Vegetarians Take Note, New Study Reveals That Plants Can ‘Hear’ Themselves Being Eaten

Most meat eaters have at one time or another been on the receiving end of the righteous wrath of a vegetarian delivering a lecture on the evils of being a carnivore in today’s world.

To be fair, anyone who’s ever had the misfortune to find themselves in an abattoir at ‘killing time’ would concede that most lettuce lovers have a point.

However, when you’re busy chowing down on a prime piece of steak and gorging yourself silly on some potent protein, the last thing you want to hear is a particularly vindictive vegetarian reminding you that piece of meat once had four legs, a tail, and a particularly soulful pair of eyes.

So it may just be worth bearing in mind the next time a vegetarian friend tells you how they don’t know how anyone with a beating heart and caring conscience can tear into the flesh of another living creature butchered in such a barbaric and painful fashion, that plants have feelings too.

And not just feelings. A new study by the researchers at the University of Missouri (MU) discovered, somewhat alarmingly for vegetarians, that plants actually respond defensively when they’re being eaten.

Or to put it more accurately, plants respond defensively to the sounds of themselves being eaten.

Researchers have discovered that when they hear the sounds of caterpillars eating them alive, plants release mustard oils, which are unappealing to caterpillars and send them packing.

Senior research scientist in the Division of Plant Sciences at MU, Heidi Appel, explained to the Daily Mail:

“Previous research has investigated how plants respond to acoustic energy, including music. However, our work is the first example of how plants respond to an ecologically relevant vibration.

“We found that “feeding vibrations” signal changes in the plant cells metabolism, creating more defensive chemicals that can repel attacks from caterpillars.”

Professor in the Division of Biological Sciences at MU, Rex Cocroft added:

“What is remarkable is that the plants exposed to different vibrations, including those made by a gentle wind or different insect sounds that share some acoustic features with caterpillar feeding vibrations did not increase their chemical defenses.

“This research also opens the window of plant behavior a little wider, showing that plants have many of the same responses to outside influences that animals do, even though the responses look different.”

So please all you vegetarians out there, think of that next time you’re tucking into your French salad and flashing dirty looks at the innocent chump happily tucking into his whopper.