While it is possible that plants have sensitivities that we do not yet understand, plants do not have a central nervous system and it is generally agreed upon in the scientific community that plants are incapable of suffering.

Usually, this issue is not really raised as a concern, but more of an excuse or justification since few people truly believe that plants feel pain. However, if one really is concerned about plants suffering, adopting a vegetarian or vegan diet actually reduces the number of plants killed by 14 times, since animals must be fed huge quantities of grasses and grains to be converted into small quantities of meat, milk, and eggs.

Here are some US statics:

US Corn eaten by people: 2%
US Corn eaten by livestock: 77%

US farmland producing vegetables : 4 million acres
US farmland producing hay for livestock : 56 million acres

US grain and cereals fed to livestock: 70%

Human beings who could be fed by the grain and soybeans eaten by US livestock : 1,400,000,000

We can save 14 times "grain" plant (suffering?) and the rainforsts and species living in them by eating PLANTS ONLY.

World’s mammalian species currently threatened with extinction: 25%
Leading cause of species in the tropical rainforest being threatened or eliminated: Livestock Grazing

Environmental violations by the meat industry add up to a rap sheet longer than War and Peace. - Sierra Club it in their 2002 report on animal factories

Life forms destroyed in the production of EACH fast-food hamburger made from rainforest beef: Members of 20-30 different plant species, 100 different insect species, and dozens of bird, mammal and reptile species...

Also just a quick common sense test:

Q: What is the substitute for meat products?
A: Lentils, legumes, fruits, vegetables, mock meat: chicknon, not-dogs, phony baloney etc


Q: What is the substitute for milk?
A: Almond milk, wheat milk, rice milk, soy milk, coconut milk, peanut milk etc...

Q: What is the substitute for walking without killing bacterias?
Q: What is the substitute for plant products?

If there is a substitute I'll take it.

============================

Consider this:

Firstly who feels pain? Its the brain that feels pain, not the hands or the bones or the skin. The biggest proof of this is "Phantom Pain"

www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind.html

People who have lost their limbs feel as if its there are they feel pain. How? because the pain is processed by the CNS. There is no bonafied study from any medical institute or university that has ever isolated a CNS in the plant kingdom to the best of my knowledge. Human painkillers such as morpheme works on fishes too because the pain causing chemicals and processing is the same. No such chemicals have ever been isolated in plants.

Saying plants feel pain is like saying a man can give birth. A man simply doesn't have what it takes to give birth. Plants do not have the CNS to process pain or other higher mental cognition such as happiness or sadness.

Also consider the following:
- Animals raised for food (ARF) produce limited babies, plants produce thousands of seeds
- ARF get pregnant and goes through a painful gestation and labor, plants don't
- ARF wants to nurture their young and wants them to be with them, plants do not nurture their saplings and they try to spread their seeds miles away from the parent plant.
- Plants are partly dependent upon animals for reproduction, but ARF are not.

Plants are very old creatures, billions of years old, and its strange that if they feel pain like an ARF they have not evolved locomotion.

That said, plants are living creatures and they do react. But every reaction is not a painful reaction. If I get hot, my body reacts by sweating, but that's not emotional or physical pain. A thermometer reacts to temperature but that doesn't mean that it feels pain.

Plants do secrete a lot of chemicals when you break them, but fortunately there is no CNS to process those chemicals as a painful or pleasureful experience.

I challenge anybody to show any First hand Research Paper from an established university that proves that plans feel emotional and physical pain. I will admit I am wrong.

That said, we owe our debt of gratitude to the plants who provide us with food and oxygen and they must never be unnecessarily damaged or destroyed in any way. It is my humble opinion that we should not pluck flowers and we should plant more trees.

============================

The above argument also questions the very fabric of morality. Where do we draw the line?

Is it OK to justify fraud, theft, robbery, racism, sexism, rape, pedophilia, murder, vivisection, manslaughter, beastuality because we kill plants?

Where should we draw the line and why? What moral, ethical, environmental, religious, biological or philosophical logic can we draw upon to say: "Since we kill potatoes, we can also kill a human baby." How can this leap of faith be scientifically justified?

The below statement is very rude and is not meant as an attack on anyone, but an indication of a response evoked in the mind of an ethologist when faced with the dilemma of justifying a hypothetical suffering:

Anyone who couldn't see the difference between chopping up a dog and chopping up a lettuce should commit suicide for the benefit of society. - Konrad Lorenz, Father of Modern Ethology, Nobel Prize 1973

============================

Recommended Reading:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Botany_of_Desire

Friend 1 Wrote:

See this is EXACTLY where i disagree.

