Is there a difference between plant and animal life?

[QueenMaeve]

What I've been thinking about is this:

Almost everything we eat is/was living at one point, so where do we draw the line? Plants are alive, but maybe not in the sense that we see animals as being alive. Fresh lettuce is alive. Give it some water in a sunny place, and it will go through photosynthesis. Fruit, by definition, is a ripened ovary. Cows eat grass to live and grow. Life is defined as anything that utilizes energy, interacts with its environment, reproduces, grows... Both plants and animals do those things. So where do we draw the line of what is okay to eat?

Is it okay to eat plants because they don't express pain? Is it okay to eat fruit because it's what the tree intended on? Plants still feel pain, even if it isn't in the same sense as how we feel it. Animals are going to die no matter what. Animals eat other animals, and even some exotic plants eat animals. Maybe it's just different in nature because the predator is responsible for catching its own meal. Predator and prey balance one another out, as members on both sides are unfit for the living conditions and thus die. We humans produce as many cows as the buyers create demand for. I'm not sure which is more painful, though-- death by machine or death by teeth and claws.

I also don't understand why some types of meat are "vegetarian" but others aren't. My ex-gf's mom knew I was veg and was fussing over me and trying to find some food. She offered fish, and I'm not sure why. Last I knew, fish was an animal, and it's still meat because it's muscle tissue. I never even liked fish in the first place. mad D
Maybe people think it's veg because fish supposedly don't feel pain, so it's okay for herbivores. Or maybe it's because fish weren't able to grow legs or lungs, are therefore condemned to life in water, and were left out when man took a headcount of edible animals on land.

The other day my German teacher was telling us that there is a much higher percentage of vegetarians/vegans in Europe than there is in the US. She was a host family for a girl visiting from Germany. The girl said she was veg, so my teacher went through a lot of trouble trying to feed her. It turns out that the girl still ate things like ground meat. Her justification was that it didn't look like muscle tissue or the animal that it came from, and it didn't have any bones in it. Everybody's entitled to their own justifications, but they shouldn't falsely use words like that. sweatdrop

As I just posted in another thread, why is it "wrong" to eat honey?

QueenMaeve

I think it's okay to consume honey. Bees are given free roam of flower fields. They're very delicate creatures, so it's not like you can cram them into a tiny box and slaughter the ones who haven't died of disease. When honey is collected, steam is used to calm the bees to sleep, and only a portion of the honeycomb is taken. I think it may be good for the environment, too. Bees are taken care of and protected, and plant life gets pollinated. Honey also has health benefits, like building the immune system up against allergens and soothing sore throats. That's just my view, anyway. 3nodding

I would just go by measurement of suffering, but I still don't think I'd eat a cow even if I knew that it ate fresh grass in a big field all its life and was killed quick and painlessly.

Yes, I am a bit of a strange one... I tend to look at things from a scientific standpoint, but I also take spirituality and the abstract into consideration. I think I had more to say, but it's midnight and my thoughts are becoming jumbled.

So.. Thoughts?  

[Absent Chaos]

If it were possible, I would simply not eat. I think plants have just as many rights as animals, but I have no choice. That being said, I will eat something if it never had or never will have a face.  

[loony x lovegood]

I don't believe animals are ours to use, period.
Animals are sentient beings, whereas plants are not.
And plants don't feel pain.

Everything dies, that doesn't make it okay to senselessly kill others.
Carnivorous and omnivorous animals don't have the nutritional information, the moral reasoning, or the ability to eat a balanced vegan diet. Humans do.  

[deathpixie]

Plants do not have a central nervous system. They can't feel pain and they are non-sentient.

Even if they did feel pain, a vegan diet would be the best diet all around because more plants are killed to feed livestock, milk cows and laying hens than if everyone went vegan. Yes, something has to die for us to be able to eat it and survive, but we can at least minimize that death to the least possible, and at least eat something that is non-sentient.

As for honey, we already have a thread about that in this guild.  

[chillprincess]

Quote:

Animals eat other animals, and even some exotic plants eat animals. Maybe it's just different in nature because the predator is responsible for catching its own meal. Predator and prey balance one another out, as members on both sides are unfit for the living conditions and thus die. We humans produce as many cows as the buyers create demand for. I'm not sure which is more painful, though-- death by machine or death by teeth and claws.

That is partially how i feel as well. Animals kill plants and other animals to survive without worrying of the morality; on one hand as sentient beings i feel it is highly irresponsible to ignore the treatment of animals that are bred for consumption. I usually maintain a vegetarian diet but from time to time eat seafood and every now and then i do eat meat. On the other hand, considering the mass of people on this planet that live in poverty without fresh water or clean and nourishing food, if they choose to eat meat i've nothing against it and i appreciate that i even have such a choice. I guess my biggest beef is the treatment of the animals because it's just hard to eat something that could have screamed out in pain before being killed and butchered. I know that plants have the same life cycle of being born, consumption to live, procreation and death- but it's just not the same to me. I think that's a mixed bag of my thoughts but it's mostly how i feel about the subject. I hope it i didn't stray off topic.  

