why is plant life less valuable than animals?

Question

to live, you must eat life. and I'm tired of vegans and vegetarians labelelling and tell others what life we're aloud to eat and which we can't.
I'm not saying I beleive in mass production of these meats and of those grosse cattle factories. But why is ok to grow a garden and then kill the plants for food but its not ok to hunt a moose to eat.

plants don't feel pain? are you sure about that? they do have a nervous system, otherwise they wouldnt be able to feel when somethign is harming them. they have defense systems also.

and i just want to say again, mass production is not cool. but why is it wrong for someone to go out hunting, kill one moose or deer and feed his or her family throughout the whole year.

and please stop using the word soul because noone really knows what it is and so we dont know weather animals or plants have them. it an abstract religious concept. lots ofpeoples say that fish and chickens don't have souls.. whatever that means.

Vegans (along with feminist) are the easiest group to get rouled up :) i'm not saying you should eat meat, and i do believe that the amount of meat in western diets is far too much, and being a vegetarian for health reasons is fine also, but stop giving me this load of crap that youdon't eat meat because you feel sorry for the poor deer. because life is life is life. and killing life is killing life. period.

Answer 1

I suppose it is because they generaly don't move, are autotrophs and their instincts aren't as developed as the animals. This may sound cold but you can't hear a plant scream or run in fear when you are about to cut it. Still I don't think eating plants and animals has an 'ok' and 'not ok' label, just because sometimes forest rangers and laws prevent you from killing a moose it does not mean it is wrong. They mostly do it to mantain balance in the ecosytem. Besides it is not always ok to kill a plant, some laws protect endangered plants (humans being the main cause of this because of pollution and deforestation).

Answer 2

This question gets asked so often. I am an avid gardener-I have an entire floor in my house dedicated to hydroponic, indoor gardening using grow lights. I spend a great deal of time in it. I also have an outdoor garden when the season is right. I have yet to "KILL" any of my plants by picking the veggies or fruits they provide. The plant keeps on growing, producing more produce. I have also yet to hear a plant cry out in pain. I also have a cow-and have heard her cries of pain when she gives birth. There is no possible way anyone with a lick of common sense can compare a plant, which DOES NOT have a central nervous system, a brain, or a beating heart, to that of a creature that does. Just because its not factory farmed doesnt make it right. Why be selfish and take an innocent creatures life when you can get everything you need on a vegetarian diet. If a vegetable was not picked, it would rot on the vine, killing the plant. They are healthier and don't contain the cholesterol, fats, blood, pus, urine and all the other nasty stuff in meat. Meat needs to be cooked at high temps to kill off parasites and bacteria. A veggie just needs a quick rinse and can be eaten raw. A first grader should be able to distinguish the difference. The theory that plants feel pain is what meat eaters tell themselves to feel less guilty, and its a ridiculous argument

Answer 3

If you killed the moose with your bare hands, then I suppose it would be ok to hunt and eat them. However, as far as I am aware humans have a little advantage over the poor moose, and that is the gun. You don't see lions lolling around in the grass casually picking off antelope at their leisure with a shotgun. I'm so sick of people who don't agree with our diet giving us the whole 'but how about the poor old carrot?' rubbish.

There are so many worthy causes to channel your anger at. Why not let the veggie heads just get on with their beliefs and tackle racists instead?

Answer 4

Most vegetarians and vegans I know wouldn't dream of telling others what they are allowed to eat. If asked, they might explain the reasons why they choose not to eat meat but that is not the same as telling others what to do.

In fact, there are people who believe it is wrong to take plant life as well as animal life. There are fruitarians who only eat the fruit that has already fallen from a tree. And there are freegans who only eat food that has been discarded by others, in order to absolve themselves from taking part in the food production cycle. To me, that's all a bit silly!

You are right when you say that to live, you must eat life. All food was once living, whether it's bread made from the wheat plant, or a leg of lamb.

However, most people value animal life more highly for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's the kingdom of life that we humans belong to so it's a certain amount of favouring our own kind (the same concept as favouring your own family over the rest of society, or human life over other animal life). Secondly, animals have nervous systems and brains and can feel pain. Thirdly, many animals, especially mammals, have quite well developed consciousness; they may not be able to reason like we do but some animals have the intelligence of a five-year-old human, which is quite a lot.

Vegetarians see all of these facts as reasons not to eat meat. Vegans see them as reasons neither to eat meat, nor to keep them enslaved for food, so they will not eat any animal product.

Most meat eaters also rate animal life more highly than plant life; they are happy to eat meat but they would generally abhor cruelty to animals, whereas they probably wouldn't get too upset if you 'tortured' a carrot.

Still others might choose to reduce their meat consumption, eating it only occasionally, or eating only fish or poultry. Or they might choose only to eat free-range or organic meat that they believe is ethically reared.

