It is not that I am a vegetarian out of conviction. I do occasionally eat meat. I try to reduce my meat intake because animals use more water than plants for an equivalent amount of food delivered. But I sometimes feel empathy for plants and have a bad feeling when stabbing an eggplant before putting it in the microwave. Although plants don't have a central nervous system, we do know that they communicate with their envrironment and apparently, in this study on peas, with each other. They do have a responsiveness.
In this very interesting article in the New York Times entitled "If peas can talk should we eat them?" by Michael Marder, a professor of philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz, who is writing a book to be published later this year entitled "Plant-Thinking: a philosophy of vegetable life", he puts forth arguments that upset our view of what we can eat with a clear conscience. He says with the new research on plant life, we may "have reached the final frontiers of dietary ethics".
Between mass production of animals and vegetables, responsiveness of the different species, sustainable fishing, use of the environment and of water... Hard to know what and how to eat.