Vegans - Why is it okay to eat plants?

Question

They are also alive

Most people: It is okay to kill both animals and plants

Vegetarians/Vegans: It is okay to kill plants, but not animals

We're not superior to animals, but we are to plants?

All answers appreciated :3

Answer 1

do plants have nervous systems?  feel emotions? suffer? feel pain? feel happiness?

nope.

is your dog equal to a carrot?

nope.

that's why.

Answer 2

Oh, sweetie. you should take a logic class.

Our objection to eating meat is not because animals are ALIVE but because they are as fully sentient and capable of suffering as we are, and torrturing them and killing them tends to cause a lot of that suffering and so should be avoided.

We know from our middle school biology class that animals are more highly evolved and self-aware than are plants, so YES, we are superior to plants. And you know what else? WE ARE ANIMALS.

Answer 3

Animals are sentient, plants, as far as we can tell, are not. Just because something is 'living' does not make it a living being, a conscious, aware, thinking feeling life. Bacteria and viruses are alive, are vegans now hypocrites for having immune systems?

Humans can't survive without eating plants, so it'd be ridiculous to starve to death because of some uncertainty about plants being sentient. I know animals are sentient, but I don't know plants are sentient. Eating them to survive is therefore pretty logical. I'm not going to kill myself (myself being a being who I know is sentient) to protect plants, that I'm pretty certain aren't sentient. Most people using this type of thinking to attack vegans would probably go even more ballastic if someone did that!

Criticising vegans for not doing enough, while meat-eaters do nothing is pretty non-sensicle. First of all, humans don't need meat and animal products to survive, but they do need plants. Second is the above point - we can't survive without them. Third is the fact that vegans actually destroy a lot less plants than meat-eaters - it takes 16lb of grain to produce 1lb of meat, so meat-eaters 'kill' around 17 times as many plants as vegans.

If, for the sake of argument, plants are truly sentient, then the best course of action would be to adopt a fruitatarian diet - fruit etc. has evolved to be eaten, and this diet does not have to involve the entire plant being destroyed.

However, how the h**l are we going to get to global fruitatarianism if people can't recognise that beings we KNOW FOR SURE are sentient have rights? If plants have rights, then veganism is the next logical step towards not exploiting sentient beings. In the case of this hypothetical, criticising vegans would still be illogical.

Answer 4

"They are also alive"

Your point?

"We're not superior to animals, but we are to plants?"

Uh, we **ARE** animals.

You don't believe that we are superior to plants?

I certainly do.

Vegan people do not eat anything derived from *ANIMALS*.

There is no definition that says we don't eat any living organisms. I've also never read anywhere that vegan people belive that other animals are their equals.

Answer 5

It has nothing to do with animal superiority or plant inferiority. #1, the conditions they raise food animals in this country in are deplorable, filthy, painful, and inhumane. And they have lakes of cesspools of liguid animal f***s we just don't know what to do with.

#2. Animals feel pain, and try to get away from it. They have nerves, a spinal cord and a brain so that they can practice fight or flight when danger comes.

Why would a plant have the ability to perceive pain if it can't get away anyway? They may feel some sensations, but if I chopped off a stalk of broccoli and chopped your leg off, who would react more violently?

Animals are living beings that have the right to live out their lives on this earth in the manner intended for them. Not slaughtered.

Answer 6

because we hate plants.  

Answer 7

Well if you feel that way....save a plant. Eat a rock =]

Im not a vegatarian because I love animals..

Because I HATE plants D:<

=]

Answer 8

Plant's don't feel pain. They can't suffer. Period.

Answer 9

Not a stupid question. You have a higher intuition & conscience.

But for many, this statement is often made by people trying to rationalize that since plants feel pain, it must be okay to kill animals. They usually never make the similar leap of saying that since plants feel pain it must be okay to kill humans.

