If we avoid meat because we don't want to cause violence, then doesn't eating vegetables also involve violence?

The Vedic scriptures state, 'jivo jivasya jivanam' (Srimad Bhagavatam 1.13.47), which means that one living being is food for another. So each living entity has to subsist on another. We cannot avoid violence entirely, but the point is to minimize violence as much as possible.

Plants and vegetables also certainly have consciousness, but it is not as evolved as that of other living beings. Thus, the pain involved is minimal.

The degree of pain experienced by a living being depends on the development of the nervous system and since in plants and vegetables it is not significantly developed, the violence committed is the least, in contrast to the killing of other living entities.

In essence, it is true that all created beings, whether humans, animals or plants, are God's children and therefore the ideal situation would be to cause no violence; but we also need to subsist and thus we settle for the option where there is minimum violence.

Let us compare the atmosphere when fruits and vegetables are plucked with the gruesome atmosphere in a slaughterhouse. When animals are slaughtered, screaming and writhing in pain, their blood and flesh strewn all around, our own conscience and intelligence will make clear the vast difference between plucking vegetables and killing innocent animals.

What about the minimum violence or karma involved in consuming fruits and vegetables? Lord Krishna gives a solution in the Bhagavad Gita (3.13):

yajna-shistashinah santo 

muchyante sarva-kilbishaih 

bhunjate te tv agham papa

 ye pachanty atma-karanat

"The devotees of the Lord are released from all kinds of sins because they eat food that is offered first for sacrifice. Others, who prepare food for personal sense enjoyment, verily eat only sin.'

Offer food to God before you eat it!

By doing so, whatever little karma is involved when we pluck and consume vegetables is nullified.

The Bhagavad Gita here is teaching us to go even beyond vegetarianism to be totally free from any karmic or sinful repercussions.

But those who don't offer food to God, as Lord Krishna will suffer sinful reactions due to whatever violence was says, involved, even if it is vegetarian food. So the best situation is to partake of vegetarian food produced with as little violence as possible and offer it first to the Lord with devotion so that it is not only vegetarian or karma-free but also pure and purifying.