RevRaptor said:
No - From my view point vegetarianism is hypocritical. I believe all life has equal value. did you know plants scream in the ultra sonic range when damaged, or that the acacia tree will release tannins when fed apon which makes its leaves unpalatable. These tannins are also digestion inhibitors. The tree also gives off a scent signal, upon which trees in the surrounding areas will pre-emptively increase their own tannin levels.
In short it knows when it's being eaten and doesn't like it. To me that implies that it feels pain. If it didn't feel pain then how else would it know it's being eaten.
Also this:
Why hypocritical? What is hypocritical about eating only the food you actually like? Because, we're not all vegetarian/vegan
only because of animals that suffer. I first am not. Animal suffering is on the list, but not the first on it. I am vegetarian because I love it, because it is beneficial to my health (this is personal only), the food falls lightly on my stomach and I don't feel gloated, it reduced many of my health problems, the cuisine is fantastic and I don't like meat and never really have liked it. I also have no real problems with killing animals; I do have problems with the inhumane treatment of them. Yes, I'm aware that not all cows can live happily ever after on fresh air because there simply is not enough place, but I don't think that should be used as an excuse. We, as a species, evolved enough to develop the concept of ethics and morality, and treating our food they way we treat is, first of all, not healthy for us, and second of all, morally disgusting. Now, I've seen the cows that do live happily ever after on fresh air and I couldn't be happier. They were healthy and not covered in piss and shit of other cows; honestly, what disgusted me the most about slaughterhouses was that feeling that those animals live in unclean conditions and that I eat that afterwards. Also, the problem has never been the sole act of eating meat; the problem is exaggeration. And we exaggerate in meat consumption, just because we can and because it's in a supermarket. If we had to hunt it down on our own, we sure as hell wouldn't be eating it three times a day, 7 days a week. We would ration it and keep one kill maybe for weeks. I'm not for returning thousands of years in the past, but exaggeration is one of the issues. Eating a stake once a week however, is not. But an average omnivore will eat meat at least twice a day.
About plants; yes, there are indications that they do "feel" pain, but we cannot compare plants (a completely different type of beings) to animals. Biologists determined that we belong to two separate kingdoms (unlike the fact that we are animals, just like the ones we eat). On some level, plants can probably feel pain (or at least a basic chemical reaction that implies the loss of life), but I do not think that kind of pain is similar to ours. Plants are organisms that can live for thousands of years (unlike our limited life spans), if you cut the branch off, it will grow back (unlike our body parts), they do not have nerves and a nerve system, they do not tend to their young, they do not have faces, they do not have voices and so on. Besides, what do we consider being painful for the plant? Taking the apple from a tree? Harvesting wheat? Picking up ripe lettuce? Chopping the tree down, walking on grass, picking a flower? It may sound... selfish to think of plants like that, but they are a completely different life form. If we say plants "know" when they're "eaten", should there be protests about destroying bacteria? Because, they are a life form too, and as far as we know, they too maybe feel some sort of primal pain. Besides, people that don't care about the slaughter of animals don't really care about harvesting plants; they just use this as an attack to ask vegetarians "But, aren't plants in pain too?". I don't know, maybe on some level they are. But they are also on many levels completely different from beings that share ancestors with us, and that we have no problems torturing and killing. I mean, this post may sound condemning or patronising, but I find something else hypocritical; people that eat meat with no moral problems that go on talking about "murdering plants". Clearly, murdering anything that isn't human is not on those people's lists as something important. And one more thing; I already said that the sole act of murder is not really the biggest issue. The treatment is the issue, and we can't say that we treat wheat inhumanely, can we? Or could we argue that every time we harvest it, it feels pain? It grows back next season though, so how can we even determine what should be considered painful or inhumane for the plant? These are the reasons that put this plant thing on a whole new level of possible arguments. Which is something we can't address before we address the issue of our four-legged (or winged) close relatives. Which in turn is not something we will solve before we solve the treatment of our fellow humans. But I do like the fact that my simple choice can make a little bit of difference. In this time and age, this kind of a choice shouldn't really be followed with so much controversy and stereotypes.
I'm sorry if this sounds as an attack, because it isn't; I just wanted to put some things in different perspective and to note that not all vegetarians and vegans are so for only one reason, and that reason being the concern for animal welfare

There are a lot of possible reason a person may have for being vegetarian or vegan. I personally try not to use the word "vegetarian" for myself, exactly because everyone suddenly starts thinking that I only do it because I weep for animals in slaughterhouses. I do weep for them, but that's nowhere near being the only reason for me choosing this diet and it's not even the first on the list of reasons.
/tl;dr