In this series I aim to bust the many myths that exist about Vegans and Veganism.

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MYTH: Plants feel pain so by eating them you are causing more harm than eating animals.

As with my previous post even if plants could feel pain by consuming the plant directly you are consuming approx 1/8 the amount of plants by eating a plant based or Vegan diet. The animals that people eat are not terribly efficient at processing plant material to tissue (meat). But I would like to dig into this myth a bit deeper still. I often wonder why people who choose to eat meat are so concerned to plant welfare while ignoring than that of the animals. Plants do have the ability to react to stimuli as all living things to. However if you light a piece of paper on fire you will notice that it too reacts it will curl up as it burns. This is a very similar process of "self awareness" that plants use to react to external stimuli. This does not imply any level of consciousness. Plants have neither a central nervous system nor a brain to register pain which means that, unlike animals, plants lack the ability to experience pain or have sentient thoughts. As best we understand it.

In evolutionary terms pain is advantageous for animals, because it encourages them to take steps to protect themselves. Plants are stationary lifeforms unable to move away from the cause of the stimuli. Many plants even rely on their fruits being eaten to disperse seeds - it wouldn't make any sense for this to cause the plant pain.

In any case, even if plants could feel pain in the way that animals do, if they had the physical and emotional responses like pain and fear, eating animals causes a much larger number of plants to be killed."With 23bn chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks and guinea fowl on the planet – more than three per person – the biggest user of crop-based feed globally is poultry. The second largest, with 30% of the world’s feed in 2009, is the pig industry."SRC. In the below graph from the world resource institute we can see just how much resources animal based foods actually use.

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I Hope you enjoyed this piece and the information contained in it.

So that's all for now folks, hit that follow button for helpful tools, Vegan recipes and thoughts, average poetry, comedy and random musings. This is a glimpse inside the mind of a moonunit.

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I could not have set up my witness node without the help of a good friend @ijmmai. Jamie has a witness too and I would love if you could give her a vote also. Jamie works pretty much nonstop in the the official discord channel and is always there to help people out. Jamies witness is called @ijmmaiwitness if anyone on the platform deserves a vote it is her. :peace_symbol:

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