Why do vegetarians/vegans differentiate between plants and animals?

I don't.

By eating plants I kill both fewer plants and animals.

And I would prefer to cause no more death than is required for me to live.

And I can live on plants just fine.

originally posted by: framedragged

And I can live on plants just fine.

So can most everyone.

Unless you're trying to turn yourself into a Hutt.

originally posted by: jonnywhite
I think generally because they relate more to animals than to plants. Somebody in the biological sciences should comment. For example, I'm sure that plant cells have different cell walls than animal cells. There're clear distinctions between the two which someone might be prejudiced to. However, plants have DNA just like animals. I'm also sure they have nervous systems, although I'm not sure if they have central nervous systems.

Plants are alive. Plants feel pain. Plants communicate. They move, grow and reproduce. Yet even if you limited yourself to bacterial or fungal life, out of concern for these things, you'd still be eating something alive.

We have no real way of knowing half the statements you just made (for clarity, I'm referring to you're idea that plants "feel pain," among a few other nitpicky problems), and yes, I have a B.S. in Biology (among other degrees in the sciences) . As for why they distinguish between the two, you're better off asking a vegan than a biologist.

a reply to: dr1234
Thank you for your reply. I'm interested in the genuine differences between animals and plants. My idea is vegans/vegetarians might be prejudiced to those things. I"m not a botanist/biologist, so it's hard.

Did some googling to bring these up:
answers.yahoo.com - Six differences between plants and animals.?...
earthsky.org - What’s the difference between plant DNA and animal DNA?...
www.preservearticles.com - What is the difference between Plants and Animals?...
www.naturalhistorymag.com - Do Plants Have Brains?...
answers.yahoo.com - Do plants have a nervous system?...
blogs.scientificamerican.com - Plants cannot “think and remember,” but there’s nothing stupid about them: They’re shockingly sophisticated...

From hte last link above:

"A big mistake people make is speaking as if plants ‘know’ what they’re doing," says Elizabeth Van Volkenburgh, a botanist at the University of Washington. "Biology teachers, researchers, students and lay people all make the same mistake. I’d much rather say a plant senses and responds, rather than the plant ‘knows.’ Using words like ‘intelligence’ or ‘think’ for plants is just wrong. Sometimes it’s fun to do, it’s a little provocative. But it’s just wrong. It’s easy to make the mistake of taking a word from another field and applying it to a plant."

a reply to: moebius

There is less karma (reaction) from eating lower on the food chain. There is karma for everything we do here (Newton's law: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction), so it is simply a matter of incurring less karma. Why? To lighten our load so that we can experience our true spiritual nature more easily. Materialism and karmas weigh us down, making it harder to rise up in meditation, or to experience spiritual connection on a daily basis. But don't take anyone's word for it--do the experiments yourself. Eat heavy food, or dead animals, and see how you do in meditation or how your awareness is affected, compared to when you eat light, plant based foods. Then all arguments are settled thru your direct experience. Easiest way to cut through the debates.

a reply to: HRF1965

You can't prove karma actually exists & you sure as hell can't apply newtons law to it...

So not being a hypocrite is more important than being compassionate towards billions of intelligent animals who die everyday and live short, brutal and painful lives just to satisfy someone's pleasure in tasting a specific type of food?

I think you all have a very warped understanding of what 'species-ism" actually is. You think not being able to discriminate between plants and animals is speciesm? By your logic, why don't you eat humans? That's speciesist. Why don't you eat your dog, or a cockroach, or spiders, or your own children? That's speciesism too. Assuming that because you are a human being who can speak and has technology and physical force and that because of that you are justified in oppressing and enslaving whole groups of species is speciesism. There is a very real difference between plants and animals. Just because it falls under the umbrella of "life" or "eukaryotes" doesn't justify eating it. Shouldn't you then indiscriminately eat anything classified as a eukaryote?

"I eat animals because I'm not a speciesist" has to be one of the dumbest arguments for meat eating i've ever heard.

Animal agriculture also generates 18% of greenhouse gas emissions, contributes largely to deforestation, and world hunger.

Meat eater logic "Lets grow this perfectly good food, feed it to an intelligent animal, and then eat it because my daddy raised me them's tastes good"

Biological Classification See the difference between a kingdom and a species?

Also plants regrow their limbs, and animal's don't. You can care for plants for years and years and they will continue to produce fruit, which does not kill them.
#.

originally posted by: centhwevir1979
a reply to: butcherguy

The quote left out some of what I wrote. Which one of those is a viable food source if the alternative was to eat a plant diet? I'm not going to burn the calories to catch a lizard only to eat its tail.

I quoted a full sentence that you wrote.
You were wrong.
The context does not change the fact that your statement was incorrect.

a reply to: Mindsack

Meat eater logic "Lets grow this perfectly good food, feed it to an intelligent animal, and then eat it because my daddy raised me them's tastes good" 

I'm curious.
Do you eat a lot of timothy hay?
Silage?
Grass from a pasture?
Since it is perfectly good food that we feed to animals that we raise for meat eaters, do you eat it often?

a reply to: butcherguy

How about I change that to, "Lets create of tons of monoculture farms growing corn and soy which rely heavily on pesticides just to meet the demand of industrialized animal production, so that we can eat heavily medicated intelligent animals because they taste good"

Think of all the water it takes to grow that, and keep those animals alive, compared to the water it takes to grow fruits and veg. The infrastructure and energy necessary to make a burger.

