Tip 40: If You Can’t Say Anything Vegan: “Plants Have Feelings Too.”

Posted as part of VeganMoFo (The Vegan Month of Food) 2014

When vegans are involved, things get a little tricky – for all of us. For non-vegans, that often looks like defensiveness or hostility due to the perception that vegans are telling them their food choices are unethical or wrong. For vegans, it often looks like self-righteousness and snobbery. So, I’m using the Vegan Month of Food – a month during which vegan blogs are celebrated and aggregated in one place – to teach non-vegans and vegans how to be nice to each other. If you can’t say anything vegan, don’t say anything at all.

“PLANTS HAVE FEELINGS TOO.”
Non-vegans, please stop saying this to vegans and vegetarians.

Why?
When you say this, it sounds like you’re trying to derail a conversation or move the focus away from the morality of eating animals. But, at the same time, it does a terrible job of it. Because, if the possibility of plants having some form of feelings or sentience means we shouldn’t be eating them, then we definitely shouldn’t be eating animals that definitely have feelings and sentience.

Also, if eating plants is wrong, then shouldn’t we reduce our consumption of plants? If so, we should reduce our consumption of animals, the raising of whom requires waaay-hay-haaay more plants than if we were to just eat plants directly. Eat plants. Go ahead. You know you want to (and need to).

What are some alternatives?

“I don’t actually care or know about plant feelings, but it gives me something else to talk about besides animals.”
“I need to eat plants or I’ll die, so I don’t care about their feelings. Animals on the other hand…”
Don’t say anything at all.

Note: I asked you to choose my punishment for missing a day of posting for VeganMoFo, and you responded. But there was a tie, so I decided to do a few of the things: starting with posting a dumb picture of a (smart) vegan on each VeganMoFo post. Today’s picture isn’t dumb, though; it’s friggin’ adorable. Here it is!