Do you think plants have feelings?

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I saw a news article that claimed "Study finds" that vegetables "scream" when they are being harvested and our ears are too pathetically dull to hear it. Of course, I take anything that says "study finds" with a grain of salt, but someone in the comments said that when you buy fresh vegetables you should eat all of them immediately so that they don't suffer as they slowly die in the refrigerator for several days.

So I guess buying a head of lettuce or a bag of carrots is out of the question if you're single. And not because it will go bad before you can eat it all.

And the angel of the lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber, and took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself. And he brought me into a vast farmland of our own Midwest.

And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil. One thousand, nay, a million voices full of fear. And terror possessed me then. And I begged, "Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?"

And the angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots. The cries of the carrots. You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust".

And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared, "Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!"

Can I get an amen? Can I get a hallelujah? Thank you, Jesus

Plants may have feelings.... but. When you consider fruit, you are generally not harming or killing the plant (fruits fall off trees or plants, and as a means of propogation). Hypothetically, there are other vegetables, you can cultivate in a manner that makes them heartier.... It's an interesting topic, and thrown at me a lot, but, I can eat an apple and the tree lives. When you eat a chicken wing........erm...


"The corn has ears and the potatoes have eyes!! !!"

But perhaps fruit has feelings too. Maybe even inanimate objects.

Honestly though, I don't think plants have feelings. I certainly hope not, otherwise the compassion argument for not eating meat loses its strength. It would be very difficult to eat without causing suffering. And I'd never trust the food industry to be humane.

So we'd be back to the law of the jungle, dog-eat-dog and all that. Don't start teaching it in schools. It's a lot more dangerous than the discovery of evolution.

Fruits WANT to be eaten. Thats their whole reason for being.

To exploit us animals so we spread the seeds of the parent tree/plant so it can propagate!

Plants get a slow motion sexual orgasm every time an animal or a human bits down on their fruits!

They already teach it in schools.

I will 100% be using this line in the future.

I don't think they have feelings in the traditional sense. However, they do seem to have an awareness that we don't fully understand yet.

It's kind of fascinating how trees never seem to invade each other's space in a clearing.

Poisonous plants are also interesting to consider. There's a plant that grows here. It's deceptive. Looks like a blackberry to the untrained eye. Birds often fall prey to them. Quite a deadly little plant if consumed.

I'm able to tell them apart quite easily, but I have had to stop strangers a couple of times from picking them. Please be careful when foraging.

What I find interesting, firstly, I wonder why the plant goes to so much effort to imitate a blackberry. It's clearly trying to trick wildlife, but why? What gain is there?

Secondly, I've noticed that often the plants surrounding it - they seem to intentionally avoid it. I was on a walk one time when I saw the plant. The other plants seemed to curve around it equally on both sides. Chemical differences in the soil maybe? Something is causing it, surely. Nothing seems able to grow near it. Must be an invasive species for plants as well as deadly for animals. And yet, it grows all the same.

Plants leave me with a lot of unanswered questions. Perhaps I ought to read the linked article but I'll admit I've heard about the whole plants having feelings theory before. There's definitely more to be studied here.

Edit: Thinking about it, dead animals would be beneficial to the soil. Yet obviously the plant lacks the consciousness to know this but it still takes on this appearance and ugh my head hurts. You win this round, plants!

Although evolution in general isn't really conscious either. What works, well, works. Complicated subject.

Tonight I was watching some videos of someone feeding bugs to a Venus fly trap. I wonder sometimes how vegans feel about such plants. Do they think you can just feed it tofu instead of bugs? I think the plant would die from malnutrition. Also it would kind of make it a cannibal. But not really if it's eating other species of plants, that would be like saying humans are cannibals for eating other mammals like pigs or cows.

Ive heard that strict vegiterians are able to maintain pet dogs and or cats on meatless diets for the animals. But Ive never heard anyone explain in detail HOW the heck they do that. I guess they feed their carnivorous pets tofu or miso based food.

But if you kept carnivorous PLANTS then that would be whole nother can of worms.

In as far as veganism is a moral code for humans, plants would be exempt on the grounds of diminished responsibility. I guess a lot would depend on the individual vegan, as vegans are a diverse group, but I wouldn't expect many of them to pass any moral judgement on a plant. Mostly I think vegans just care about animals and so it's primary to them to try not to cause them any suffering themselves, and many but not all of them push the boat out further by trying to get other people to stop causing suffering to animals, and trying to rescue animals from situations where they are suffering.

I would think vegans mostly see their caring as a matter of degree, e.g. they wouldn't bother much about a fly's welfare because they'd have more important things to do. Nobody really knows exactly how far down the "food chain" the ability to suffer reaches, so the morality issue can get cloudy and one has to pick one's battles. I did meet one vegan who took great care not to accidentally harm insects, but I think she was unusual. Even so, it was her choice, and she didn't try to persuade others to do likewise.

Well...in most law codes humans are allowed to use deadly force against other humans...if its in self defense.

Similarly a fanatical animal rights person would be ok with you shooting a man eating lion attacking your children.

Similarly such a person MIGHT be ok with you protecting your property from small vermin (rats, mice, bed bugs, bacteria, viruses) via murder said pest (insecticide and germ sterilization of surfaces).

Ergo...keeping venus flytraps to eat flies might be viewed as defending your property against noxious flies...ergo it would be okay for a vegan to keep such plants.