Squirrels eat nuts. They eat acorns. One might consider the feelings of the tree when the squirrel eats an acorn, but in fact this is not the case. A single tree produces more Acorns then could possibly sprout in a single area, automatically. In fact I'm pretty sure there are no trees which try to produce more or less seeds based on the number of nearby trees because they do not care. Animals, including squirrels eat the excess nuts. In particular, squirrels store the nuts for winter and then forget where some of them were, causing new trees to sprout in the spring from these nuts that were pre-planted and forgotten by an animal.

In effect, the tree wants some of it's seeds to be eaten so the rest can be planted by the animal and grown. You would think if the tree hated the squirrels or the people or the anything that ate it's seeds, they could choose to stop making them for a while until the people went away. This is clearly not the case.

Also, this guy is batshit. He runs thefruitarian.com and basically claims you can live entirely on only eating fruits and vegetables. Theoretically, this is true, but it also requires that you engage in a massive amount of physical activity. His diet plans are almost completely useless to an average person because of the insane amounts of sugar you would be consuming which would likely result in weight gain (even with modest physical activity) and probably blood sugar level problems after a certain amount of time. I hate people who think that because SOME people can subsist of these kinds of diets, therefore ALL people can, ignoring the genetic factors involved in why some people in some places/cultures can eat things differently and be effected differently.

I think at least one Arthur C. Clarke book posited a movement in the the future that believed that nothing that was ever alive should be eaten. Presumably it would only arise once it became possible to synthesize a balanced diet from non-life derived chemicals.

You might be thinking of The Deep Range, if I remember right. And I love Clarke and all but he wasn't always spot on (eg. lasers as weapons).

I think The Secret Life Of Plants should be required reading for these people. Not because I necessarily agree with it (have not read it, have been lectured about it) but because it would induce incredible amounts of guilt on them for even eating a banana.

It feels bad to end a life for your own needs, but then again that's a little projection on our part except for the pain -- if a cow got to be 100 years old, she would still be a cow, she would still eat, shit and sleep and do nothing else all day (she would make new cows every now and then but that's not a daily activity). So it doesn't make a difference whether she lives one year or a hundred years. What matters is that the species goes on. In fact, you can even argue that cows have evolved that way -- in an environment dominated by humans, domesticated animals are fitter than the rest.

::rimshot::

Just don't eat a raw cashew unless you like dying.

Gas so bad it makes even the vegans gag.

I like Broccoli.

I have not tasted horseshit, so I cannot verify the validity of your statement.