The Cry of the Tomato

December 22, 2009 5:46 AM

Vegetarians may have to get off their moral high horse because it turns out that those vegetables may not want to be eaten. Also, plants may be smarter than we think, consider the sagebrush. "Plants are not static or silly,” said Monika Hilker of the Institute of Biology at the Free University of Berlin. “They respond to tactile cues, they recognize different wavelengths of light, they listen to chemical signals, they can even talk” through chemical signals. Touch, sight, hearing, speech. “These are sensory modalities and abilities we normally think of as only being in animals,” Dr. Hilker said."
posted by Xurando (31 comments total)

get off their moral high horse

This new research, it makes the energy requirements for producing meat and plant foods equal?

/not a vegetarian
posted by OmieWise at 5:57 AM on December 22, 2009 [3 favorites]

*sharpens knives, grins evilly at sweet potatos*
posted by sciurus at 5:59 AM on December 22, 2009

I eagerly await the day when vegans will be forced by their ideology to subsist on dirt and rocks.
posted by davelog at 6:04 AM on December 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

I eagerly await the day when people who don't understand the ethical problems with the meat industry just shut up and eat their ground up animals and stop writing ridiculous things about it.

Although, if you ignore the bizarre misunderstanding the concept of cruelty to animals, there's a lot of interesting info about plant defensive mechanisms in there.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 6:08 AM on December 22, 2009 [12 favorites]

Omnivores may have to get off their unthinking meat-train, because it turns out that rising standards of living, a growing global population, and dwindling resources means the only steak they may be eating in the future used to be named Larry. Also, animals may be smarter than we think, capable of thinking and feeling on a level we never previously believed, further blurring the line of what makes our species distinct from the rest. "It must be that central nervous system thing-y," said some doctor.
posted by Panjandrum at 6:08 AM on December 22, 2009 [3 favorites]

I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals. I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants. I never thought they were silly, I thought they were evil. God I hate them so much.
posted by allen.spaulding at 6:09 AM on December 22, 2009 [4 favorites]

Breatharianists rejoice.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:11 AM on December 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

Good research, poorly framed post w/ a GYOB feel.

Hopefully now all the angry vegheads and angry meatheads can continue to derail and take the story personally as quickly as possible and it will flameout before it flares up.
posted by TomMelee at 6:13 AM on December 22, 2009

I'm cooking lamb stew with potatoes and carrots. I am an immoral hominid.
posted by elmono at 6:17 AM on December 22, 2009

Reporting in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Hilker and her coworkers determined that when a female cabbage butterfly lays her eggs on a brussels sprout plant and attaches her treasures to the leaves with tiny dabs of glue, the vigilant vegetable detects the presence of a simple additive in the glue, benzyl cyanide. Cued by the additive, the plant swiftly alters the chemistry of its leaf surface to beckon female parasitic wasps. Spying the anchored bounty, the female wasps in turn inject their eggs inside, the gestating wasps feed on the gestating butterflies, and the plant’s problem is solved.

That is so cool.
posted by rtha at 6:18 AM on December 22, 2009 [5 favorites]

Yeah, this supposes that the moral high horse, assuming even a tiny proportion of vegetarians are riding it, is predicated on vegetarians believing that they are causing less physical harm to living things and that this is scientifically based.

Many vegetarians do so because it is better for the planet; many do so because they don't feel comfortable with the idea of eating one kind of animal and think that it would thus be wrong to eat any kind of animal. Some do it for religious reasons where they are explicitly denied anything but vegetables, fruits, and grains in their diet.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I do think it's wrong to eat animals because I don't need to do it to get the nutrition I need.* I do it anyway, because I really enjoy eating it. Because I think it is wrong, for me, I do try to keep my consumption of it down (my goal is no more than 2-3 times per week). Realistically, though, people need to eat something, and even if plants are remarkably more sentient than we might have thought, ultimately they are the lowest point on the food chain, sentience-wise.

I also support animal testing if it saves people's lives. There are many people who are against animal testing but eat meat and wear leather. And the truth is, you can eat tofu and you can wear pleather, but you can't use either of these things in laboratory testing.

Ultimately if there's anything to get all moral high horsey about, it's using resources in the most efficient and caring way possible, to be mindful of the life energies that went into everything you consume. Since vegetarianism is usually a more efficient way of getting calories and nutrients into your body, vegetarians are doing this by default.

* Noting that there are some people who do actually need to eat animals for health reasons
posted by Deathalicious at 6:19 AM on December 22, 2009

And what about all of those microbes?
posted by mareli at 6:19 AM on December 22, 2009

That Times piece was frustrating since it seemed to ignore the key question of whether the various features that some plants have are morally relevant and whether it's even meaningful to use terms like "want" and "talk" in anything but the loosest metaphorical sense. And then I felt like it made vegetarians and/or vegans look ridiculous by implying that they may be similarly confused vis a vis plants and animals.
posted by chinston at 6:20 AM on December 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

Wow, this is the second time in 2 days I've made this joke on Metafilter.
posted by The Whelk at 6:23 AM on December 22, 2009

Also, this is the dumbest bit: vegetables may not want to be eaten

Actually, nearly all plants evolved the way they did specifically to be eaten (or at least, for a portion of themselves to be eaten). It's a remarkably effective mode of seed dispersal. It's true that a plant doesn't always want its leaves or stems eaten, but many plants have symbiotic relationships with animals (usually insects) who consume a token amount of their vegetable matter in exchange for offering protection or, again, seed dispersion.
posted by Deathalicious at 6:24 AM on December 22, 2009 [4 favorites]

That article was great, if you just skip the first three paragraphs entirely.

