I have a question for vegans?!

Vegan enough. It's not a stupid question at all. Plain fresh orange juice is vegan. I am fortunate to have an orange tree in my yard. Fruit at the store may be coated with wax from various sources. Some of the juice you purchase from the store may have added things like vitamin D3. Vitamin D3 has two basic sources when added to foods or supplements-- fish or most often the lanolin from sheep's wool. They take material from the lanolin and irradiate it to produce vitamin D3, cholecalciferol. So if that's in juice, it's not considered vegan. D2 is vegan.

Some fruit is coated with shellac. Shellac is secreted by scale insects. Here's information on shellac http://www.vegansociety.com/hubpage.aspx… Veganism is not perfect, and you do whatever is practical or possible. Insects are killed, for example, in the production of fruits and vegetables to protect crops. Shellac is not the only wax used. According to the U.S. Apple Association, "They come from natural sources including carnauba wax, from the leaves of a Brazilian palm; candellia wax, derived from reed-like desert plants of the genus Euphorbia; and food-grade shellac, which comes from a secretion of the lac bug found in India and Pakistan." http://www.usapple.org/consumers/wax.cfm Sometimes beeswax is also used for citrus fruits like oranges. If you're eating straight from the earth, fruit is totally vegan.

You have to draw the line somewhere. There is no perfect veganism in a world that casually uses massive amounts of animal products. As there's a very tiny amount of wax used mixed with liquid, and I wash, scrub or peel all my fruits and vegetables, and not all fruits contain animal-derived waxes, it's vegan enough for me. In the US, there are FDA wax labeling requirements for food, believe it or not. They will either say, "coated with food grade animal wax," or "coated with food grade vegetable, petroleum, beeswax and/or shellac based wax or resin." (or something similar) Sometimes only the wax used will be named. If it's something that's important to you, that is where to look.

From the Produce Marketing Association: "Commodities that may have coatings applied include apples, avocados, bell peppers, cantaloupes, cucumbers, eggplants, grapefruits, lemons, limes, melons, oranges, parsnips, passion fruit, peaches, pineapples, pumpkins, rutabagas, squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, turnips, and yucca. However, they are not always waxed." http://www.pma.com/resources/issues-moni…

http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/ComplianceManua…
http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/…
http://www.greenhouse.colostate.edu/safe…
http://www.nwhort.org/PDFs/FreshFruitLab…
http://www.veganoutreach.org/howvegan.ht…

And here's an interesting article on wax coatings from the people that pay close attention to ingredients for religious reasons-- Jewish OU kosher labelers: http://www.oukosher.org/index.php/common…

All fruits and vegetables are as vegan as you can get.
There will always be a chance that your food may have some traces of animal products, but fruits and veggies are your best bet for being free of them :)

I'm a vegetarian

You might be thinking about pesticides. All fruits and vegetables are vegan. Unless one grows there own food, it is hard to ensure that everything a vegan eats is actually vegan. We try our best.

Vegan.

Yeah they are vegan. The insects that are on them aren't.

Most vegans just do the best they can, and that is good.

If a piece of produce is coated with shellac, it is technically not vegan. Shellac is derived from resin that female lac beetles leave on the bark of trees they infect. To be honest, i have no idea how often shellac is used as a wax for fruits and veggies, but I was surprised a few years ago to see a sign announcing which produce items were coated with it, and it made me wonder if it would always be announced like that. Orange juice should be vegan, unless you buy a kind enhanced with calcium that was animal derived.