Theory on Animals versus Plants

My friend Senya got me thinking about this when she said "cotton kills" to me a few months ago. The idea here is that when you are out in the cold it makes more sense to wear animal based clothing(wool, etc) since it kept the animals warm. Plants don't need the same insulation as the die or go dormant in colder weather.

I think some of this same logic can be applied to eating animals versus plants. This may sound rediculously obvious, but animals move. I think this is key since many things may flow from it. There are limited resources, so from an evolutionary perspective living things may not be able to protect themselves in all ways. They can't afford to run fast, fly, get really really big, grow horns, create electric charges, and make their bodies poisonous all at the same time. They evolve mostly to do a few of those things maybe, but never all. Any who tried likely were selected out due to the metabolic expense.

If you are an animal then evasion seems a great way to avoid predation. Run faster. Climb higher. Fly. Poison would for the most part be lower on the list of defensive priorities in my mind. Some are poisonous (frogs) but I doubt that that many are.

What about plants? Here the strategies are more limited. Create more spores and reproduce more. Develop thorns. Create toxins. Get really big. I am sure there are others. Mobility is not much of an option. Toxins are a good option here and certainly higher up in priority. I can think of many poisonous things that don't move (mushrooms, some berries, poison ivy, poison oak to name a few). The argument againt grains and legumes is similar. There are toxins in peanuts. Soy and other beans supposedly neuter the eaters, particularly males. Grains block absorbtion of other nutrients. Slow poison, but poison. All this could be ways the immobile organisms protect themselves.

Like all things in the real world there are exceptions. Some plants synergize with animals. Grass conspires with ruminants to feed them while the ruminant keeps other plants(trees) from moving in. Some fruit want to be eaten since it speads the seeds and helps with germination. Also, some animals are poisonous, as I mentioned.

Throughout the millions of years of evolution this war has been waged. The prey get faster and causes the predator to improve. Plants become toxic then animals evolve to neutralize. This is a very good reason to eat Paleo and avoid new foods like wheat, vegetable oil, etc.

From this, one could conclude that animals are, in general, safer and better to eat. If you can catch them, of course.