How do vegans feel about carnivorous plants?

Well… I’m not a vegan, but a vegetarian.
I have a Venus flytrap at work. I always get a little sad and grossed out when a bug dies (I know, I know…) but the plant doesn’t have the option of getting the necessary nutrients from another source. Such is life.

ya know, i think that would depend on the vegans reasons for going vegan. Some do it for health reasons, and im sure they dont really have anything against the consumption of other living creatures, but others do feel that consuming other creatures is “inhumane”.

But yeah, im not vegan, but I thought id answer anyway. And for the record, ive considered becoming veggie, simply because I just dont like the taste of meat, but then I realized I really like shrimp ):

Would a Venus fly trap eat another plant if it was put in it’s “mouth”?

The plant doesn’t have any other option of survival… kind of like it doesn’t bother them to see a tiger run down a gazelle. That’s nature. What humans do by mass producing and slaughtering animals that we don’t even NEED in order to survive is not nature.

I’m guessing indifferent.

PETA would be upset

I’m a vegetarian but not a vegan. I eat eggs. I have to because I’m pro-choice.
Anyway, as long as the flies the Venus Flytrap eats are free range, I’m cool with it.

I don’t care what that plant eats as long as it isn’t trying to tell all of the other plants what they should eat.

This is the sort of obnoxious yet legitimate question i love..

@tyrantxseries: what DOESN’T upset PETA?

Stirfry Venus Flytrap with bamboo shoots and cashews?

I’m not a Vegan, I’m a Vegetarian, but I don’t see anything wrong with a Venus Flytrap eating a fly. IMO

As long as the fly willingly goes into it’s mouth. And someone didn’t actually do it.

Flytrap eats insects and i have no problem with it.

@Tink1113 . . .Actually the fly is tricked into going into the Flytrap’s mouth.

@Blondesjon How? Does the Flytrap drug the fly out??

I think in general most human herbivores don’t expect other animals to be herbivores—we can’t expect them to make a decision they don’t have the cognitive equipment to make, right? Same goes for the Venus Flytraps…

@Tink1113 . . .It does what every other plant does. It produces pollen and a safe place to land and rest.

@Blondesjon aww :)

While there are a few folks who insist on trying to convert their cats to a vegetarian diet, most people I know who do not eat meat, whether they be vegetarians, vegans, Jains, or whatever, have no problem with nature being red in tooth and claw. Or leaf, as the case is with the Venus Fly Trap.

My apologies to Alfred Lord Tennyson.

@Darwin Do you personally know any of these dimwits who try to make an obligate carnivore into a vegetarian? I’m just curious as to how they react when the vet tells them their cat is going blind or worse from lack of Taurine which a cat can only get from meat. I’m just curious.

Years ago there was a Hare Krishna friend of mine whose child was imploring her to get a pet and she was leaning towards a cat because they are so clean. I tried to steer her more in the direction of a dog but finally just told her the facts point blank and tried to soften it a little by telling her that I felt she was too kind a person to have that on her conscience when the cat ends up permanently disabled or dead. She genuinely is a kind person, but really adamantly vegetarian.

@Buttonstc – Not IRL, but I was a member of another forum where there was another member who was adamantly vegetarian (and actually a raw food person, too) who repeatedly tried to convince others to convert their cats to a raw food vegetarian diet. She was also against vaccinations of any kind for animals or people. Unfortunately, she seemed to catch a few innocent souls in her nets. I can only hope their vets set them straight soon enough to prevent harm to their pets.

Somewhere on my shelves I have a book about converting one’s cat to a vegetarian diet, complete with recipes. I bought it because I simply couldn’t believe the author was serious. I discovered that the author had much in common with the folks who wear tinfoil hats, just without the tinfoil.

In any case, I feed my cats and dogs expensive prepared food that does not contain corn or beef, but is indeed animal protein-based, and they all seem to do well. Most live well into their teens with few if any chronic problems. One cat made it to age 21, and our oldest dog is 16.

Yeah, from reading many of your previous posts I assumed you were NOT part of the lunatic fringe. Obviously dogs do better on a mixed diet with animal protein included, but they, like us, are omnivores and can at least survive if someone decides to impose vegetarianism upon them.

Did you or anyone else see this new cartoon series in primetime called The Goode Family?? They are gently (or sometimes not-so-gently) poking fun at these hippy dippy vegetarian parents and one of the recurring jokes every week is the family dog drooling over every animal in sight cuz they insist in feeding him vegetarian food. So he takes care of meeting his own needs with any squirrels or whatever he can catch. It is pretty hilarious. Thank goodness they don’t have a cat, huh?

Here’s a brief preview and the page also has another link for the first episode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4paOVdU5h8

Actually, somebody somewhere probably considers me to be part of some lunatic fringe or other, but I am not part of that particular one.

I rarely watch primetime TV so no, I wasn’t aware of the Goode Family.

See, there ya go. I’m in a lunatic fringe group of folks who rarely watch TV, except for Animal Planet, Nat Geo, and Discovery in its various forms.