Vegans Take Note: The Plight of Stressed Tomatoes! By Mrs Vera West
Now here is a delightful story for those who want to ban meat, even insect meat! That would leave vegetables, fruit and grains, nuts, milk and a few other bits and pieces. But plants will be the main thing in the vegan diet, beloved of the ultra-woke. But then comes this news, that tomatoes and other fruits have “feelings,” and experience stress, whatever that means! That will severely limit the vegan diet, and if this new revelation is true, which I take with a semi-trailer load of salt, it will mean a lot of vegans are going to get mighty hungry!
Long live meat; juicy steaks, sausages with eggs, fish, home grown chicken, delicious foods. I am not sure whether Jesus ate the fish that were caught at he Lake of Galilee told in Luke 5; 4b-5a, but if fishing was wrong, he would have told the fishermen. So, I go with the Bible.
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-04-21-stressed-tomatoes-scream-pain-research-sorry-vegans.html
“The American Association for the Advancement of Science has released new research showing that tomatoes, a popular fruit-“vegetable,” have feelings, too.
Much to the horror of vegans everywhere, tomatoes are a lot like meat animals in that they get stressed and even make noises demonstrative of pain when in difficult situations.
Israeli researchers, publishing their findings in the journal Cell on March 30, explain that tomato and tobacco plants that are stressed, either from dehydration or having their stems severed, emit sounds “that are comparable in volume to normal human conversation.”
To the human ear, these noises are non-detectable because they are so high-pitched that a person is unable to hear them – but they still occur. Insects, other plants, and possibly even other mammals besides humans can hear them cry out in pain when they lose a “limb” or become dehydrated.
“Even in a quiet field, there are actually sounds that we don’t hear, and those sounds carry information,” says senior author Lilach Hadany, an evolutionary biologist and theoretician at Tel Aviv University.
“There are animals that can hear these sounds, so there is the possibility that a lot of acoustic interaction is occurring.”
Everything that humans eat comes from some other life form that probably gets stressed and feels “pain” upon being harvested
While unstressed tomato plants rarely make any noises at all, their stressed counterparts cry out in their own frequencies for help. The sounds they make resemble pops or clicks, and stressed plants can emit anywhere from 3-50 clicks per hour, seemingly at random intervals.
Unstressed plants, conversely, emit far fewer sounds, if any at all, as they are happy as clams growing in well-lit, well-watered, pest-free conditions.
“When tomatoes are not stressed at all, they are very quiet,” Hadany added.
This is really bad news for vegans, who often denigrate meat eaters for hurting animals that have to undergo slaughtering and processing. As sad as this is for the animals in question, the same is technically true of plants, which undergo similar stress upon being pruned or harvested.
Ben Bartee of PJ Media joked about this from the perspective of smug vegans who are constantly blasting meat eaters for inflicting “cruelty” on the animals from which their dinner plates are derived.
“The next time you sit down for a meal with a vegan activist, assuming you have the poor fortune to have vegan social acquaintances, and he smugly dives headfirst into a salad full of ripe, juicy tomatoes, remind him of the absolute suffering that his delicious tomatoes cost,” Bartee writes.
“The tomatoes popping their sweet juice between his molars, remind him that the appendages of a living plant that died screaming to toss his precious salad were ripped unceremoniously from their plant’s embrace, tortured, and killed for his personal satisfaction.”
In a Study Finds report on the study, it is further revealed that other plants besides tomatoes seem to cry out as well when they undergo stressors.
“We found that many plants – corn, wheat, grape, and cactus plants, for example – emit sounds when they are stressed,” Hadany is quoted as saying.
It remains unknown precisely why these plants make such noises, and admittedly it could have to do with the formation and bursting of air bubbles in the plants’ vascular systems, a process known as cavitation.
“It’s possible that other organisms could have evolved to hear and respond to these sounds,” Hadany adds. “For example, a moth that intends to lay eggs on a plant or an animal that intends to eat a plant could use the sounds to help guide their decision.”
https://studyfinds.org/tomato-plants-scream-cut-stems/
“Do plants make sounds? As it turns out — they do! Tomato plants “scream” when a stem is cut off, a new study reveals. They actually emit airborne sounds similar to “bubble-wrap being popped” that is detectable from more than three feet (39.3 inches) away when they are thirsty.
Although it’s hard to detect for humans, animals will be able to hear the sounds, meaning that plants can communicate with their surroundings far more than we realize. It also means that by “listening” in, farmers will be able to tell when their crop is suffering from stress.
Israeli researchers discovered that tomato and tobacco plants which are under pressure – from dehydration or having their stems severed – give out sounds that are comparable in volume to normal human conversation. The frequency of the noises is too high for human ears to detect, but it’s possible for insects, other mammals, and possibly even other plants to hear them.
“Even in a quiet field, there are actually sounds that we don’t hear, and those sounds carry information,” says senior author Lilach Hadany, an evolutionary biologist and theoretician at Tel Aviv University, in a media release. “There are animals that can hear these sounds, so there is the possibility that a lot of acoustic interaction is occurring.”
Although scientists have previously recorded ultrasonic vibrations coming from plants, Prof. Hadany says the new study is the first evidence that they are airborne, a fact that makes them more relevant for other organisms in the environment. “Plants interact with insects and other animals all the time, and many of these organisms use sound for communication, so it would be very suboptimal for plants to not use sound at all,” says Hadany.
When are these plants ‘communicating’ the most?
Researchers used microphones to record healthy and stressed tomato and tobacco plants, first in a soundproofed acoustic chamber and then in a noisier greenhouse environment. They stressed the plants using two methods: by not watering them for several days and by cutting their stems.
After recording the plants, the researchers trained a machine-learning algorithm to differentiate between unstressed plants, thirsty plants, and cut plants. The team found that stressed plants emit more sounds than unstressed plants.
They say the plant sounds resemble pops or clicks, and a single stressed plant emits around 30 to 50 clicks per hour at seemingly random intervals, but unstressed plants emit far fewer sounds. “When tomatoes are not stressed at all, they are very quiet,” the study author continues.
Water-stressed plants began emitting noises before they were visibly dehydrated, and the frequency of sounds peaked after five days with no water before decreasing again as the plants dried up completely. The researchers note that the types of sound emitted differed with the cause of stress.
The machine-learning algorithm was able to accurately differentiate between dehydration and stress from cutting and could also discern whether the sounds came from a tomato or tobacco plant.
Do other plants scream in the same way?
Although the study focused on tomato and tobacco plants because of their ease to grow in the lab, the research team also recorded a variety of other plant species.
“We found that many plants—corn, wheat, grape, and cactus plants, for example—emit sounds when they are stressed,” Hadany reports.
The exact mechanism behind the noises is unclear, but the researchers suggest that it might be due to the formation and bursting of air bubbles in the plant’s vascular system, a process called cavitation. Whether or not the plants are producing these sounds to communicate with other organisms is also unclear, but the scientists say the fact that the sounds exist has big ecological and evolutionary implications.
“It’s possible that other organisms could have evolved to hear and respond to these sounds,” Hadany says. “For example, a moth that intends to lay eggs on a plant or an animal that intends to eat a plant could use the sounds to help guide their decision.”
The study author adds other plants could also be listening in and benefiting from the sounds.
Prof. Hadany and other members of the team previously showed that plants increase the concentration of sugar in their nectar when they “hear” the sounds made by pollinators, while other studies have shown that plants change their gene expression in response to sounds.
“If other plants have information about stress before it actually occurs, they could prepare,” the researcher adds.”
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