Vegetables have feelings too

When vegetarians and vegans get a rush of sap and waggle their fingers accusingly at those in our community who like to consume meat I remember an experiment that emerged from the pages of Dr Lyall Watson’s book: Supernature. I’m a bit hazy on the exact details, having read it when it was published in 1973 – but those who want to refute what I remember are welcome to dig up a copy. It’s a damned fine read.

The long and the short of it is that plants have feelings too. Watson recounts an experiment where a group of plants was lined up and connected to a device that measured electromagnetic fields or something of that ilk. (Remember it was the seventies – and I was there.) This line of plants visibly hummed away gently on the meters on the gauges. Then, a person entered the room, selected a plant at random from the assembled group and basically mutilated it. The other plants registered significant meter activity. They clearly had witnessed a murder, were appalled and vented their spleens …or phloem. It gets better.

The plants were then subjected to a line-up of possible “perps”. And when the real perpetrator walked past them …the same thing, the needles went off the dial. Positive identification.

So just imagine what a bunch of carrots is voicing (?) when it is yanked bodily from its nurturing soil environment by its soft green foliage. It doesn’t bare thinking about.

The recent splash in the news about the evils of giving your children deli meats like ham and salami in their lunch because it could be carcinogenic, also has a counter story. Mind you the credibility of the report got a hell of a nudge with the silly suggestion that lean chicken could be an ideal substitution. A fermenting chicken sandwich in a warm lunch box could kill your kid outright!

The counter point that didn’t get any play in the media was that of a report published in the May issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition where research points the finger at vegetarians being 39 per cent more pone to colorectal cancer.

There are always two sides to a coin. Heads you lose and tails you …lose.