"A scrupulous eater must also attend to calcium mesoinositol, sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate, disodium guanylate, and dozens more unpronounceable, animal-derived chemicals."

I'd like to know what the other unpronounceable chemicals are so I think I'll try to have a good look at Rowan Jacobson's handbook. The author fails to say what bees need honey for, but if its for food, then by all accounts taking it from them seems wrong if doing so is avoidable.

On a grand scale of life a single bee might justifiably be esteemed lower than a cow, but it sounds like a gaggle of bees are worth more than a single cow because of the nutrition derived from the large amount of crops which they pollination, so its probably best to rank allot of bees higher than a single cow, yet when one living thing is said to have a higher worth than another, it can be said th thing is out of place or a superfluous luxury foisted upon us by slick advertising and sharp dealing

However to speak of matters I know nothing of, as I've grave doubts as to whether bees are needed to pollinate the crops listed and that "commercial bees are used in the production of about 100 foods, including almonds, avocados, broccoli, canola, cherries, cucumbers, lettuce, peaches, pears, plums, sunflowers, and tomatoes. Even the clover and alfalfa crops we feed to dairy cows are sometimes pollinated by bees," is pretentious though this issue heightens my desire to know more about how the bees which succor these crops are treated; and where they come from, if their use is at all avoidable, or more hospitably facilitated, and whether or not humans and bees can ever have a profitable relationship together etc.

Overall, I've got to give heavy bee use a thumbs down for the practical purpose of disavowing what seems to me, wasteful luxury though I'm not a monk.