Meat eaters don't give a # about the environment or other lifeforms and are generally less compassionate overall. And the whole argument that it's something firstworlders adopt, hey, so is eating grassfed cattle and free range anything. Saying privileged westerners adopt the diet, did you forget you're also privileged westerners? What makes your diet not privileged, even to other westerners that live in food deserts? And I don't think you can compare your diet to hunter-gatherer diets of tribal cultures.

a reply to: Mindsack

How about I change that to, "Lets create of tons of monoculture farms growing corn and soy which rely heavily on pesticides just to meet the demand of industrialized animal production, so that we can eat heavily medicated intelligent animals because they taste good" 

That would be much more accurate than to try to convince people that you sit down to a plate full of silage and hay for dinner.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Mindsack

Meat eater logic "Lets grow this perfectly good food, feed it to an intelligent animal, and then eat it because my daddy raised me them's tastes good" 

I'm curious.
Do you eat a lot of timothy hay?
Silage?
Grass from a pasture?
Since it is perfectly good food that we feed to animals that we raise for meat eaters, do you eat it often?

Don't know what meat your eating lol, but no sustainable meat source grows to adulthood on silage, grass, or hay.

Maybe force fed corn and soy protein.

But not silage, grass, or hay.

originally posted by: artistpoet
a reply to: Eunuchorn

Why spit at their feet and call them ignorant ... sounds rather like a child having a tantrum

My point is about respect ... and also toleration of other's choices

Why do you think Vegans choose to not eat honey ?

Everytime, these decisions come from long rooted ancient religious systems, about souls, karma, and the like.

In the end, they find themselves having accomplished nothing on that path, because this particular physical system is damaged beyond the ability to repair.

They are trying for freedom, thinking they are being tested here for some good reason, when it has no GOOD reason at all....

originally posted by: framedragged

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Mindsack

Meat eater logic "Lets grow this perfectly good food, feed it to an intelligent animal, and then eat it because my daddy raised me them's tastes good" 

I'm curious.
Do you eat a lot of timothy hay?
Silage?
Grass from a pasture?
Since it is perfectly good food that we feed to animals that we raise for meat eaters, do you eat it often?

Don't know what meat your eating lol, but no sustainable meat source grows to adulthood on silage, grass, or hay.

Maybe force fed corn and soy protein.

But not silage, grass, or hay.

I suppose that you have never cast your eyes upon a sign advertising 'grass fed beef'. You can find it in natural food stores along with unpasteurized milk products. There is one about a half a mile from my house. Their 2x3 foot sign is outside the store. One of their selling points IS sustainability.

a reply to: butcherguy

Plants are here on earth mostly food for other organisms. Some animals are also food for other animals and in nature this works perfectly. Rabbit eats carrot. Hawk eat rabbit. Or gazele eats grass. Lion eats gazele and to survive lions will not overreproduct like humans did. Humans are anomaly on earth. We can extinct any specie. We are overpopulating earth. So eating plants instead of animals is doing less harm to mother nature.

a reply to: saadad

Throw your electronic devices away and never buy or use another if you want to help mother nature.
Never use electricity again.
Don't drive a car or use public transportation.
Don't ride a bicycle either... they make those in factories in China, you know?
Don't live in one of 99% of first world houses either....
Be kind to mother nature.

I am not against being kind to mother nature, I just want everyone to make sure their priorities are straight.

a reply to: butcherguy

Actually there is a bit of a difference between using electricity and going a lonnnnng way down the road to extincting the ocean life and knocking down forests like they were bowling pins. Humans are the only species that destroy forests , most of that to clear land for "domesticated food" animals and the massive amount of feed that they need. Then look at what the "Pale Skins" did to the buffalo of North America in their quest to grab land. Almost extincted them as well (and now it's popular to eat them too? Odd, we humans). No, the habit of meat-eating has given Mother Nature two black eyes and a few broken limbs. Ever fly across country in the United States and look out the window? Farmland, as far as the eye can see sometimes, farmland which mainly grows animal feed but, not very long ago, was all pristine and natural prairie and forest. Human locusts, if you look at the destruction in fast-action. One of the saddest sights on the planet, imnho.

a reply to: Aleister

Okay, since using electricity... which is almost completely generated through burning fossil fuels and nuclear power (making toxic waste that lasts for centuries) is not as bad for the environment as cutting a renewable resource.....

We shouldn't care about it? And do even more of it???


Whatever.

a reply to: butcherguy

No, I said none of that. I'm all for solar and wind power, and wish every nation would go all-out to implement them (solar panels on every home, business, and built into the streets in my perfect world).

originally posted by: Aleister
a reply to: butcherguy

No, I said none of that. I'm all for solar and wind power, and wish every nation would go all-out to implement them (solar panels on every home, business, and built into the streets in my perfect world).

A star on your post.
We can hope that we get those things in the future. Cheap oil won't make it happen quickly though.