The debate around whether or not oysters are vegan is a heated one.
On the one hand, some argue that bivalves like oysters are morally equivalent to any other animal and should not be eaten. Others claim that as long as oysters are harvested sustainably, there’s no ethical issue with consuming them.
In this blog post, I’ll explore both sides of the argument and try to conclude whether or not you can call yourself a vegan if you eat oysters.
But first, the basics.
What’s an oyster?
Oysters are a mollusc (mollusk for my North American friends) that can be eaten raw or cooked. They’re commonly found in coastal areas and range from 3 inches to more than 14 inches long.
Oysters have a smooth, hard shell and a soft, squishy body. They eat by filtering food particles from the water and can live for up to 20 years.
Oysters have 2 shells similar to clams. The shells are connected by a hinge and held together with a muscle. Oyster shells comprise of calcium carbonate. They can also change the shape and size of their shell depending on the surrounding water conditions. These interesting creatures can even switch genders during their lifetime!
Oysters have been a popular food consumed for centuries, but their use goes beyond a meal. Oyster shells are used in construction and decoration. And we can’t forget pearls which come from oysters and are valuable gemstones in the jewellery world.
Natural predators for oysters include:
- Crabs
- Seabirds
- Starfish
- And humans
Many people don’t know that oysters are crucial to the environment. They help to filter water and improve water quality. A single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day!
The size of the bivalve industry
Bivalves are shellfish that include oysters, clams, and mussels. They’re a popular food item harvested from wild fisheries and aquaculture farms.
The global production of bivalves for human consumption is more than 15 million tonnes each year (average period 2010–2015), around 14% of the world’s marine output. Most bivalve production (89%) comes from aquaculture, while only 11% is caught in the wild (source).
According to advisory firm Arizton, the global pearl jewellery market will crack USD 20 billion by 2025.
In other words, this is a lucrative industry that benefits from killing inordinate amounts of oysters each year.
How are oysters harvested?
Oysters are typically harvested using one of two methods: dredging or hand-collecting. Dredging involves using a large machine to drag an oyster bed and collect the oysters. This method can damage the seafloor and often results in the death of non-target species, such as fish, crabs, and other shellfish.
Hand-collecting is a more environmentally friendly method of oyster harvesting. This involves using a rake or tongs to collect oysters from the seafloor. Hand-collecting is normally used in areas where dredging is not allowed or would be too damaging to the environment.
The oysters are brought to a processing facility for sorting and grading. The highest quality oysters are then shucked (opened) and sold to restaurants or grocery stores. The lower quality oysters are reserved for canned oysters, fishmeal, or fertiliser.
Read more: Is Fishing Ethical? Assessing The Cruelty of The Fishing Industry
Conversely, pearls, which are often thought of as a by-product of the oyster industry, are the main reason oysters are farmed (remember, it’s a 20 billion dollar market).
Most of the world’s pearls come from China, which produces 98% of the global supply. The majority of these pearls are cultured freshwater pearls. Saltwater pearls make up the remaining and are typically more valuable due to their rarity.
Freshwater pearls are produced by placing a small piece of mantle tissue from another mollusc into the oyster. This tissue is then covered with a bead made from mother-of-pearl or glass. The oyster is returned to the water, allowing it to grow for several months to years. The oyster will produce nacre, a substance that coats the bead and slowly forms the pearl.
Saltwater pearls are produced similarly, but the oyster is typically placed in an enclosure made from nacre. This helps protect the oyster and speeds up the pearl-forming process.
After the pearls are harvested, they are sorted and graded according to size, shape, and colour. The highest quality pearls are then strung into necklaces or used in other types of jewellery. Lower-quality pearls may be used in costume jewellery or sold as loose pearls.
Now that you have context on what an oyster is, why they’re consumed, how they’re harvested, and the market’s sheer size, let’s look at why some folks think it’s morally justified to consume oysters and why others disagree.