I love reading about the different ways that non-animal organisms have evolved to protect themselves from predation. Okay, I know a man-o-war is actually a composite of really teeny tiny invertebrate animals and not a plant, but nature gets up to some crazy shit when you leave it alone for 3.7 billion years or so, so why we expect plants to just sit in the ground and hope for sunlight, I do not know.

Those who seriously believe a vegan/vegetarian's ethical objection to eating animals is "it has evolved complicated defensive/offensive mechanisms that are not necessarily related to sentience and the ability to feel pain" and not "it is sentient and can feel pain", well, I don't know what to say to you.
posted by shaun uh at 6:29 AM on December 22, 2009

Vegetarians get off their moral high horse

Oh, fuck off.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 6:36 AM on December 22, 2009 [6 favorites]

I like how in this post, the ridiculous "moral high horse" framing is objected to by everyone whereas in the Linux security post the ridiculous "nyah nyah, it isn't 100% perfect after all!" framing was not.
posted by DU at 6:37 AM on December 22, 2009

The Jains, the indian religion which has had such an influence on indian cuisine & culture, has recognized plants as living things throughout their history - they try to eat just fallen fruits and nuts, or the outer leaves of vegetables, when possible, rather than roots or central stems of the plants. But they still classify living things in five levels, and plants are below insects and animals (of course they consider rocks at least basically alive, so...)
posted by mdn at 6:38 AM on December 22, 2009

I wholeheartedly concur with The Honorable Dr The Other Guy's learned opinion.
posted by cillit bang at 6:39 AM on December 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

At least carnivores generally have the decency to kill their food. Vegetarians are like zombies, they eat their food while it's still alive! How horrifying!
posted by Area Control at 6:41 AM on December 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

I like how in this post, the ridiculous "moral high horse" framing is objected to by everyone whereas in the Linux security post the ridiculous "nyah nyah, it isn't 100% perfect after all!" framing was not.

Yes, let's drag an extra and unrelated argument in here.
posted by middleclasstool at 6:41 AM on December 22, 2009

I watched The Happening last night and what I learned is that if we don't stop pissing off plants they're gonna fuck up our neurochemistry and make us kill ourselves.
posted by ghharr at 6:42 AM on December 22, 2009

We're all (plants, cows, people) made out of the same atoms, and we'll all get eaten by something someday. Respect for living things does not automatically equal vegetarianism, and vice versa.

That said, the NYTimes article is weirdly snarky, and why did Natalie Angier feel the need to write it?
posted by oinopaponton at 6:52 AM on December 22, 2009

Say vegetarians are on their high horse, even still - it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of beef. You'd be saving a lot of plants' lives by not eating meat!
posted by Kateruba at 6:53 AM on December 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

I'm a Level 5 vegan. I don't eat anything that casts a shadow.

/Simpsons
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:56 AM on December 22, 2009

If vegetarians would just stop riding those high horses, something something hay mumble mumble pasture.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 6:58 AM on December 22, 2009

Wow, I never realized vegetarians lacked a sense of humor before. Must be some kind of dietary deficiency.
posted by spicynuts at 7:00 AM on December 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

um, way to phrase the post to intentionally rile up people.


I like how in this post, the ridiculous "moral high horse" framing is objected to by everyone whereas in the Linux security post the ridiculous "nyah nyah, it isn't 100% perfect after all!" framing was not.

Well, go there and do it already, christ I don't really give a rat's ass about Linux, but some people do, if you are one of them make your goddamn point where it matters.
posted by edgeways at 7:04 AM on December 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

Vegetarians may have to get off their moral high horse

Snark. It's what's for dinner.

because it turns out that those vegetables may not want to be eaten.

Defense mechanisms ≠ sentience.

Also, plants may be smarter than we think, consider the sagebrush.

They can HAVE me JOURNALS when they PRY 'em from ME COLD DEAD FINGERS!!!

"Plants are not static or silly,” said Monika Hilker of the Institute of Biology at the Free University of Berlin.

Did someone accuse 'em of it and I missed it? It was Paula Deen, wasn't it? "Honey, don't you dare eat that silly asparagus unless it's fried and dressed up with some spareribs and a rack of lamb! And watch out for that Asparagus Static Cling. Nasty!"

Moving right along....

“They respond to tactile cues, they recognize different wavelengths of light, they listen to chemical signals, they can even talk” through chemical signals. Touch, sight, hearing, speech. “These are sensory modalities and abilities we normally think of as only being in animals,” Dr. Hilker said."

I think we all know where this is headed:

"What do you mean, "*They* cut the power"? How could they cut the power, man? They're animals!"

Uh oh.
posted by zarq at 7:07 AM on December 22, 2009

I never torture vegetables. I do keep them in the same plastic bag though. And in the crisper, where it's freezing.

Where can I buy googly eyes to put on them?

Oh the humanity.
posted by anniecat at 7:08 AM on December 22, 2009