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Tag: pollinators

Why People Say Almonds and Avocados Are Not Vegan

Posted in Blog.

Avocados and Almonds are [Vegan] Red Herrings

Ever since this ridiculous clip from (one of my favorite shows), QI, the Internet has been abuzz!

The fact that there’s so much buzz around whether or not avocados and almonds are VEGAN and that vegans are hypocrites for eating them reveals four things to me:

  • 1. that non-vegans love to play the gotcha game.
  • 2. that vegans haven’t done a very good job clarifying what “vegan” means.
  • 3. that almonds and avocados have become red herrings to distract and deflect away from violence in animal factories and slaughterhouses.
  • 4. non-vegans who use this argument are belying the fact that they have no other strong defense for justifying eating animals.
  • 5. Vegans take the bait every single time.

Vegans Are Imperfect Because Humans Are Imperfect.

Here’s what I think.

There is no such thing as a certified vegan, and there is no way to attain perfection or purity — as imperfect humans in an imperfect world.

And that’s not what being vegan is about.

So…should I eat foie gras because my organic kale was grown in soil amended with chicken manure? Should I eat pork and chicken’s wings because the apples I buy were pollinated with domesticated honeybees?

That makes absolutely no sense.

The idea that we should do nothing because we can’t do everything is illogical and self-defeatist. Don’t do nothing because you can’t do everything. Do something. Anything.

This is Not a Vegan Problem. It’s a Human Problem.

What’s more, before European colonists brought the honeybee to the United States, native bees alone pollinated all the wild flowering plants and the crops grown by indigenous peoples. That was before we replaced diverse habitat with monoculture (almonds and avocados).

So, the reason farmers RENT bees is because we’re wiping out native bee populations and because these monocrops are intensively farmed.

THIS ISN’T A VEGAN PROBLEM TO SOLVE. This is A HUMAN problem that CAN be solved with some resourcefulness, ingenuity, foresight, and frankly compassion on the part of farmers, scientists, and policy-makers. 

You wanna help bees? Stop wasting time criticizing vegans for doing something. Look in your own back garden to see what you can do to make a difference, and don’t do nothing!

Imperfection is built into begin vegan, because imperfection is built in to being human.