Peas: None for Louise, please

Pisum Sativum (Photo by Rasbak)

Who knew that the ever popular (with the preschool set) Eat Your Peas, Louise! is actually an unethical book?  Perhaps Michael Marder suspected it right along…

And just who is Michael Marder to question little Louise’s phonically enhanced diet?  The New York Times identifies him as the “Ikerbasque Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz” whose “most

recent book, ‘Plant Thinking-A Philosophy of Vegetal Life’ will be published by Columbia University Press this year.”  (Sounds like even more of a mouthful than Louise’s peas…)

It seems that Marder has a real propensity for delving into vegetal mysteries (no mere weekend gardener, he).  In his April 2012 article If Peas Can Talk, Should We EatThem?, he cites the results of an Israeli study “revealing that a pea plant subjected to

drought conditions communicated its stress to other such plants, with which it shared its soil.”  This was done biochemically through the root systems, and prompted the other plants to ready themselves for a similar situation.  These other plants were then better able to cope with the drought when it later reached them.

The ethical questions raised by this study are many.  What it all boils (or stir fries) down to for Louise is this:

If peas are empathetic (and “smart”) enough to warn their neighbors about impending doom, should we not

befriend them rather than betray them?  Just as we (hopefully) cringe at the thought of eating our pets, should we not give the same respect to our leafy brethren?

In a follow-up May 2012 article titled Is Plant Liberation on the Menu?, Marder attempts to assuage such philosophical angst.  He claims to know that plant stress does not reach the same intensity as animal suffering, and therefore does not equate vegetarianism with meat-eating.  (He did, however, previously make a case for eating perennials rather than annuals - which could still spell no more peas for Louise.)

Resources

http://www.amazon.com/Your-Peas-Louise-Pegeen-Snow/dp/0516237969

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/28/if-peas-can-talk-should-we-eat-them/

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/is-plant-liberation-on-the-menu/

Copyright August 21, 2012 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved