Plants are living too. Aren’t vegetarians inconsistent?

This post is one in a series connected with the launch of my book, “Vegetarianism: A Buddhist View,” and with my book launch party. It’s a brief extract from my book.

The notion that vegetarians are being inconsistent in eating plants because plants are living things is very common: there can scarcely be a vegetarian who hasn’t heard this argument several times. It is hard, however, to see how plants can suffer. They have nothing corresponding to a central nervous system or even to nerves. While it’s of considerable evolutionary benefit for animals to have a sense of pain so that they can escape danger, why should plants, which are by nature static, have evolved such a sense? I believe that we instinctively recognize that plants are of a different order from animals. I doubt if many who employ the above argument would really feel the same seeing a carrot pulled out of the ground and eaten as they would seeing a lamb having its throat cut. The difference seems obvious.

A second count on which this argument falls is that it takes 10 kilos of vegetable protein to produce 1 kilo of meat protein. Thus, by eating plants directly, rather than by converting them into animal protein first, we cause the deaths of far fewer of them. If you’re concerned about causing less destruction to plants then become a vegetarian!