Discrimination on the basis of a CNS and the ability to gestate is what I see as apartheid. And just cause a bunch of scholars agree upon something doesn't make it agreeable to people like me. I think my disagreement is towards this whole concept of assuage of pain - i would want to target a higher cause, that of not taking a life. Just cause there is no alternative may make it practical but it doesn't make it right .

What i'm trying to say is that you keep sending around these articles about animal suffering - its true they suffer , but so do non-animates. Somewhere or the other you draw a line... "i need my quota of nutrition to survive and I have to sacrifice a bunch of living organisms to get it". Where you think you score better is not taking animal life or depriving the animals offspring of nutrition. But inherently you're depriving some living thing of its life. ... See more

I think the true conversationalist would arrive when we are able to synthesize proteins and amino acids directly from elemental carbon , nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen . Till then my friend NO ONE , i repeat no one is above this unending cycle of death , violence and this food chain.

As a moral imperative you abhor violence against animals. But you still prey upon non animates - regardless of what biologists tell you. And regardless of the aweful comparision of a potato and a human baby. So this higher moral ground is not justifiable to the level you make it out in your mailers - i feel. You and I as vegitarians/ vegans have a long way to go still. Our food technology has a long way to go. Till then we'll all be killers in our own right. Till then we'll be morality agnostic at some level or the other.

I do believe that one day, we will be able to live a life where we will not have to kill plants. It's my belief that we were already there.

A plant produces fruits like apples so that animals will get attracted by it, pluck it and eat it and then throw the core which contains the seeds thereby ensuring its future survival. Next cycle, another apple will grow in its place.

A Hen's leg once broken/cut, will not grow back. EVER.

My research indicates, that earlier, it was completely possible to live off a fruit based diet in which the tree is not killed. Due to human ignorance, many such fruits have gone extinct so we have no choice but to eat plant parts that do not regenerate.

So until we can genetically engineer those plants to furnish us with missing nutrients in the form of replaceable fruits/leaves/twigs etc., its difficult to live without killing plants - and that is wrong in my personal opinion.

In the words of Sirla Prabhupad, founder of ISKCON, "It's the sin of God".

Also, I recommend you read the book "World Peace Diet"

www.kranti.org/knowledge-base/library/books/psychology/75-world-peace-diet.html

You see, its a Ladder of consciousness, in which no step can be missed. That's how human psychology works.

If you look at the course of western history you'll see that we're slowly granting basic rights to everyone. A long time ago only kings had rights. Then rights were extended to property-owning white men. Then all men. Then women. Then children. Then the mentally retarded. Now we're agonizing over the extension of basic rights to homosexuals and animals. We need to finally accept that all sentient creatures are deserving of basic rights. I define basic rights as this - the ability to pursue life without having someone else's will involuntarily forced upon you. Or, as the framers of the constitution put it, the ability to have "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". By what criteria can you justify denying basic rights to any living thing? Realize that by whatever criteria you employ someone could deny basic rights to you if they objected to your species, sexual preferences, color, religion, ideology etc. Would you eat your housecat, or force a mentally retarded child to ingest oven cleaner? If not, then why is it ok to eat cows and test products on sentient animals? I believe that to knowingly commit actions that cause or condone suffering is reprehensible in the extreme. I call upon you to be compassionate and treat others as you want to be treated. If you don't want to be beaten, imprisoned, mutilated, killed or tortured then you shouldn't condone such behavior towards anyone, be they human or not. - Moby, Musician

Unless people get sensitive towards Animal Rights, they will never get "Plant Rights". We need to sensitize them to this level gradually. Even if an alternative exists, due to their position in the ladder of consciousness, they will not be able to derive maximum benefit out of it.

An Example. Today we have fake meat that tastes just like the real thing. We have fake fur and leather and also other cruelty-free substitutes. Soon we may have artificial meat too. But people do not take advantage of them, because they do not believe that animals are aware, conscious or feel pain. This is scientifically not true as was found out by numerous peer-reviewed experiments. To talk about "Plant Rights" to people and scientists who think a sheep is a "Mammalian Bio Reactor" and a cow is a "Raw Material" is virtually impossible. Even trying to educate people that a fish is capable of suffering like humans is to risk being labeled a conspiracy theorist and a crackpot. When we protest against animal cruelty, people often laugh at us. Imagine trying to educate them about the taboo of tree-felling. That said, not that it should stop any tree-hugger.

