Why should salt suffer?

Some people are horrified by the eating of meat - one thinks of PETA, for instance. Most of them become vegetarians. One wonders how they will respond to a report that appeared this week:

Plants chatter amongst themselves to spread information, a lot like humans and other animals, new research suggests. ....

If it is cruel to exploit animals by killing and eating them, and if plants also possess consciousness, and warn each other about danger, then the implications for the more sensitive among us are potentially devastating. G.K. Chesterton described what could happen:

.... Tolstoy and the Humanitarians said that the world was growing more merciful, and therefore no one would ever desire to kill. And Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian, but at length declared vegetarianism doomed (‘shedding,’ as he called it finely, ‘the green blood of the silent animals’), and predicted that men in a better age would live on nothing but salt. And then came the pamphlet from Oregon (where the thing was tried), the pamphlet called ‘Why should Salt suffer?’ and there was more trouble. ....

Plants Communicate to Warn Against Danger - Yahoo! News, G.K. Chesterton: The Napoleon of Notting Hill