What would you do if we hypothetically discovered
that plants do indeed feel pain?
As it turns out, even if a person's primary goal in life is to minimize the number of plants which are killed, he should still become a vegetarian.
This is because plants have to be fed to the livestock, and meat production is extremely inefficient. Only a small fraction of the food which is eaten by animals is converted into meat for human consumption. Therefore, by eating meat, not only do we cause animal death and suffering, we also end up killing many more plants than we would if we ate a vegetarian diet.
Follow up questions:
If everyone becomes a vegetarian, then what will we do with all the farm animals?
How do you know that other animals can feel pain?
Where in the animal kingdom does consciousness begin?