The group that cloned dolly, before that engineered a sheep called Tracy and Ron James, the owner of Proteins Pharmaceuticals who owns the patents on these group of animals basically said two things in a debate with me that I cannot forget. He said, one, "Sheep are just funny little factories producing specialized chemicals for us". And the second thing - the patent that they had was for a "Mammalian Bio Reactor". The cloning of Dolly which had been based on killing something like 272 other Dollies that didn't work out right which didn't make the news...this destroyer and this destructive science was positioned on the cover of magazines where Ian Wilmut - the scientist, and of course they hid the corporation that financed Ian Wilmut - the scientist stands face to face with Dolly and the caption was - "The Creator and the Created". This Absolute cosmic confusion about who is the creator, what is creation, what is life, is an absolute disaster for the future of humanity. It is really possible to treat animals as fellow beings, as not as was said in the Industrial revolution and the scientific revolution - "Inferior creatures over whom man must establish his empire"...but really as the Earth Family on which we are all in a democracy of life...the kind of knowledge it takes is a very different kind of knowledge because its a knowledge that cannot be purely quantified. Life organizes itself, life creates itself...our relationship should be a relationship of compassion which leads to a deeper science of complexity, self organization, ecological understanding of what the animals are and a science of respect and reverence for others. - Dr. Vandana Shiva, Physicist, philosopher, activist, eco feminist and Author
Converging living systems into machines for capital accumulation that are merely a commodity producers wouldn't be possible without the instrumentality of a reductionist science - that achieves two things for you - on the one hand it kills your ethics of compassion because reductionism transforms a living system into inert parts that are put together from the outside. Treat them like machines, treat them like atoms and that reductionism then creates the ethical anesthesia that basically says, "You don't have to worry about ethics of your relationship because this is just a bundle of matter which is in your hands to play around with as if you are playing with plasticine." And it also gives you the actual manipulative power to get more milk out of a cow, to produce more lean meat (in the cows), to stuff cows in smaller spaces, to slaughter them quicker. These are the systems through which capitalists uses reductionist science for capital accumulation and appropriation of life from beings who have a right to their own lives. - Dr. Vandana Shiva, Physicist, philosopher, activist, eco feminist and Author
Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost. - Thomas J. Watson

Before we win Plant Rights, we have to sensitize people to win Animal Rights.

The concept of "Rights" and that of "Animal Rights" is not an abstract one. It's a one with real-world consequences.

Meat is one of the topmost source of global warming.
www.kranti.org/damage/environment.html

Humans are Herbivore and not omnivorous. So eating meat leads to various heart diseases and cancers.
www.kranti.org/damage/health.html

Eating meat is cruel and unfair to animals and causes a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering to them:
www.kranti.org/damage/animals.html

Eating meat Destroys Humanity
www.kranti.org/damage/humanity.html

To see a day, where we can finally use Tax payers money for the elimination of Plant Suffering, we need to survive to that era. Given the current predicament we are in, its highly doubtful.

I have written in my last post, and I re-iterate, that I feel immense guilt in taking plant life and even plucking flowers - which I never do. Its not that we are not sensitive towards Plants or Trees. Personally, Tree-felling is vulgar to me. But given our current state of technological know-how and sensitivity of consciousness, the best we can do is to fight for what we know to be true and hope for the best.

Compassion should never be subjected to procrastination. If I were a genetic scientist and if my genes would have given me this inclination, I would have worked on the issue of Plant Rights myself by trying to re-engineer the above-mentioned plants.

One Love.

=======================

Further Reading:

www.kranti.org/connect/forum/11-club-compassion/82-reduction-of-cognitive-dissonance.html#133

www.amazon.com/Case-Animal-Rights-Tom-Regan/dp/0520243862/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266391751&sr=8-1

www.kranti.org/knowledge-base/library/books/psychology/75-world-peace-diet.html

Anita Mahdessian:

friend1, our mere existence causes suffering and death. Only a dead vegan is the perfect vegan. In the meantime, I'm quite happy to settle for the lesser evil and do not fear the day I become the perfect vegan. By adopting a plant based diet I reduce animal suffering and death. I also reduce plant "suffering" and death (in case they do suffer). We... See more often only eat the fruit and do not harm the plant. Are you suggesting that the apple falling of the apple tree is "suffering"? If the apple tree does not want its apples anymore, I'm quite happy to eat it. The apple can nourish me instead of rotting to "death" on the ground.