3 reasons why oysters are vegan
There are 3 arguments for why it’s okay for vegans to consume oysters: 1) oysters don’t feel pain, 2) they’re sustainably farmed and 3) debating the morality of consuming bivalves makes veganism less approachable. Let’s look at each point in more detail.
1. Oysters don’t feel pain
Animal sentience is generally measured by the ability to feel pain and experience suffering.
The main argument why oysters are vegan-friendly is that they don’t feel pain since they have a very simple nervous system and no brain. Therefore, it’s believed that they cannot process or feel pain in the same way that other animals can.
Vegans use the same argument to justify eating plants. So it’s viewed as hypocritical when we say oysters and other bivalves are off the table.
2. Oysters are sustainably farmed
We consume trillions of aquatic animals each year. Not only is this act cruel to fish, but our various approaches to fishing lead to exponentially more death and complete disruption of marine biodiversity.
In the past, oysters were harvested unsustainably. However, these days, it’s much better. Oysters aren’t taken from the wild, and their natural population isn’t negatively impacted.
Some would even say that oyster farms help to improve water quality. For example, oysters are considered a keystone species in the Chesapeake Bay. They play an essential role in filtering the water and improving water clarity.
As a result of their filtering, oysters also help to improve the quality of habitats for other marine animals.
3. The reasons for not eating oysters makes veganism look bad
There’s a common perception that veganism is extreme and all-or-nothing. The media often perpetuates this view, which focuses on “radical activists”.
Read more: 3 Reasons Why Vegans Are Hated: Is it Possible To Change This Perception?
When people see vegans refusing to eat oysters because they believe it’s cruel, it reinforces this idea that veganism is an extremist militant philosophy.
This makes veganism less approachable and deters people from considering it as an option.
What does this mean practically? Well, if consuming oysters were culturally accepted as an ethical choice, then vegans could take advantage of the nutritional benefits.
A small oyster produces 5 grams of protein, while a larger one has 10 grams. Furthermore, oysters contain B12 which could be a natural alternative to supplementation.
So, these are the 3 main arguments for why oysters are vegan-friendly. Let’s look at why oysters may not be vegan.
3 reasons why oysters aren’t vegan
It’s argued that oysters aren’t considered vegan because 1) they do experience pain, 2) oysters are classed as animals 3) they should be given the benefit of the doubt. More below.
1. Oysters may experience pain
The counter-argument to the central nervous system position is that while oysters don’t have a brain, they have a heart, stomach, kidneys and intestines.
More importantly, oysters have ganglia, which are nerve clusters that process information without a brain — meaning they’re able to sense their environment to some degree.
It’s possible that when oysters are taken from the ocean or when they’re farmed, they do experience pain and suffering.
There isn’t conclusive scientific evidence on this topic yet, but it needs to be considered.
2. Oysters are animals
Another common reason folks believe eating oysters isn’t vegan is that they’re classed as animals.
Oysters are part of the Phylum Mollusca (more commonly known as molluscs) animal kingdom, including slugs, snails, octopuses, clams, and many others.
There are over 120,000 species of molluscs with overlapping genetic makeup. Some species have brains while others don’t. Some show the ability to move and make conscious decisions, while others, like oysters, are more sedentary.
If scientists class the species together, we must acknowledge the similarities between oysters and other animals.
Therefore, it would be inconsistent to say that eating oysters is fine, but eating other molluscs isn’t — which brings me to the next point.
3. Oysters should be given the benefit of the doubt
It’s common to wrap up these debates with complete ambiguity — which spoiler, I too have the same grey conclusion.
We don’t know enough about oysters or plants to know that a lack of central nervous systems means they can’t experience or interpret pain. In the case of plants, vegans, me included, don’t give them the benefit of the doubt.
Read more: But Plants Have Feelings Too, Don’t They?
But what about oysters? Why should they get a pass, but not plants?
