Vegans & Vegetarians: Don't plants feel pain?!

No, it has been scientifically proven that plants respond to outside stimuli. So, if I drop my laptop it responds to outside stimuli by breaking when it hits the ground. It does not feel pain.

Pain is, by definition, a psychological experience. In order to feel pain, an organism must have a Central Nervous System,to collect the data obtained by the outside phenomenon. And a brain to interpret the stimuli as a psychological experience.

My laptop doesn't a central nervous system or a brain; so it can't of feeling pain.
Plants don't have a central nervous system or a brain so they're unable to feel pain.

As others have elaborated, plants don't express pain as animals do because they lack nervous systems. I perceive other animals as much more moving, mysterious, and like myself than plants are. However, I believe that plants have spirits, I feel a strong connection, and I want to minimize my killing of them.

The point of veganism is not to be perfect and totally obliterate suffering and killing, but to minimize the pain we cause others. Eating animal products actually kills a lot more plants than being vegan, because each farm animal eats their lifetime of plants, and much land is cleared for cattle grazing.

As a low-fat raw vegan, my food choices kill even fewer plants than they did when I was a cooked vegan, because I eat mostly fruit, which is picked without ending the plant's life. (I also eat leafy green vegetables.) I'll be looking into other ways I can be kind to plants, animals, and people through my consumer decisions. :)

No. Plants do not have a brain or central nervous system, therefore lack the ability to feel pain, have experiences or in any way acknowledge anything seeing as they are sentient lifeforms without nerves, electrons running through a central cortex.

They are as inanimate as a rock, a mountain or a cloud. They are the result of biology and do not contain receptors for feeelings.

No. As has been said, plants do not have a brain or central nervous system, and so do not feel pain in any way you know. Yes, they are living organisms and react, as they are able, to changes in their environment or damage, but they live very different lives than animals and plants do not have the kinds of bodies that can feel "pain".

They don't have a central nervous system. They still have llife, so they still feel something, but only through one sense. Animals with multiple senses and a central nervous system feel enormous pain. Also vegetables are eaten when they are about to die (their life span is just one year and they are eaten at harvest when their life span is over). Fruits fall from trees, and the trees want us to eat them so that we can discard the seeds and more trees can grow.

Electroencepahalography (EEG) measures brain waves and nothing else so no, nobody has proved that plants feel pain. The response of plants is localised and hence is not pain. In order to feel pain, there needs to be intact pathways from the site of pain to the brain and if any step in this pathway is cut there is no pain. Eg you have pain receptors called nociceptors which are attached to your nerve cells. The nociceptor detects changes in the skin which occurs when tissue is damaged as chemicals are released from cells when they break. These signals trigger an electrical response inside the nerve cells which are passed through a stepwise pathway up to the brain. The brain receives the incoming signals and recognises this as pain.

If you have damage to your nerve cells or spinal cord it is possible to not feel pain in certain regions, because the brain does not receive the message. This is how we KNOW that plants don't feel pain, as they do not have brains.

Anyway there are other responses with occur in animals which ARE like what plants have. For example piloerection occurs when we are cold and the hairs on your arm stand on end. This occurs because the skin detects the cold and not because we "feel" cold (ie piloerection still occurs in quadriplegics who cannot "feel" anything on the same area). A plant response is like this, it is localised and is designed to protect the local area from the stress it is experiencing.

And just a final point, there is no evolutionary benefit for plants to feel pain. Every animal species is mobile at some stage in their life. Pain is something which tells us something is wrong, and in some cases it is because of where we are located in our environment eg standing too close to a fire. So pain gets us to move and we prevent further damage. Plants can't get up and run from a source of injury, so there is no benefit to them experiencing pain or suffering of any kind.

vegan biologist

Listen up brothers and sisters,
come hear my desperate tale.
I speak of our friends of nature,
trapped in the dirt like a jail.

Vegetables live in oppression,
served on our tables each night.
This killing of veggies is madness,
I say we take up the fight.

Salads are only for murderers,
coleslaw's a fascist regime.
Don't think that they don't have feelings,
just cause a radish can't scream.

Chorus:
I've heard the screams of the vegetables (scream, scream, scream)
Watching their skins being peeled (having their insides revealed)
Grated and steamed with no mercy (burning off calories)
How do you think that feels (bet it hurts really bad)
Carrot juice constitutes murder (and that's a real crime)
Greenhouses prisons for slaves (let my vegetables go)
It's time to stop all this gardening (it's dirty as hell)
Let's call a spade a spade (is a spade is a spade is a spade)

I saw a man eating celery,
so I beat him black and blue.
If he ever touches a sprout again,
I'll bite him clean in two.

I'm a political prisoner,
trapped in a windowless cage.
Cause I stopped the slaughter of turnips
by killing five men in a rage

I told the judge when he sentenced me,
This is my finest hour,
I'd kill those farmers again
just to save one more cauliflower

Chorus

How low as people do we dare to stoop,
Making young broccolis bleed in the soup?
Untie your beans, uncage your tomatoes
Let potted plants free, don't mash that potato!

I've heard the screams of the vegetables (scream, scream, scream)
Watching their skins being peeled (fates in the stirfry are sealed)
Grated and steamed with no mercy (you fat gormet slob)
How do you think that feels? (leave them out in the field)
Carrot juice constitutes murder (V8's genocide)
Greenhouses prisons for slaves (yes, your composts are graves)
It's time to stop all this gardening (take up macrame)
Let's call a spade a spade (is a spade, is a spade, is a spade, is a spade.....

--Carrot Juice is Murder by the Arrogant Worms

http://artists.letssingit.com/arrogant-w…

No. As others have said, they do not have a central nervous system, and therefore cannot *feel* anything. They may wilt or freeze, etc. in certain climatic conditions, but that's purely biological. Thorny bushes like roses or blackberries will hurt you more than you could possibly hurt them physically.

Plants lack a central nervous system.
Even were this not true,
they lack a brain with which to consciously perceive it.

I highly doubt you'd consider stabbing a potato versus a dog to be ethically analogous.

no. this webpage explains why:
http://wayfaringvegans.weebly.com/plants…

Lacking a central nervous system plant feel no pain

They proved that they do! Barry Lindzer at Baylor Medical Center did?
Does no one remember when that came out?
They figured it out due to elevated sound responses or something when torn from the ground or broken
I think they used an electroencephalograph based measuring device
and sap is bleeding?