Learned an interesting tidbit yesterday: Turns out that there's a big debate in the vegan community
over whether honey is okay to eat. The hardcore vegans argue that it's an animal product and that even though it's an excretion, the bees are imprisoned. The honey-eaters, on the other hand, argue that if you avoid honey you have to consider everything bees are used for: "Honey accounts for only a small percentage of the total honeybee economy in the United States; most comes from the use of rental hives to pollinate fruit and vegetable crops."
Also, following some links off the article I was
reading a bit about pearls (which also aren't vegan). The suggestion is that vegans who really want them should wear fake ones, which brings up a whole other interesting issue: Other people don't know you're wearing fakes and you're therefore elevating the pearl in society (and thus the killing of oysters for them). (The same could be said about people who buy fake diamonds because they are against the
diamond industry.)