944 (when the society was created), honey was considered non-vegan by the majority of its members (although it has been reported that some founding members, such as Mable Cluer, continued consuming it). This is what Donal Watson, the most well-known founder of the society, wrote in 1945:

“At the committee meeting, the question of the use of honey called for special consideration and the decision to eliminate it from the vegan diet will, in the mind of some readers, call for justification. Those of us who eliminated dairy products before honey met with considerable criticism from people who, perhaps in defence of their own milk drinking, contended that the production of honey entailed exploitation “far worse” than that associated with the production of dairy produce, for the simple reason that it concerns inconceivable numbers of creatures.

What Ethical Vegans Say Today

Bees are sentient beings with the capacity to suffer. If other arthropods, such as decapod crustaceans, have been officially recognised as sentient beings, it should be obvious that social bees, with their very sophisticated societies, high intelligence, and complex communication (the famous dancing to tell their sisters where there is nice food, how far is it, and how much is there, has been well-known since the 1970s) are also sentient. There have been plenty of studies showing how bees feel pain, and some suggest that they are not just sentient, but also possess consciousness. Therefore, like any other sentient being, if they are exploited against their will, and if they are stressed, injured, or killed by humans during such exploitation, vegans should not participate in it —and the most common way to do that is not to purchase or consume the products of such exploitation.

I am an ethical vegan (meaning that I follow the official definition of veganism to the full) and I have not consumed honey since I became vegan in 2002. But this is not because of my affinity for wasps (you can read about it in my article “The Thing About Wasps”). Most of the ethical vegans I know don’t consume any honey or bee products either, so it is not just me (dietary vegans who only apply veganism in their diet are much more likely to consume honey, and plant-based people who only care about their health and fitness even more, but in my experience, most of these don’t consume it either). Why? Because it’s cruel exploitation of sentient beings, which ethical vegans try to avoid. I summarise the main reasons in my book “Ethical Vegan: a personal and political journey to change the world”. This is what I wrote: 

“You may have noticed honey is on the list of ingredients I avoid, and you may think this is controversial because some vegans eat it. It’s very straightforward, really. From the very beginning, the Vegan Society included honey in the list of substances not suitable for vegans, as it comes from animal exploitation. When bee farmers remove honey from a hive, they replace it with a sugar substitute significantly worse for the bees’ health. In conventional beekeeping, bees are selectively bred to increase productivity – as in any other type of farming – which changes their genes and increases their susceptibility to disease. Hives are also sometimes killed to keep costs down, individual bee workers are often harmed or accidentally killed during the careless process of removing the honey, and queen bees are sometimes mutilated to prevent them leaving.

Why Environmentalists Should Not Consume Honey Either

The Vegan Society has even more arguments against the use of honey than the ones I listed in my book, and some of them would be very relevant to environmentalists. For instance, they mention how the mass breeding of honeybees affects the populations of other competing nectar-foraging insects, including other wild bees (such as the many species of solitary bees there are). 

Like cows or pigs, domestic honey bees are now genetically modified farmed animals bred for human interests, and breeding large numbers of them, and moving hives from one area to another (the so-called migratory beekeeping), is something commercial beekeepers often do. And like in factory farming, the environment pays the price. Farmed hives can overwhelm an area, pushing other native wild bees away from food sources. They can also help non-native plants outcompete native plants that native bees need, can damage flowers, and can take nectar from a plant without pollinating it as the plant evolved to be pollinated by another species.

Because of the honey industry, the number of native bumblebees has declined. This is not only because they are competing for food, but also because honey bees spread diseases into the wild. A study from 2019 found that viruses in managed honeybees are spilling over to wild bumblebee populations through the shared use of flowers, and the authors recommend that commercial apiaries may need to be kept away from areas where there are vulnerable native pollinator species, like the endangered rusty patched bumblebee.