Friend1:

I'm afraid i disagree. See my point just is every single time my "fellow animal lovers" begin with the "savouring the apple and the orange does not harm the tree" I draw a blank. To tell you the truth in a lot of cases the fruit IS intended for eating to aide the parent plant in seed dispersion. However,like i mentioned in my first comment, not everytime does a plant survive the harvest. Take the case of wheat or paddy, the parent plant does not survive the harvest.Why isn't that quoted as an example by vegans- perhaps cause its makes for a less compeling argument if a vegan quotes that? And i think vegans can be a bit better off, morally that is, by sticking to just fruit. But then what happens to a balanced diet, right? So u do compromise - in the end we're all in shades of gray ... you and I *might* be just a bit lighter than out meatoholic brothers and sisters. That does not merit a greater or lesser evil- again in my opinion.

Coming back to the apple- does anyone even care how the apple tree was treated? Was it treated for apple rot or was it chopped down afterwards? Or are we all morally agnostic about it cause it doesn't bleed crimson when its branches are cut? Big ass apple tree knows how to take care of itself unlike the lamb facing the knife. Thats not exactly fair. I find it slightly more convincing looking at this stuff from an energy efficiency point of view - sans morality ! Meat takes more energy to produce than crops, so eating crops is better for th environment. Period! All this picking and choosing who feels pain and who needs saving is a bit lopsided i'm afraid! Or perhaps my stand is a bit polemic to vegans - i don't know which is which.

Althought i adhere to an animal friendly lifestyle now I'm unsettled to have settled for it- it its only animal pain and suffering i base it on. From an energy efficiency point of view there is no contest. ... See more

peace!

Pepa Vegana:

friend1, if u are so for plants rights and/or love animals too, what exactly it is that u are doing to help ur cause?
as Anita mentioned, we choose the lesser of evils.
do u suggest we die of hunger for following our conscience and hearts?
lets all die in that case, let the earth live in peace, since we are all a virus!

friend1:
what i'm trying to put across, Pepa, is that I have no fondness for this high moral stand people choose to take when it comes to animal rights. Going by this so called "i will not contribute to the suffering of an animal " such people are being agnostic to the demise of non animates. Thats it! So the way i convince myself is - take morality out ... See moreof the equation. I know its easier to convince people to switch people to veganism/vegetarianism usign the moral angle ( and i mean that in the nicest possible way) but as individuals who are challenging existing concepts you should be more open minded to accept that people may differ in their view on how to approach this entire "be kind to the environment" sentiment we all share .

Pepa I will tell you something very frankly - i have be a non vegetarian all my life. I've recently converted to an animal friendly existence about 6 months back, and i'm glad I did. But this question about suffering, us preying on other species remains unanswered. I'm trying to see the point in all the documentation people send in , but i'm still not convinced by the moral stand taken by kranti. Thats all. And the reason I converted was in effect to reduce my own carbon signature. But even there I can't claim a moral high ground. I live in a multistorey building and use a lift every day. I drive to work . Which all contribute to a much higher CO2 output. But there are relatively few good quality, low storey housing complexes in Pune who'll take me ( a non brahmin north indian ) as a tenant. Believe me i tried for weeks on end. Same with the crappy public transport in Pune- just HAD to get my own transport . So I can't claim ANY moral high ground for this vegitarianism.

I'm not reasoning against the eating of crops for substinace- I'm not convinced its morally better . Ans i'm just against all the chest thumping & talk of greater and lesser evil that goes along with it. Leave morality out is what i say .

Anita Mahdessian:
friend1, you call it a lighter shade of gray and I call it the lesser evil. Same difference. Whether the apple tree "bleeds" crimson or just releases it, is debatable. Maybe the tree just reacts to having its branches cut, just like a child reacts to having its hair or fingernails cut. No pain, no feeling, no suffering, just reaction. I work with a knowing we have right now and not a potential or a possibility.

As a semi-professional, I have these kinds of debates all the time.

First, let me just say that in order to become good at anything, be it Golf, Programming, Animal Rights or Human Rights you need to study a lot of material, practice your craft, buy books, acquaint yourself with the law, spend energy and train (yourself or others). In other words, it's a resource/time consuming affair. You need patience, determination, money/resources etc. - anything required to master anything.

