[zkms]

The claim is that plants cannot run nor fight so their defenses must be chemical (or physical, like spines or needles or camouflage) in nature.

It's far more difficult for a prey animal to have its muscles/fat/organs suffused with chemicals that will kill/injure its likely predators, especially if its predators have similar metabolic pathways as itself -- it'd be at risk of poisoning itself if the poison broke free!

Animals certainly fight back against being eaten (running away, fighting, etc) but once they're dead their meat (barring like, snake venom glands or pufferfish or other poison/venom-suffused sea creatures) won't fight back.

Obviously "plants are poison" is phrased for shock value and there are traditions and safe handling practices (like "cooking", or "not eating green potatoes" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine) for plants that remove, denature, or prevent the formation of defensive chemicals.

[brokencode]

Sure, but animals can be dangerous to eat too. With improper handling and cooking, you can get a bacterial infection or parasites from animals. Eating animal brains can give you an untreatable and fatal prion diseases. And more insidiously, red meat is high in saturated fat that can lead to arterial disease over time.

So the idea that it’s inherently better and healthier to eat animals because “plants are poison” is not only on its face a bad idea, but it’s also a bad idea upon closer inspection.