[QueenMaeve]

@Reverend Winter - When I think about this stuff, I feel that way as well. Something will always die for me to be able to live, no matter what I eat or don't eat. I sometimes wonder what the point is, but I at least feel a bit better knowing I'm doing my part by not eating meat.

@ Veganlicious - Plants at least realize when they're under attack. It's not conscious thought, but they "think" in chemical signals. Some respond by sending out toxins, and others work on healing the wound.

It's not just that we as humans are smart enough to acknowledge the suffering of others, and therefore shouldn't eat meat. I think it all boils down to genetics. Our bodies can survive without meat, although we still need the protein and nutrients just as much. I would never put my cat on vegetarian cat food, because her body isn't the same as mine. Cats are mostly carnivorous, so I wouldn't expect them to be able to digest anything else and live healthily. The difference between us and animals is that we can eat a highly diverse diet, and we have the intelligence and technology (soy products, etc) to be able to cut out meat entirely.

Carnivores are still highly valuable in nature. Without them, the herbivore population would boom out of control, and plant life would suffer. Also, nothing would kill the herbivores whose bodies would then become fertilizer.  

[aoijea23487]

v e g a n l i c i o u s

I don't believe animals are ours to use, period.
Animals are sentient beings, whereas plants are not.
And plants don't feel pain.

Everything dies, that doesn't make it okay to senselessly kill others.
Carnivorous and omnivorous animals don't have the nutritional information, the moral reasoning, or the ability to eat a balanced vegan diet. Humans do.

i agree with you~
though, i have not heard of the argument against honey. i see honey as a valuable asset, but i can see why people object. i'm going to hunt that thread down.  

[Evil Karma Angel]

QueenMaeve

What I've been thinking about is this:

Almost everything we eat is/was living at one point, so where do we draw the line? Plants are alive, but maybe not in the sense that we see animals as being alive. Fresh lettuce is alive. Give it some water in a sunny place, and it will go through photosynthesis. Fruit, by definition, is a ripened ovary. Cows eat grass to live and grow. Life is defined as anything that utilizes energy, interacts with its environment, reproduces, grows... Both plants and animals do those things. So where do we draw the line of what is okay to eat?

Is it okay to eat plants because they don't express pain? Is it okay to eat fruit because it's what the tree intended on? Plants still feel pain, even if it isn't in the same sense as how we feel it. Animals are going to die no matter what. Animals eat other animals, and even some exotic plants eat animals. Maybe it's just different in nature because the predator is responsible for catching its own meal. Predator and prey balance one another out, as members on both sides are unfit for the living conditions and thus die. We humans produce as many cows as the buyers create demand for. I'm not sure which is more painful, though-- death by machine or death by teeth and claws.

I also don't understand why some types of meat are "vegetarian" but others aren't. My ex-gf's mom knew I was veg and was fussing over me and trying to find some food. She offered fish, and I'm not sure why. Last I knew, fish was an animal, and it's still meat because it's muscle tissue. I never even liked fish in the first place. mad D
Maybe people think it's veg because fish supposedly don't feel pain, so it's okay for herbivores. Or maybe it's because fish weren't able to grow legs or lungs, are therefore condemned to life in water, and were left out when man took a headcount of edible animals on land.

The other day my German teacher was telling us that there is a much higher percentage of vegetarians/vegans in Europe than there is in the US. She was a host family for a girl visiting from Germany. The girl said she was veg, so my teacher went through a lot of trouble trying to feed her. It turns out that the girl still ate things like ground meat. Her justification was that it didn't look like muscle tissue or the animal that it came from, and it didn't have any bones in it. Everybody's entitled to their own justifications, but they shouldn't falsely use words like that. sweatdrop

As I just posted in another thread, why is it "wrong" to eat honey?

QueenMaeve

I think it's okay to consume honey. Bees are given free roam of flower fields. They're very delicate creatures, so it's not like you can cram them into a tiny box and slaughter the ones who haven't died of disease. When honey is collected, steam is used to calm the bees to sleep, and only a portion of the honeycomb is taken. I think it may be good for the environment, too. Bees are taken care of and protected, and plant life gets pollinated. Honey also has health benefits, like building the immune system up against allergens and soothing sore throats. That's just my view, anyway. 3nodding

I would just go by measurement of suffering, but I still don't think I'd eat a cow even if I knew that it ate fresh grass in a big field all its life and was killed quick and painlessly.

Yes, I am a bit of a strange one... I tend to look at things from a scientific standpoint, but I also take spirituality and the abstract into consideration. I think I had more to say, but it's midnight and my thoughts are becoming jumbled.

So.. Thoughts?

If it helps you, think that it's not wrong to eat animals, except because of the meat industry. We don't mutilate our plants before we cut them off, and we don't put them in cages (except plants like tomatos, where you need the support of the cage) and we don't force feed them until they have heart attacks. Even though pesticides are a bit nasty, you can easily grow your vegetables at home, or buy organic plant-food.