Curse The Brussels Sprouts, Full Speed Ahead!

You have undoubtedly been passed the link to the recent New York Times article about how plants have feelings.  Probably you were past this link with a "Har har, you're not so superior now, are you?" kind of comment.  Most likely it was sent by the same wag who always took the opportunity to make a comment like, "Carrots are living beings, too!"

Dude.  WE KNOW.

This article didn't say anything that vegetarians hadn't already considered, or been told, or had supposedly "flaunted" in their faces.  It's nothing new to quip that "What if celery has feelings?"

The author specifically brandishes the idea that vegetarians and vegans automatically get the moral high ground.  It would be difficult to shake the impression that Natalie Angier has an axe to grind, and she does little to dispel that impression.  I think Angier may have taken the publication of Jonathan Safran Foer's book as a personal slight against her own meat eating proclivities.  (She does not eat mammals, but does eat fish and poultry.)

If something touches a nerve, I think the appropriate thing to do is acknowledge that "This touched a nerve."  It's even okay to say something like, "I know I'm in the wrong, but I don't care," or "I know I'm in the wrong, and I'm trying to do better, but no promises."  Unfortunately, the response of most people is to go on the attack/defense, as Angier has done.

We know, don't we, that plants are alive?  This is not in question. And they are able to do remarkable things indeed.  Angier delves into the world of vegetable communication, such as the plant which exudes wasp attracting pheromones when it is attacked by the sort of caterpillar that wasps like to feed on.  Millions of years of evolution have shaped plants just as surely as they have shaped higher life forms.  Today's plants are evolutionary bad asses, and complex living creatures.

But they aren't animals.

Furthermore, plants live out the sort of life that many vegetarians acknowledge would be ideal for animals.  I know many vegetarians who gladly eat beef which has been locally raised in a humane fashion.  A cow which is allowed to lead a regular cow life, grazing on pasture, only to be slaughtered quickly and humanely at the end is, to many vegetarians, acceptable.  (It isn't to many others, and I honor that perspective as well.)

By this measure, plants have it pretty good.  They grow in our fields, carefully protected from insects and weeds, enjoying sunshine and rainfall (or, more likely, irrigation).  Until one day they are cut down and shipped off to the factory.  Not so bad, right?

Plants may be able to "feel," in the sense that they understand damage, and work to correct it.  But that doesn't mean that we are torturing them by eating them.  In fact, this line of reasoning only works against leafy greens, root vegetables, and other plants which we eat whole.  Many fruits and vegetables were designed to be eaten.  Anything with seeds inside was meant to be eaten by animals, and the seeds therefore dispersed across the landscape.

Surely even Angier can agree that it's more kind to eat plants than to eat animals.  And if one prefers to eat neither animals nor plants, what exactly is one going to eat?