Honeyvorism and Veganism Are Not Compatible

In summary, exploiting bees to produce honey for humans is not good for people’s health, it’s not good for the environment, it’s not good for local wild bees, and it’s definitely not good for the farmed honey bees either, who will be suffering from their exploitation. And even if you try to avoid most of these harms by only keeping a bee colony in your backyard, if you still forcibly steal the honey from their colony against the bees’ will, you are still harming them. 

As we vegans want to avoid any harm being done to anyone that can be harmed (the ancient concept of ahimsa), this is why we do not consume honey. As simple as that. 

However, I know that people’s mental circumstances sometimes force them to stick to some food they know they should not eat, but somehow, they can’t help it. This compulsion may be connected to something very deep in their psyche that prevents them to replace bee honey with any golden sticky sweet animal-free alternative (ginger syrup, rice syrup, agave syrup, date syrup, dandelion syrup, maple syrup, apple-based Vegan Honea, or Coconut nectar). Not to worry. Even in these cases, a bee-free solution can be found. The California start-up MeliBiose uses precision fermentation processes to produce what they call molecular identical honey to that produced by bees but without the use of any bee (not even bee cells). 

What to use instead of honey?

There are lots of honey substitutes out there, including natural plant-based alternatives to keep in your kitchen and vegan honey products you can buy. In no particular order, here are 17 plant-based swaps for honey that are bee-free, but just as sweet as the real thing.

Plant-based honey substitutes

1. Maple syrup

Tapped from maple trees, maple syrup has a sweet, earthy flavor with hints of caramel and toffee. It’s perfect for drizzling on pancakes, waffles, and oatmeal, or as a sweetener in baking.

2. Date syrup

Dates are frequently used in cakes and sweet treats but they can also be made into syrup by soaking, boiling, and sieving. Date syrup has a rich, caramel-like sweetness and can be used to sweeten smoothies, yogurt, energy bars, and desserts.

Biona makes an organic date syrup, or try your hand at making your own using Lazy Cat Kitchen’s recipe.

3. Agave nectar

Agave nectar comes from agave plants, which are succulents native to Mexico. It has a mild, neutral taste that works well in beverages, dressings, and as a substitute for honey in recipes. The syrup contains less glucose than refined sugars and is a great way to sweeten a cup of tea.

The Groovy Food Company produces a wide range of agave nectars, with flavors like Blueberry, Cinnamon, Strawberry, and Vanilla.

4. Rice syrup

Rice syrup, also known as brown rice syrup and rice malt syrup, has a mildly sweet and slightly nutty taste. It’s made from whole grain brown rice, is gluten-free, and is sticky like maple syrup. Brown rice syrup is of Chinese origin, and is used in sweet and savory dishes alike.

5. Barley malt syrup

Like brown rice syrup, barley malt is the concentrated sweetener from whole grain barley. It has a mild, sweet, and nutty flavor. People often use it in breads, desserts, or to make malted drinks.

6. Coconut nectar

This nectar comes from the sap of coconut trees and has a gentle coconut flavor. Minimally processed, it is widely considered purer than syrups made from coconut sugar. It can be drizzled on pancakes, stirred into coffee, or made into glazes.

7. Molasses

A naturally rich source of plant-based iron, molasses is exceptionally sweet. It’s got a strong bite to it too, making its flavor distinct and slightly smoky. Use it in your favorite baking recipes, but ideally halve it with another more neutral sweetener like rice syrup or agave nectar. It works well in gingerbread cookies, dark bread, and barbecue sauces.

8. Sorghum syrup

Sorghum syrup is made from the grassy sorghum plant and resembles molasses. It has earthy tones, and can help add sweetness to baked goods.

9. Fruit syrups

Concentrated fruit syrups can work as honey substitutes in baking recipes. Or, mixed with maple for a sweet topping to your pancakes, waffles, or toast.

10. Raw sugar

Swapping out liquid honey with raw sugar in baked goods takes a bit of finessing but can be done. You typically just need to up your liquid content.

Here are five frequently asked questions (FAQs) about whether honey is vegan and ethical alternatives: