Do plants feel pain?
The first time I saw this claim I thought it was a joke. The 20th time I saw it I still thought it was a joke. But no, there are people out there who truly believe plants feel pain and that eating them is just as bad as eating animals. Now I know that some of the people who use this argument are trolling and being disingenuous, but some do seem to legitimately believe this. So here I am, 1:30 am on a Monday night in April of 2024, writing an article educating grown adults that no, plants do not feel pain, and eating them is not the same as eating animals. What a life I lead…
Plants do respond to stimuli of course, but that is not the same thing as feeling pain. This phenomenon is called tropism. “Plants can respond to several different aspects of their environments. These include gravity, water, light, and contact with objects.” A more detailed scientific look at the topic can be found here.
So yes, let’s cut right to the chase. Plants do not feel pain, they do not have feelings, they are not sentient, they do not have a brain, and they do not have a central nervous system.
Let’s look at these two sources:
This first one comes from the National Library of Medicine and is titled “Debunking a myth: plant consciousness”. This is a pretty exhaustive study that (should) hopefully lay this ridiculous argument to bed.
Next up is a more accessible article written for the general public, which comes to us from Vegan FTA and is called “The Ultimate Vegan Answer to Plants Feel Pain Too”
Here’s a website that has gone to great lengths to definitively prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that plants do not feel pain: Do Plants Feel Pain?
But let’s say that you’ve read the above links, and you’re still not convinced. You’re a MENSA Rhodes scholar stable genius and you know in your heart of hearts that cutting a carrot in half is 100% exactly the same as slitting a dog’s throat.
So let me humor you and pretend for a moment that plants are sentient and feel pain. Well here’s the kicker, that’s actually an argument FOR veganism. Since the vast majority of crops are grown for livestock, and we can feed the entire human population a vegan diet using 25% of the farmland we use today, a fully vegan world with no animal agriculture would result in result in 75% fewer plants suffering and dying.
So that means that you, the world-renowned plant rights activist that you are, should immediately go vegan knowing that you can reduce the amount of plants that are suffering and dying. So please, tell your friends, tell the world, tell all the other plant rights activists - going vegan can save plants. PLANT LIVES MATTER.