It's an ethical question and everyone needs to make an individual choice on this issue. I would hope they think about the issue and make their choice based on as many facts as possible. I certainly don't think anyone should attempt to make the choice for them, or make them feel bad about the choice they make.

Answer 5

A plant is a part of the living environment but it is not realy "alive" ,it does not have a personal conscience , it is not "a person". It also doesn't have a system like humans' nor like the animals'- with blood, heart, brain, personal thoughts and a neural system that transmits and detects pain and so plant can not "think", "behave", and feel pain like the mammals' system does. This means it can not send it's recordings about pain, death, bad feelings to the mind and conscience of all the living beings - like animals and humans can. Plants have appeared as a result of expressing feelings in the inner nature and lately in the environment. Many of them appeared as a reaction of the system to some threats : the danger of some diseases( the medicinal plants which teach us how the system cures itself ), of heat in excess, of lack of humidity, of too many toxins, smoke, a.s.o., and others appeared in the nature of the law to sustain life of the living beings as food and material to use. They are food and medicines. (The others, the toxic ones, have been forced to appearance by the mind/ feelings/ consciousness of the living beings - those toxic / poisonous feelings and thoughts as hate, anger, fear, revenge, envy , villany, that can turn a good plant into a bad one ). The mammals are something very different and have access to the common mind and common conscience of the humanity and of all the living beings. Here they send all their records of being well or not well, of being tortured and killed, of death, of destruction , and these records may interfere with those of humans .
So plants belong to some parts of the common conscience but to the animals the conscience is distributed completely different, they have a real life. Fish belong to a common conscience and so do the insects and most of the birds. The life to eat for life is stored for us in the cells of the edible plants and seeds - clean and pure and without side effects. Eating meat occured as result of lack of understanding of how is the real life to be lived , a long time ago,

Answer 6

If you are tired of it, then why are you coming in here? Most vegetarians in here actually could care less about what you eat but if people like you come in here and keep praising meat and why we should eat it, we are more then ready to tell you why we shouldn't. Do you think we should just sit back and take your crap?

Plants have no nervous system and have a cycle of life. When I pick tomatoes and cucumbers off my vines, i am not killing the plant. Once the plant stops producing, it dies on it's own....did you miss the week on plants in Science class?

Anyway, you says plant life is less valuable? I have never heard or read that here. Plants are very valuable, they are more or less our whole food source.

Believe what you want, hunt if you want but we too are a little tired of people like YOU who come in here just trying to stir things up. Eat your dead flesh, I don't really care.

Answer 7

You know what? I completely agree. I am a vegetarian, but i hate it when others go off you about what you should eat. Although i do think there is a difference between killing a plant and killing a animal, it really does annoy the crap out of me when other vegetarians and vegans shove their ideas in your face just because they think their completely right. People have differant opinions and life styles and we need to respect them, just as we would want respect from them. How would you like it if a meat eater shoved their ideals in your face, screaming at you because you don't eat meat? Stop acting like your so much freakin better than everyone else just because you don't eat meat, i mean yah i believe its a great thing not killing animals, but i can respect that others want to eat meat. Everyones not perfect so get over yourself!!

Answer 8

why do all meat eaters use the "why is it ok to kill plants and not animals" argument? you obviously don't care about taking a life besides a human's so why does it matter to you? it doesn't, you just want to start an argument. having a nervous system does not mean something feels pain, you need a brain to interpret the nerve signals as pain. you are the one doing the "labelelling", leave us alone and we will leave you alone. this is the vegetarian and vegan section, not the argumentative meat eaters section.
sorry, but you started the argument, so don't start complaining about how rude i'm being.

Answer 9

because a tomato cant look at me with chocolate brown eyes like a cow can, because a celery stick cant look at me and oink and let me pick it up and cradle it in my arms like my pet pig alan could, because a beanstalk cant squeal when its in pain, like ALL animals can.

thats why. and im sorry, i dont know what other vegans, vegetarians have told you what you can and cant eat, but as a person you have the option to say "no" .. so go eat what your comfortable with, but dont attack someone else for they're beliefs in not wanting to eat an animal, some vegetarians eat fish & chicken (just not red-meat) and etc. so dont say "im tired of vegans and vegetarians saying...blah blah" because now your labeling.

Answer 10

I'm a vegetarian and do plants have feelings? Do they have nervous systems and think? Or do anything that makes them have a higher existence than the basic definition of life. Animals however are suffering and be brutally murdered unnecessarily. Just because the animals cannot think like humans or "make their own country" does not mean that they do not experience pain. I recommend watching the movie "Earthlings" narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, it's what got me to turn vegetarian. PS- im just answering ur question i unlike many others do not try and make others conform to my beliefs, that is not how i live. choose what u want