This principle applies to both individuals as well as organizations. Therefore, many corporations specialize in a service or related services. Some are big and diverse but still within a sphere of specialty.... See more

I have met a lot of people from many social causes, and for some strange reason, they never get this kind of treatment. Human right activists are never questioned why they are not fighting for animals or plants. An Anti - child-abuse NGO never gets questioned as to why its not fighting for the environment. A company that sells cars is never questioned why its not selling soap. But for some reason, an Animal Rights organization has to fight for all the rights under the sun.

Kranti and other Animal Rights organizations channelize their efforts, energies and resources into understanding and advocating within the boundaries of the Animal Kingdom. As the name suggest, we are into Animal Rights, and not into child rights, plant rights etc...not that we don't care.

That said, I often meet people, who in order to rationalize their conditioning, often tell me that they don't believe in scientists, peer-reviewed data, facts, God, luck, personal opinions and religion in the same breath. That just makes me wonder what do they exactly believe in?

Personally, I believe in peer-reviewed scientific researches conducted by established and reputable institutions. But I do customize my arguments to suite the audience.

So before I can respond to your post, you need to let me know what your belief system is. I will generate a response accordingly.

Personally, and scientifically, I do not believe, and as it has been written and stated before, that plants possess a CNS and therefore capable of physical or emotional pain and suffering like the animals raised for food. Therefore, I do believe that its possible to live an intentionally cruelty-free life. But I still deeply respect them.

If someone is convinced that plants are capable of feeling pain like animals do, for some non-scientific reason (which may be correct, by the way) then she is entitles to fight for plant rights.

I still believe that "the shades-of-gray" argument is a rationalization (in response to the reduction of cognitive dissonance).

Let me ask you a question:
Water feel pains (YES! I have had this debate too!) -> Plants feel pain -> Animals feel pain -> Humans feel pain.

This means that its impossible to live a conscious moral life. We cannot live a pain free life. Then where should we draw the line? On what grounds do we criminalize burning a dog's tail or stabbing a cat? (which is a criminal offense in many countries including India). A student of mine even told me that rocks feel pain. If everything and anything is felling emotional and physical pain then why bother with pain and suffering anyways? Why not have an ethical anarchy?

I am not a vegan because meat is unhealthy or non-environment friendly. I am a vegan because I choose not to be cruel to the animals raised for food, clothing, entertainment or experimentation.

But like I said before, If you will tell me your belief system, I will custom tailor the response for you.

I had a debate with a free-thinker/atheist/rationalist who was not at all interested in the religion, god, environment/health angle.

The point is, every individual is different with their own set of belief system. Some believe in something, some don't. Kranti is catering to a wide gamut of personalities. Every line or article or stunt will not please everybody.

Take what you believe. Leave what you don't.... See more

Personally, I do not believe in the existence of God, but I meet Hindus and Christians and I have to quote Bible and Gita even though I don't believe a word of what they say (for most parts). But we do have a section on Religion on Kranti.org. Some believe in it.

One Love.

friend1:

my suggestion of lighter shade of gray was very much a sarcastic remark not to be taken in the literal sense. I am not convinced that a person who leaves out meat from the menu is inherently very more pacifist than some one who doesn't. Cause in case of a moral stand there you get in the absolute - no fractions. Blood is way more visceral than sap anyday but yet at a higher abstraction it is something inherently vital to the organism's survival - to aide in its circulatory system. Spilling it is an act of crime and we're all guilty :/ .Much the same as a rapist and a murderer are both guilty - its debatable who's worse depending on who you ask. Lets not go into circumstances or hypothetical examples.

Manuj i briefed through your last couple of statements - i feel you digress by bringing in religion and child abuse. I'm not questioning the interactions you've had or the stuff you're read or the experiences you've had in this nobel journey. My point is thus, your definitions of the 'voiceless' aren't as broad as i hoped they would be, it doesn't include non-animates living organisms. And that is where i'm disappointed.

I get the essence of what Pepa, Anita & you are trying to say here - i fundamentally differ in the way you approach this.So please define ' the voiceless ' , preferably not in prose - cause substance gets left behind rheotoric. I would define voiceless as encompassing both flora and fauna - over which mankind has thus projected its lordship. ... See more

As far as custom tailoring your response is concerned by dear friend i find that a tad bit patronising, and as such i rather you don't . I understand you the extent i feel i can, i just don't agree with the very selective moral stand that's being taken here. And yes I find it selective - that's my opinion As much as the opinions of everyone else who's taken the time to contribute to this thread.