It’s a fair question, but I believe it comes down to cultural attitudes in addition to the reasons above. For centuries, we’ve eaten oysters without considering their moral status.
On the other hand, plant-based diets are often seen as weird or over-the-top. So there’s more of a need to justify why eating plants is morally acceptable.
But this doesn’t mean that we should continue to eat oysters without considering their ethical status. The fact that we’re shining a light on these species and wrestling with how to morally deal with them is positive progress.
The bottom line is that we need to do more research on this topic before making a definitive conclusion. Until then, I believe it’s up to the individual to decide.
So, can vegans reasonably justify eating oysters and buying pearls?
Let’s for a moment assume that oysters are sentient feeling beings.
These fascinating creatures become adults at the age of 1 and can live up to 20 years. While they can reproduce from 6 months old, the ideal range is between 2 and 10 years. Females squirt out eggs, and males squirt semen to produce eggs. After the eggs are formed 15 hours later, they hatch into larvae.
It can take a couple of years to breed and harvest oysters. But even then, like any farmed animal, their lives end well before their average lifespan to support human consumption.
Pearls are much more challenging to produce, leading to a 50% survival rate when breeding. But with pearls being a premium product, these discarded lives are just part of the process.
When we connect to the sentience of oysters, it becomes evident that consuming them is cruel and, therefore, not vegan.
But if we choose to remove their sentience, does any of this matter?
Personally, I don’t consume oysters. Although oysters don’t have eyes or a brain, I don’t view them the same as plants. I still see them as animals, and it wouldn’t feel right or necessary to eat them.
But if you’re vegan and think it’s okay to eat oysters, I’d find it hard to challenge your decision.
And if eating oysters means more people would be open to becoming vegan, so be it. In fact, there’s a term for it, ostrovegan.
Ostrovegan refers to a vegan who occasionally eats oysters.
While I’m not a fan of more labels, I believe ostrovegan is a more appropriate description if you’re a vegan that consumes oysters. Oysters aren’t plants, nor do they have a central nervous system, so perhaps it’s more appropriate and respectful to recognise the difference.
I liken the comparison to the difference between a vegetarian and a pescatarian.
What do you think? Are oysters vegan?
In short, while oysters are animals, we don’t really know if they feel pain. And until we do, it’s up to the individual to decide whether or not to consume them.
I don’t think they’re vegan, but I’m okay with those who are. Do you think oysters are vegan? Let me know below.
I looked for information on this topic as I am vegan, and would like to buy an item of clothing. Unfortunately this item is fastened with buttons made of mother-of-pearl. I really wish that the company making this item would not use buttons made of MOP, but the fact remains that they do.
I am not convinced that I should use mother-of-pearl (I would NEVER eat oysters, for a start they look yukky!!). But I am uneasy about using MOP because I have now discovered that oysters have a digestive system, like other animals, and that although they do not have a brain, they have a rudimentary nervous system, and I am not sure whether they have something that can be classed as consciousness. It is an interesting question: where does consciousness begin?
So I have decided that no matter how much I like the dress – it is a mid-weight cotton dress for autumn, with really beautiful embroidery on the bodice and arms and coloured tape between the flounces, I will not buy it. My conscience will not let me.
Such a shame. But at least I will not have to bear the guilty feelings. The bottom line is that I cannot be responsible for the pain suffered by another living creature.
And then there are other animals, which we know DO feel pain, like fish, that are harmed when oysters are harvested.
I find this conversation interesting. While people here debate out sentient or not. Nobody here seems to be aware how many animal lives, especially wild animal lives agriculture takes.
1. Agriculture has nothing to do with nature.
2. To grow your food, the amounts of pesticides used kill entire ecosystems. Genetically modified organisms turn the land into toxic wasteland after a harvest. Insects and bees are killed by the millions. This pushes agriculture to search for more and more land to be destroyed by glyphosate attacks. Other animals who depend on insect as food also die out. All this is the greatest damage to our ecosystem, just because documentaries brainwash the people into believing agriculture is ethical. Without bees even trees cannot survive. Farming will fully depend on engineered hybrid seeds.
