From: mhulsey@hestia.fcs.uga.edu (Martin Hulsey)
Subject: Re: Secret Life of Plants (Excerpt)
Followup-To: rec.food.veg
Organization: Dept. Foods & Nutrition, Univ. of GA
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 18:11:45 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.164620.21299@super.org>, wheeler@super.org (Ferrell
S. Wheeler) wrote:

[post deleted]

I read this book when it first came out, and naively swallowed the author's
arguments.  When I later tried to verify some of the information, I
discovered that these suggestions were not supported by the scientific
literature.

Perhaps now you understand my objections to some of the potentially
dangerous nutritional claims made in vegetarian folklore that are not
supported in the scientific literature.

For example, the notion that vegans do not need supplements of vitamin B-12
because they can absorb B-12 from the gut is untrue.  Also, the suggestion
that so-called "nutritional yeast" are capable of synthesizing vitamin B-12
is untrue.

It is premature to suggest that plants can feel pain, but you should note
the reference that Rich Young posted some time ago suggesting that plants
have rudimentary mechanisms for intercellular electrochemical signal
transduction.

If these data are later confirmed, it would mean that plants have
rudimentary "nervous systems."  What will vegans do then?  I can picture
the scenario now:

Trendy philosophers will write a couple of books on vegetable liberation,
then a vegetable rights group will be formed with a catchy acronym for a
name.  Under the slogan "an alga is a fern is a shrub is a tree," the
Worldwide Institution for the Maintenance of Plant Species, or WIMPS, will
wage its propaganda campaign on a national and local level.

Movie stars will appear in TV spots fondling lush vegetation and appealing
for contributions.  WIMPS will protest outside the USDA headquarters waving
posters containing gruesome pictures of helpless vegetables in a food
processor.  Posing as plant caregivers, local chapters will infiltrate the
botany, horticulture and agronomy departments at universities and
surreptitiously obtain videotapes of plant-abusing scientists performing
heinous acts of plowing, pruning and fumigating innocent plants.

"Progressive" radio stations will give the "Vegetable Liberation" album
heavy air-play.  The activists will demand blueprints to proposed additions
to plant sciences research facilities, then will weight public opinion by
suggesting that the buildings might precipitate some environmental
catastrophe.  Failing that, they will burn them down.

WIMPS will point out that plant agriculture causes tremendous ecological
damage (i.e., erosion, eutrophication), and that vast areas of rainforest
are cleared to support plant agriculture.

They will claim that "vegisection" is useless because biological phenomena
can be modeled by computer, and plant cells can be cultured.

The "heroes" of the local VLF will burglarize vegetarian restaurants to
rescue defenseless tubers lest they be boiled in the prime of their
vegetablehood.  These groups will sponsor vegetable rights festivals and
will have financial support from former vegetarians who have made it big in
rock music.

This scenario is, of course, as ludicrous as its counterpart in the
contemporary animal "rights" movement.

--
mhulsey@hestia.fcs.uga.edu                      Society for Neuroscience
Martin G. Hulsey                              National Rifle Association
Dept. Foods & Nutrition      Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior
University of Ga.    North American Association for the Study of Obesity
Newsgroups: rec.food.recipes