Confused about What Vegan Really Is?

Okay...so this story makes me feel a little guilty.  Stick with me!

Earlier this week at work, one of the women from another department brought me a bag of homemade cookies.  She had apparently been passing out little bags of cookies to lots of different people.  When she came to my office, she said, "I know you're vegan, so I made you these special cookies."  I thought that was very sweet.  She started naming off ingredients like quinoa flour and such, and then she said honey.  I couldn't help it, but I just blurted out, "I don't eat honey."  It's true.  I don't.  Most vegans don't.  It's animal protein (even though it's an insect and not a large animal), but I also don't appreciate what bees go through when we steal their honey.  Daniel Hammer, in his article entitled "Is Honey Vegan?", explains it best:

Honeybees . . . are able to experience pain and suffering . . . . Honey, beeswax, bee pollen, royal jelly, propolis and venom are taken from bees for human uses. In the process of acquiring these, beekeepers regularly disturb the bees’ homes by removing the honeycombs from the hive. When this is done some bees will inevitably be injured or crushed, and any bees who sting the beekeepers will also die.

So, anyway, I blurted out, "I don't eat honey," implying that I wouldn't eat the cookies. 

She frowned and said, "What?  You don't eat honey?  Why not?" 

I replied, "It's an animal product." 

She said, "Animal?" 

I then said, "Yes, lots of vegans don't eat honey." 

Again: "Why not?"

"Do you know what they do to bees to get their honey?"

Then her tone completely changed and she said, "Oh.  You're one of those PETA vegans, huh?"

I'd been reading Rory Freedman (an outspoken well-known vegan) earlier that day and felt empowered.  I kept my tone calm and said, "I am vegan for every reason there is to be a vegan--for health, the planet, and animals."

Anyway, both she and I agreed that my carnivorous children would enjoy the cookies, and the next day I composed a Thank You card where I simply thanked her for the thought and told her I appreciated it.  But I felt guilty.  Guilty because I'd looked a gift horse in the mouth.  Guilty because someone had done something so completely selfless and unsolicited.  Guilty because I could have simply just said, "Thank you."  But I didn't.  I told her my feelings.  Even without the honey, I don't eat a lot of sugar anyway.  I suppose it would have been easy enough (I guess) to simply say thanks.  In fact, when I related the story to my husband and daughter, they slapped their foreheads (a la "I coulda had a V-8") and said I should have simply thanked her.

But it's not that easy.

You see, the longer I am vegan, the more firmly I feel about my eating convictions.  And I wanted to set the record straight.  This woman told me a while back that her daughter is vegetarian.  Well, what if her daughter becomes vegan?  If the daughter were to become vegan, well, at least her mom will have a heads up about honey.  And, while we're on that subject, not all sugar is vegan either.  In fact, most cane sugar is not vegan, and it's because of the filtering process.  When I use sugar, I usually use Sugar in the Raw (which is vegan) or Sucanat. If you're curious to learn more, you can read "The Great Sugar Debate: Is it Vegan?"

So, I suppose I need to be calmer, but if you're going to cook for a vegan, you might want to find out what that means.  For example, I would have been perfectly happy with Agave in those cookies!  :)