3. In nature most fruits only ocurr for 1 month per year. The availability of large verieties of fruits is only possible because of worldwide logistics. The spoilt consumer again believes the propaganda and does not understand that the overall pollution from shipping various plants all over the group does more harm than good.
I have to be honest. Local farming of plants and animals is still the most sustainable. A cow can feed 250 humans per day. We humans have to be clear. We have steady growing populations, that alone is more destructive to our environment than anything else.
It’s time to wake up.
No! Definitely NOT vegan! I would NEVER eat them- especially since they’re alive when you eat them! No way.
Great article! Given we choose to take life whenever we eat plants, many vegans consider ‘sentience’ or ‘conciousness’ the moral difference.
The fact that someone has labelled something an ‘animal’ or a ‘plant’ is just a label.
If we happen to discover a plant that is sentient and feels pain, I would not be ok with eating it just because it is labelled a ‘plant’.
Similarly, if an oyster is not sentient and doesn’t feel pain (as appears to be the case), then in my view it is in the same moral category as any other plant.
The Five Aggregates are what makes a living sentient being a living sentient being:
1. Form – the body.
2. Feelings – physical sensations and emotions.
3. Perceptions – the way things seem to be based upon the senses.
4. Volitional Formations – free will ability to make choices and decisions.
5. Consciousness – the mind.
Do plants have all five aggregates? No, they are not sentient beings. They simply respond to stimuli. There is no intentional harm caused by eating plants, therefore no unwholesome karma will be returned.
Amoebas, bacteria, and viruses are not sentient beings.
To find your answer, I might ask myself if oysters have all five aggregates. If they do, they are not vegan. If they do not have all five aggregates, they are vegan. 🙏☸️
Instead of asking what kingdom oysters belong to, we should ask what characteristics deserve moral consideration. The fact that oysters are animals tells us nothing about whether we should eat them or not. Imagine that tomorrow scientists discover a species of sentient plants that can speak to us. They can feel pain and have an advanced society with tools. In this scenario, it would be absurd to say their classification as plants alone warrants us to eat them as vegans. Conversely, imagine they discover a cow with no central nervous system and no nociceptors. It has no neurons at all. It would be equally absurd to say we can’t eat them because they are animals.
The chief characteristic we care about when we talk about ethical eating is consciousness. While oysters can respond to stimuli, there is just no indication there is an identity that could experience anything. There is no agent to harm our exploit there. Morally, this makes them equivalent to eating plants. The presence of nociceptors and ganglia isn’t enough. There has to be a plausible structure that is even capable of producing consciousness to consider that mortally significant. Oysters don’t have such a structure.
So to bring this back to definitions. If being vegan means protecting animals, then I think vegans are immoral. However, if being vegan means protecting conscious beings, then I’m a vegan. As a community, we can care more about definitions or we can care more about ethics.
I know what I care more about.
I don’t know why my previous comment added the first sentence.
I have been vegan since June 13, 2021 and flesh-free since January 2020. I’m also an animal rights activist and antinatalist. I have researched for more than 120 hours – through reading scholarly articles, books and literature, watching documentaries – the ethics of procreation, carnism, harm reduction, climate change, speciesism, overpopulation, environmental racism, ocean dead zones, endangered and extinct animal species, factory farms, sentience, the abuse and exploitation of humans in the animal agriculture industry, the many health benefits of a whole food plant based diet, the diseases caused by the consumption of animal flesh and their products…and much more.
I’ve also graduated from the Vegan Activist Academy by PAN as a certified vegan activist and have participated as a mentee through AAM and Surge.
Prior to becoming Veg/AN, I purchased several pearls. More than 15. All individual, from The Pearl Factory. Watched every oyster get torn open and scraped out. I kept most of them loose to put in a necklace “cage” but I have a few rings and a beautiful octopus pendant.
