From PEVA - Protect Every Vegetable Association - PEVA is dedicated to the protection of vegetables and other plant life. "Through different from motile life forms, plants are still living creatures struggling to survive, innocent of sin, and such have the right to live free from domination, abuse, and consumption by motiles." http://www.peva.org/philosophy.htm Do Plants Feel Pain? Some advocates of animal rights claim that it's ok to kill and eat vegetables because they have no nervous system, no brain, and therefore cannot feel pain. Another reasoning given is that from an evolutionary standpoint, plant pain makes no sense because a plant cannot evade an attacker. Plant and 'lower' animal responses are dismissed as mere 'chemical responses'. This line of reasoning is narrow, and becomes questionable upon examination. ⢠A snake has no legs, therefore it cannot move about on land. Wrong, or course. A snake simply has a different way of moving about. Plants have a different way to feel pain. ⢠Consider a paraplegic. They can feel no pain in their legs. Is it ok to cut off the legs and eat them? We don't think so. ⢠Some single cell organisms are known to react and withdraw (run!) from heat. Is this not a single-cell pain reaction without a complex human-like nervous system? How can a single cell make this determination without having a 'brain'? What is true is that plants are different from animals. There is no question about that. What is less clear is what constitutes 'pain'. Humans sense pain only in their brains. No brain, or no nervous system, means no pain - for a human. Human pain sensation in the brain includes 'mere' chemical responses. Evidence that a chemical response is involved are that drugs can alter the normal chemical response action. Morphine and aspirin are examples of substances that alter the normal chemical response. A plant does not need a nervous system to feel pain. It can feel 'pain' (distress) in every cell of it's body! Different plants respond differently to this pain. True, they cannot 'run' from an attacker, but responses can include the creation of repellants (insect attacks), wilting (moisture deprivation), and limiting fruit production (adverse environment). In addition to their own way to feel pain, they have their own way of talking! Some plants, when under insect attack, are known to transmit scent information to nearby plants, allowing them to anticipate an attack and begin defensive maneuvers. Humans can remain omnivores or vegans at their choice, but should not kill to do so. Accept plant gifts (fruit), and develop a system of food distribution based on natural deaths. PEVA philosophy suggests eating the fruit (but not the seeds!) I'm not advocating this, just adding to the discussion.....
personally i don't eat much meat. humans evolved to require about 60 grams of crude protein every day, which is roughly 2 ounces. know what happens to the other 14 ounces of that 16oz steak you ate? you piss it out. seems like a huge waste of life and resources to eat eight times what you need to survive well. plus meat is expensive and livestock damage the environment and are a pain in the ass to maintain. it blows my mind how much meat americans eat compared to other cultures...fast food meat is terrible for you. personally i don't care for red meat very much although i eat steak or a burger maybe once a month if i'm at a good place, and chicken is boooooring. pork is probably my favorite meat. seafood kicks ass. there're like a million different varieties and ways to prepare seafood...and all of them good...especially sushi... eating meat is a way of life, and i don't have a problem with it. i'm not vegetarian, but i think that americans don't realize that they eat way way WAY too much meat and that it is very unhealthy for them to do so. atkins diet is very unhealthy as well, especially for the gastrointestinal tract, but probably OK for short periods of time. it's depressing to see older, obese people sitting down to pizza hut meat lover's pizza or something like that which is loaded with grease, fat, and poor quality meat...personally i feel like shit if i eat something like that... i think that most people who eat meat should take a look at where meat is slaughtered and butchered, and if possible, should take part in it. it would give them an understanding of what eating meat is all about....and i think they would be motivated to eat alot less of it...which would be a good thing for their health...
Why go veggie? 1) Your health: prevent disease. Meat-eating has been linked with cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis, kidney stones, and many other devastating diseases. By eliminating meat from your diet you can take a crucial step towards a long life of health and happiness. 2) Increased energy and endurance: A vegetarian diet improves your stamina, concentration, and sense of well-being. In one study, athletes who switched to a vegetarian diet improved their endurance to almost 3 times as much as those who remained carnivorous. 3) Avoid toxic food contaminants: Flesh foods are loaded with dangerous poisons and contaminants such as hormones, herbicides and pesticides, and antibiotics. As these toxins are all fat-soluble, they concentrate in the fatty flesh of the animals. Not to mention the viruses, bacteria and parasites such as salmonella, trichinella and other worms, and toxoplasmosis parasites. 4) Humans are by design vegetarian: our flat teeth are perfect for grinding grains and vegetables, not for tearing apart animal flesh. Similarly, our hands are designed for gathering, not for flesh-ripping. Our saliva contains the enzyme alpha-amylase, the sole purpose of which is to digest the complex carbohydrates in plant foods. (This enzyme is not found in the saliva of carnivores.) Basically we have all the right apparatus to consume vegetarian products, and none of the right apparatus for flesh foods. 5) Care for the environment: by improperly using animals for food, we are eating ourselves off the planet. The raising of animals specifically to kill them and eat them has resulted in incredible waste and devastation of our precious resources. Just one example of the consequences is the fact that due to plundering our farmlands to fatten animals for slaughter, over 4 million acres of cropland are being lost to erosion in this country every year. 6) Help end world hunger: every day forty thousand children on this planet needlessly starve to death. According to the Department of Agriculture statistics, one acre of land can grow 20,000 pounds of potatoes. That same acre of land, when used to grow cattlefeed, can produce less than 165 pounds of edible cow flesh. 7) Become a more peaceful person: when we consume animal flesh products we are necessarily at odds with nature and our fellow living beings. Consumption of flesh foods has been scientifically linked with violent and aggressive behavior. 8) Have compassion for animals: animals who are raised for slaughter needlessly experience incredible suffering throughout their life and death. Many people try not to think of the torturous experiences of the animal whose flesh ended up in their hamburger or on their dinner table. But if it is distasteful to think about, consider what it is like to experience it. 9) Vegetarianism is moral and ethical: give the devastating consequences of meat eating on an individual, social and ecological level, as thinking, caring beings we should choose vegetarianism. Many great philosophers such as Plato, Socrates, Leo Tolstoy, and George Bernard Shaw have taught the morality of vegetarianism. 10) Animals are God's property and have a right to life: the living beings temporarily encaged in animal bodies are not here for us to harm and exploit. We are meant to act as caretakers and protectors of animals and the planet, not exploiters and killers. Many world religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, and Jainists all teach that eating animal flesh is wrong.
Did anyone else think it was odd that Atkins died from slipping on ice? I mean, that's usually something you hear about old people dying from. (because of brittle bones) I don't know if this is true, but supposedly too much protein intake depletes calcium, causing bone loss as you get older. I'm not sure how bad his fall was, but I can't imagine that falling on ice would kill a healthy person, in most instances. Just a thought.
i don't think that PEVA site is for real.. "Our bodies kill microbe invaders without permission from our brains. Compared to this, walking on grass seems trivial. We suggest you tread lightly and choose a path that minimizes and fairly distributes the pain amongst the plants. " oh please apologize to the microbe invaders that my body killed today!! are you f**king kidding me?!?! choose a path that minimizes pain to the grass??!? if someone believes in this philosophy, they should just kill themselves, because everything they do is a burden and a pain to other living things. it's reasonable to draw the line at gratuitous killing. i mean, we can kill to survive if we must. we shouldn't, however, torture and kill just for our own pleasure.