For plants to feel physical pain, they must have some sort of organized tissue which, upon stimulation, would activate a structure in the plant that is conscious and could perceive the stimulation as painful. There are no structures within plants that are analogs to the pain receptors, neurons, and pain-perceiving portions of the brains of vertebrate animals. Animals, being mobile, benefit from their ability to sense pain; but plants simply have no biological or evolutionary need for the experience of pain. Even if, contrary to all evidence, plants did feel pain, it would still be preferable to be vegan. More plants are killed in non-vegan diets, as more plants must be harvested to feed animals.

However, if you still persist that killing plants is wrong and paradigm shift to a fruitorian is necessary, then only the vegetarians are “there” to follow you! Such diet evolution is clearly defined in ethical and spiritual manner, i.e Paleolithic diet, Omnivorous, Lacto-Ovo, Vegetarian, Vegan, Raw Vegan (RVAW), Fruitorian, Macrobial, and finally Breatharian.

Answer 10

Sentience and suffering separate plants from animals.

Answer 11

Sensitive Issue from a Sensitive Asker I'm gathering

;-)

Well, in all honesty, I understand what you mean - who are WE in the grand scheme of things to choose this but not that, or do this action but not that, but I guess Humans are fundamentally selfish and it comes down to do you want to live or die?

I guess, live now, eat respectfully, give thanks to whatever food source had to die to feed you and when you meet your maker, work it out with them....explain your choices then.

:-)

If we questioned our every action, we'd never get around to living!

All The Best & Take Care

:-)

Answer 12

Please let me explain my point of view; I am not against eating or killing animals, I am against torturing them. I went vegan not because I don't believe animals were made for killing, I went vegan because animals are tortured and scalded and have their heads literally ripped off... rather that being shot like they used to. Plants are simply pulled from the groun, therefore, they are already dead. And to add unto that, though plants are living (while they are still in the ground), they do not have delicate tissues and muscles... no blood, no pulse.... They cannot feel things. Hope I helped. Oh, and this is a funny song, just for kicks...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmK0bZl4I...

Answer 13

It's the concept of "Most Good, Least Harm" to give you an idea.

For those who eat meat they are not only responsible for those lives of the animals but also for the much more substantial amounts of plants the animal has to eat to provide just one pound of meat (and that includes all the animals that are killed harvesting the animal feed).

A meat diet versus a soy diet?

http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2005/10/...

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Meat production took more land (6 to 17 times as much), water (4.4 to 26 times), fossil fuels (6 to 20 times), and biocides (a lumped-together category of pesticides and chemicals used in processing -- 6 times as much).

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However, plants produce their fruits and offer them up as a symbiotic relationship to get their seeds spread so we are actually doing them a favor. If plants feel then they are likely grateful (except those that have been lost in extinction because of massive mono-cropping for animal feed).

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/plants/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNezTsrCY...

We also save all kinds of animal and plant life indirectly because the manure run-off of the Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and the chemical run-offs from the fields the animal feed are grown go into the ocean and create hypoxic dead zones that kill everything in the area; and we aren't causing the forests (especially in South America) to be cut down to grow more animal feed so we aren't causing the extinction of those animals or those plants. In fact, if we eat more Brazil Nuts we are helping Rain Forest to be saved since the tree that makes the nuts needs about 5 miles of forest surrounding it to produce because the bee that polinates it needs a particular orchId to be able to attract a mate. Acai berry is another sustainable Rain Forest product.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/busine...

http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/16/news/int...

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3093...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(...

Consider too that the mono-crops grown for animal feed are some of the most heavily applied when it comes to chemicals such as herbicides (kills other plants), pesticides, fungicides, etc, which kill much of the food so wild animals and birds starve and it's the bird fauna that is responsible for nurturing our forests so they are getting starved by meat eaters too.

So, we actually save not just animals but untold amounts of plants and insects, and more including our ground water. :)

Not to mention that if anyone is exploited it's us as we tend and are held hostage to huge crops such as the North American corn crops. We've been tamed by Zea Mays.

http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php...

http://www.newfarm.org/features/2005/080...

Answer 14

animals feel pain. Plants don't.