Since, I’ve spent a lot of time reading about pearls, the pearl industry and its impact on the oysters/mollusks, the workers who farm them and the environment.
The definition of veganism – per the Vegan Society – is: “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”
1. Mollusks belong to the kingdom Animalia – they are animals.
2. They are exploited to be consumed as food and their products worn as clothing (jewelry).
By definition, pearls are not vegan.
However, this may change as we learn more about mollusks. The 17th century philosopher René Descartes alleged assertion that animals are without feelings, physical or emotional. Obviously, we know how that this is abysmally incorrect.
As a vegan, I will never purchase a pearl or consume a mollusk for as long as I live and I will always speak out for the animals. They are not voiceless. We just don’t speak the same language. Thank you for reading.
If they filter water, wouldn’t they be all full of e.coli and microplastics, etc? Who wants to eat that?
But more to the point, up until the 1960’s it was believed that human babies didn’t feel pain, and they would perform surgeries on babies without anesthesia. So I find it arrogant for someone to look at something “less developed” than they are and decide that they don’t feel pain. I think ostrovegans should stop the mental gymnastics and just say that whether an animal feels pain or not is only important to them if they can personally emphasize with it. It’s easy to empathize with the pain of something that has eyes or looks cute, and easy to theorize away the pain of something that looks like a rock.
I personally think pearls are gaudy, but I eat oysters. Trying to simplify it into animal and non-animal is just lazy. In this immense universe of ours, how can there possibly be nothing in between? We, humans, are simply calling them animals, despite a MAJOR biological difference. The same silly humans who also called the Earth flat! This is not a simple classification, and like everything else in life, it is not black and white. An even more intelligent species from a different corner of the universe could visit and tell us we actually have 13 different levels of life. The fact is, we can’t be sure of anything unless we can actually experience their existence ourselves. So we do our best. And while I am against suffering, I am also pro-science and advancement. Instead of googling a list of what vegans can and can’t eat, I actually learned about the creatures on our planet myself. That’s how I ended up moving forward from being pescatarian for 25 years, but why I still eat bivalves, local honey, and the eggs that fall out of my friend’s pet chickens (waste not!). I don’t have a label, and you know what? It’s a good thing. Being unwilling to see anything differently than what you’re told is why our species is in the mess it’s currently in. After thousands of years, I’ll never understand how humans have become so close minded in this day and age (both meat eaters and vegans alike!).
Thank you for your kind words, Amanda. It’s incredible just how much nuance there is to being vegan.
Kudos for making the switch, and I hope your health has benefited.
They are animals, so they’re not vegetarian. While they might not feel pain the way we do, that’s not the point. Any living being tries to avoid harm and detects it in different ways – and reacts to it. Even plants to that. If you are vegetarian or vegan, you don’t eat animals. Period.
Having said that, I loooove oysters 😉
But:
– I don’t call my self vegetarian or vegan
– I’ve had them about two times in my life. Once ages ago in Brittany on vacation in February (don’t go there in February, but there were no tourists and we got them right from the local fisherman). The other time so my husband could taste them.
Even if you call yourself vegan, I totally get it. It’s a pain to exactly tell people what you eat and why. So vegan is just easier than .. sorry, I already forgot the name. Even if you are 100% vegan every other day – better than never!
Hi Simone, great take!
I agree with you. Simplify it down to animal or non-animal.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts 🙂
i agree with you both it just doesn’t feel right to eat them. Plus, i don’t really buy the sustainability and benefit for the environment argument. What about the gas to farm, the disruption of the land/water, the working conditions of the people in the industry etc. I just wouldn’t fee ok about eating them or wearing pearls.
Even if they don’t have a nervous system and they don’t feel pain, I still find it morally wrong to take away their life.
Hi Larissa. Yup, I know what you mean. It just doesn’t feel right. Thanks for commenting.