Welcome to Small Bites, Sound Bites, a midweek segment of food for thought podcast where I share short, succinct, thoughtful responses to typical questions, myths, and misconceptions related to plant-based eating, veganism, and animal protection.

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How many times have I heard, why don't you care about plants little misvegan? Plants feel pain too.

Look, nobody's lying awake at night because they're concerned about the plight of potatoes or the pain and suffering of cauliflower.

The issue at hand is that animals do suffer and feel pain. Most of us have no problem pulling lettuce from the ground or cutting the limb off of a tree, but most of us are unwilling to cut the limb off of an animal or stab him in the heart.

There is a difference.

If you're missing the distinction between killing plants and killing non-human animals, you'd also have to make the claim that there's no difference between killing plants and killing human animals, and I don't think that's what you're saying, right?

Being vegan is not about trying to attain perfection or purity. It's about doing the best we can to not contribute to violence against animals when we have the power to do so, and we do have a lot of power to do just that.

For the animals, this is Colleen Patrick, good job. You can find more at joyfulvegan.com. Thanks so much for listening.