I am still working out being vegan. The basics are easy enough, but there are vegans ‘rules’ aside from the obvious which are not always logical to me.
The most common definition of veganism is:
"Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."
But there are uses of animal products that I don’t think are necessarily exploitative. Use of animal manure for instance. Vegans will not use animal manure on the garden, but as a waste product I don’t see it as being exploitative. I suppose that it could be argued that the animal providing the manure is being exploited, but I don’t see that collecting the manure is contributing to the exploitation. It is not as if the animals are being kept to provide the manure.
Eggs are another example. Certainly eggs produced on a chicken farm are exploitative. but if chickens are kept and cared for at home then surely the eggs are either eaten or wasted. Yes chickens are bread to produce eggs, and wild birds would not naturally lay eggs in that quantity, but we are providing safety and food and shelter for the birds, and the eggs would be wasted otherwise. (One vegan I spoke to suggested feeding the eggs back to the chickens, which seems unnecessary when the birds are being provided with more appropriate food.)
On a deeper level I suspect that our involvement in the food cycle with our companion animals is a form of connection with nature that it is important, and not fully understood by ‘city vegans’.
Honey is an animal product so vegans will not eat it. The honey is food for the bees and we are stealing it. Fair point … but billions of bees are badly exploited to pollinate fruit and almond trees. Yet vegans will happily drink the resulting almond milk. It seems that the qualifier “as far as possible” provides for a lot of, admittedly necessary, latitude. My point is that my neighbour keeps bees and collects some of the honey to eat. He leaves the bees with enough for their own food, as not doing that would be counter productive. So by eating that honey I am less exploitative than drinking almond milk. Commercially produced honey is of course another matter.
With this in mind I still describe myself as vegan for the purposes of easily defining my food choices, but I allow myself a little flexibility in the way I have discussed above. More accurately I describe myself as supporting sustainable and ethical food systems, and living in accordance with that.
Wool clothing is another example worth considering. For suitable warm clothing the options are fur/leather, wool or synthetic polymer. Leather or fur is clearly not acceptable, but in choosing between wool and synthetics we need to consider that synthetic fibre is basically a plastic made from fossil hydrocarbons, with all the negative environmental impacts for humans and animals, wool on the other hand is biodegradable. While keeping sheep for wool is in some ways exploitative the processes are becoming, under pressure from the community, less exploitative. Although I haven’t needed to buy wool clothing since becoming vegan, I think that I will continue to purchase wool clothing occasionally, particularly when an alternative is not practical (Tennis balls, overcoats and dress hats). Having said that I think it is more important to minimize what we buy generally, and purchase quality clothing that is needed, rather than fast fashion with all the associated issues. Only buying what we need, and/or purchasing secondhand, is the most sustainable and ethical choice for animals and humans.
In veganism, as with most things, we find our own path which is rarely perfect, but better than doing nothing.