Welcome to Gaia! ::

If someone throws "plant-killer" your way, there's usually no point in talking to them because they're probably not going to listen to reason. They say plants feel pain, you say they don't - that leads nowhere. You'd have to carry some type of literature on you at all times supporting your claim, and even then they probably wouldn't care.

Plants do not feel pain, as the quote you found explained; they do not have brains or a nervous system. They are not capable of feeling pain, but they are alive.

People who call vegetarians plant-killers are remiss, as the animals omnivores eat kill plants - it kills more plants to raise livestock than it does to nourish humans directly. Vegetarians are killing plants, but omnivores are killing many more plants and are abusing animals.

I've only had someone throw plant-killer at me once, and it ended very badly. I don't have any advice on how to deal with them. sad

i've heard that plants dont have central nervous systems of nerves endings. are both of these true. whether they are or not, if the person you are arguing with was dumb enough to make this statement, they proabaly wouldn't know the difference anyway.

Anyone who calls me a "plant-killer" is just trying to either aggravate me or see if I have any wits about me; I just assume they are, immaturely put, stupid-heads. whee

Here are other stupid things people throw at us vegetarians and vegans.

"What if…"
I were on a desert island, and there was no food at all except for some cows, who apparently had adapted to use photosynthesis in the absence of vegetation? I have no idea what I'd do. Maybe I'd start using photosynthesis myself. Hey, it's a hypothetical situation - anything can happen! But I wouldn't blame someone for killing and eating the cows in a survival situation. The point is that we are not in survival situations here.
"But if we didn't eat animals, they'd over-run the earth!"
Actually, if we didn't eat animals, we'd stop breeding them! We get meat mainly from "farmed" animals who have been "raised" by humans, not from the wild. If we didn't eat animals, it wouldn't be profitable to raise them. "Factory farmers" would decrease the number of animals born, not release them to the surrounding area.

"Oh, come on, just a little won't hurt you!"
No, it wouldn't hurt me, but I've made a commitment to vegetarianism as a way of not hurting the animals.

[for vegans] "No, no, no. You just don't get it! There's no baby chicken inside the egg!" The point of not eating eggs isn't because there could have been a chicken inside - it's a way of not supporting the farms where chickens lay the eggs. Often the "layer hens" kept to produce eggs are in absolutely terrible conditions, and not eating eggs decreases the demand for them.

[for vegans] "It doesn't hurt the cow to milk her!" or "But the cow would explode if we didn't drink the milk!"
I don't drink milk because I don't want to support the dairy industry, where cows are often in horrible conditions. Not buying milk decreases the demand for it and sends a message to the dairy industry to decrease production by decreasing the number of calves born and kept for milking. They're not going to say "Hey, less demand for milk! Let's just stop milking Betsy there!"

Resourse: http://www.vegetarianteen.com/articles/commonquestions.shtml

People are just getting plain stupid. They try everything they can to make you submit.

Thank you so so so much for posting this.
People always, and I mean -always-, try to bring up 'What if'.
Same with the 'deserted island' crap.
We are not in those situations, so we don't have to worry.

-Abrasion

How can you buff the remark of...

"What are you TRYING to do, be anorexic?"

I truly HATE this comment... any advice?

i don't know what to say for real-life situations when people say this, but if it's online, then direct them to websites about vegan bodybuilders. wink