Originally Posted by becnal
Hey, plants are living beings too! They feel and communicate and feed, like animals do. So it's not ok to kill animals for food or by-products, but it is ok to kill plants? Says who? Ask any biologist, they'll tell ya: ALL life lives by consuming other living things.
I think cutting down a 200 year old oak tree is far worse than killing and eating and a deer. Like someone on this list already said, lifestyles need only be explained to ourselves.
I personally have never eaten a 200 year old tree...
I consider a vegetarian lifestyle as one that focuses on eating as low on the food chain as possible. For example, it takes 16 lbs of grain to produce 1 lb of beef. If one prefers beef, that's fine, but one cannot say that a meat based diet has the same or less impact on the earth as a plant based diet does. It is like trying to argue that bikes have the same affect on air pollution as do cars. If one likes their car, great, but don't tell me that riding my bike to work is a waste of time.