During the last presidential race, PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, released an article calling for a tax on meat.

This would go over about as smoothly in the Midwest as the tobacco bill in the South. Pulling teeth with a sock would be less challenging.

Nonetheless, the article sited its reason for taxing meat to an article that ran in “Preventive Medicine.” The article stated that meat-eaters have cost Americans up to $61 billion a year for the treatment of cancer, diabetes, obesity and heart disease.

PETA continued, in a very demanding “if-you-don’t-agree-with-us-then-you-hate-animals-and-deserve-to-have-evil-things-happen-to-you” extremist way, that it’s the “meatheads'” own fault because we meat-eaters have been warned by nutritionists that a low-fat vegetarian diet rich in grains, fruits and vegetables reduces the risk of these health problems and those who defy this “fact” deserve every ounce of cholesterol coming to them.

We deserve to pay.

After reading this, I knew I could do one of two things: ignore PETA or try to retaliate by contradicting all of their anti-meat reports with all of the pro-meat reports I have found.

For example, right after reading the proposed meat tax from PETA, I discovered a little gem called the EAT II survey.

EAT II, a dietary pattern intake report commissioned by the National Live Stock and Meat Board, makes the following statements after their research:

1. Vegetarians eat only slightly less meat than meat-eaters. They consume an average of 1.2 ounces of meat (including beef, port, lamb, veal and processed meats) which are typically “hidden” in other food products while meat-eaters consume 2.3 ounces daily.

2. Vegetarians generally eat more “hidden” fats than meat-eaters.

3. Despite their eating habits, vegetarians have the same patterns of calorie (consuming 1551 calories per day compared to the carnivores’ 1649 calories), fat (61 grams per day as compared to meat-eaters 67 grams), protein (61 grams per day as compared to meat-eaters 67 grams) and iron (11.4 mg per day compared to 11.9 mg) intakes.

Plus, the USDA, which is out to serve and protect our health interests, states that two to three servings of meat per day is recommended for a healthy diet.

But then I figured it would get me nowhere. It would become an issue that would go around in more circles than the Carrie Chapman Catt Hall debate. Everyone would have a point, and what it would ultimately come down to is that no one would listen to me anyway.

So, I chose a third option. An extremist group such as PETA probably won’t listen to anyone but another extremist group. PETA and several other groups seem to be so self-righteous in their fight for animal rights (mind you, I’m not against animal rights at all — just against the groups that demean my intelligence and disrespect my choices to get me to follow them) that I don’t think they have taken the time out to consider plants’ rights — the rights of the fruits, vegetables and grains they promote.

I will be the defender of these living beings — POUT-V (People Outraged by the Unethical Treatment of Vegetables).

Animals are not the only living things grown in mass quantities for commercial gain. Animals are not the only living things grown in poor, over-crowded, confined and chemically induced environments.

The same is true for plants. I can’t think of a single Midwest state that isn’t filled with field upon field of corn and wheat.Sometimes the conditions are also poor, over-crowded, confined and chemically induced environments.

Animals aren’t the only ones tested upon. Animals are used in almost every facet of the research industry. However, plants have gone through their fair share of tests. They are interbred to develop new, better plants; they are moved into unnatural environments to test the effects of change and they are hunted down like criminals just to be plucked from their homes, killed and used for medical research.

But, of course, they are just plants. They don’t feel pain. They don’t feel death.

Or do they?

Whoever said plants can’t “feel?” Who said they don’t have consciousness? After all, they live, breath, grow, react to stimuli and die just as other living beings. Shouldn’t they “feel” also?

Personally, I think it would hurt to be ripped out of the ground. I think it would be a traumatic experience to be cultivated. It can’t be a pleasant death.

I’m going to call for a tax on fruits, vegetables and grain. Not because they are unhealthy, but because if everyone wants to cause undo pain to another being, they should have to pay extra for it.

It’s funny how the value of life increases or diminishes by how we see ourselves in the food chain.

It’s funny how the value of life increases or diminishes by how we see ourselves in society.

I think the only true solution to the meat/vegetable controversy is for humans to become autotrophic — to produce and break down their own foods.

Unfortunately, solving all the controversies in our society is as likely as humans beginning the photosynthesis process.

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Heather McClure is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Harlan.