This whole thread was great. It brings me hope to see how many people chimed in on this thread with realism and not some snarky utopian daydream world vision. To be a vegan for "ethical" or "moral" reasons, in my opinion, is to look at the world through very narrow and near-sighted lenses. The only answer to their problem is for humanity to put itself into extinction. Perhaps that IS their ultimate agenda. It is perfectly understandable to want to avoid killing animals for your own consumption, but to expect the entire world to operate under the same pretenses... ugh...
Anyway, the mention of plants having a nervous system and being hard to "kill cleanly" has been on my mind of late. I think about trees... and how when they are being killed by pests, or deprived of water or nutrition... their death is often slow, sometimes taking a decade or longer. How awful would that be? We buy firewood. From poor, older than-we-are and perfectly deserving to live trees... how long after they've been felled do they "feel" the life seeping out of them? Obviously smaller plants die quicker, but still so much slower than when an animal has its spine severed. Think about the weeds pulled by the roots from the carefully tended garden bed. It can take days for them to actually reach the point they can't be resurrected! Throw that ball of bare roots on the ground and if it rains, new leaves sprout out as if they are still in denial they've been plucked from their life-bed. And what of plucking fruits off a vine? Does the parent plant actually enjoy and appreciate it? Sure, it's one of the best ways to "spread thy seed" but it's a growing part of that plant's "body." Would it be like clipping your fingernails or like losing your pinky toe? And what about the poor carrots? They are plucked up in their entirety, never having the opportunity for reproduction (unless you're letting every single carrot live a second year, which deprives you of the yummy part!) It's a lot to think about. I feel guilty plucking perfectly edible and nutritious weeds out of my gardens. I learned the hard way that I have to do it, anyway. But sometimes I find a spot to relocate a particularly robust curly dock.
To be alive is to eat living things. To deny that fact is to deny that we are part of nature. If we are not part of nature, what are we?
