I Heart Michael Greger; also, Sweet Tea Recipe!

After my post earlier this week that had very little to do with honey, but became all about honey some how, I have really been thinking hard about why I define myself as a vegan. The majority of self-proclaimed vegans will certainly say that I am not truly vegan. While I respect their views, I have decided that while honey is something that I could certainly live without and will probably give up altogether in the future, I can still happily and proudly call myself a vegan even though I sometimes use it. Veganism is not about personal purity. It is about the animals. For example, I sometimes choose honey to sweeten Sweet Tea (super simple recipe at the bottom!) rather than white sugar, which we NEVER have in the house. White sugar, while not always processed using bone char, is still hell for the planet and the animals - and bugs - that live on it. Honey, produced locally and as ethically as possible, is a far more planet and bug friendly choice, and right now I do not feel guilty for making that choice (hear that haters? you can stop spamming my Facebook inbox now!)

Here's one of the best quotes I have ever read that really gets to the point of why I don't think vegans have to be perfect:

I'm afraid that our public avoidance of honey is hurting us as a movement. A certain number of bees are undeniably killed by honey production, but far more insects are killed, for example, in sugar production. And if we really cared about bugs we would never again eat anything either at home or in a restaurant that wasn't strictly organically grown—after all, killing bugs is what pesticides do best. And organic production uses pesticides too (albeit "natural"). Researchers measure up to approximately 10,000 bugs per square foot of soil—that’s over 400 million per acre, 250 trillion per square mile. Even "veganically" grown produce involves the deaths of countless bugs in lost habitat, tilling, harvesting and transportation. We probably kill more bugs driving to the grocery store to get some honey-sweetened product than are killed in the product’s production. 

Our position on honey therefore just doesn't make any sense, and I think the general population knows this on an intuitive level. Veganism for them, then, becomes more about some quasi-religious personal purity, rather than about stopping animal abuse. No wonder veganism can seem nonsensical to the average person. We have this kind of magical thinking; we feel good about ourselves as if we’re actually helping the animals obsessing about where some trace ingredient comes from, when in fact it may have the opposite effect. We may be hurting animals by making veganism seem more like petty dogmatic self-flagellation. 

In my eyes, if we choose to avoid honey, fine. Let’s just not make a huge production of it and force everybody to do the same if they want to join the club. 

You can read his whole essay here.


That's all I'm going to say about honey for now.

Sweet Tea:
Ingredients
2 FULL tea bags (you know, the ones you can buy at David's Tea that you can fill yourself, but make them really full!) of your favourite Black or Rooibos tea
    If you don't have fillable tea bags, you can use regular tea bags,  but use 3 or 4
1.5 Litres of water
1/4 cup maple syrup, or GASP honey (I actually use maple syrup more often than honey, because it is easier to come by)
1/2 lemon

Directions
Put your water in a pot (or kettle, I guess...but then the rest of the instructions won't make any sense) and bring to a boil. Turn on low and add your tea bags. Let it bubble a little, then turn it off and cover it to let it steep. I usually let it sit for about an hour before taking out the bags... or even longer  because sometimes I forget I was making tea and take a nap. Then, add your sweetener of choice and stir. While it cools down squeeze half the lemon in there (or don't if you don't like lemon). Once its cool enough, pour it into a pitcher and put it in the fridge, covered, to finish cooling. Pour over ice, and serve over ice with a fresh slice of lemon and then sit in the sun and think about all the cool things you would do if you won a cool million.

Happy Thursday!

-J