Plants Can Hear You

Plants can hear when they’re being eaten. University of Missouri researchers played the sound of chewing to plants and watched them panic—defensive chemicals flooding their system, basically a silent scream. The plants heard the danger and completely lost it.

Which means plants are dying with awareness. If I’m vegan or vegetarian because I don’t want to kill anything, I’m still a murderer—just of something that can’t run away or beg or look like it’s suffering.

The logic is stupid but it’s kind of perfect. I draw my line based on what makes me uncomfortable. Lettuce is fine. Cows aren’t. Fish is a maybe. Plants are definitely okay because they don’t look like they’re dying. But it’s all violence, all compromise. I’m just picking which deaths I can live with. Give it a few years and there’ll be something else to feel guilty about, and everyone will just move on to whatever the next clean diet is.