Does eating oysters count as eating meat?

At Washington restaurant Oyster Oyster, chef Rob Rubba serves a tasting menu that is entirely vegan except for a single oyster course. Rubba, who is “vegetarian and more often plant-based,” says oysters are central to the restaurant’s philosophy of preserving ecosystems. “Oysters have a long history here, and our waterways have been stripped of their benefits by wild-fishing,” says Rubba, a South Jersey native who recently had a one-day pop-up booth at My Loup. “So we support oyster farmers who are environmentally conscious and committed to restoring our watersheds.”

There are actually vegetarians and vegans who eat oysters. These amorphous gray mollusks look less like animals than most cars, but they are animals nonetheless, with a tiny heart and two kidneys. So why this exceptional status of oysters?

“Ostrovegans,” or “bivalvegans,” as they are sometimes called, typically cite two main justifications for eating these animals, which usually include mussels and clams: Oysters probably don’t feel pain, and their production and consumption are good for the environment, unlike, say, burgers. And they’ve been around for a while. In the 2010 essay “Consider the Oyster” for Slate, writer Christopher Cox argued that it’s OK for vegans to eat oysters because oyster farming and consumption have little negative impact on the ecosystem and are hardly cruel to the mollusks themselves. “Raising animals for food 1) destroys the planet and 2) causes those animals to suffer,” he wrote. “But what if we could find an animal that thrives in factory-farmed cages, feeds on nutrients it extracts from the air, and is impervious to the knife in the slaughterhouse?”

For people whose vegetarianism is based on reducing suffering, the oyster’s rudimentary nervous system is sufficient proof that they do not suffer when killed – they have neither a brain nor a central nervous system, so they are assumed not to feel pain. Alicia Kennedy, an oyster-loving vegetarian and author of No meat required: The cultural history and culinary future of plant-based dietsFor this reason, the United States considers oysters essentially “sea plants,” but also eats them because of their social and ecological significance.

It should be noted that we can never 100% confirm the claim that oysters do not feel pain because, as researchers put it, “the definition of pain includes a subjective component that may not be measurable in animals very different from humans, so firm conclusions about the possible existence of pain in mollusks may not be possible.” But we do know that oysters filter water, contribute to coastal protection, and are vital to so many ecosystems.

“They’re an important aspect of the ecology wherever they are, they clean the water and become culturally important as a result,” Kennedy says. “The town I’m from on Long Island, Patchogue, was once a very important source of oysters. I think it’s good that it’s becoming that again: It gives a sense of tradition and home that few foods offer.” She tries to order oysters whenever she’s in a place where they’re widely available, not only because they’re delicious but also because they’re “a good source of camaraderie to share and discuss,” she says. “These things are more important to me, the older I get, than any ideological purity.”

For some vegetarians who eat oysters, the entire mollusk category is off-limits. Carly DeFeis, a 34-year-old woman who stopped eating land animals as a child, eventually gave up fish as she grew older and became a full-fledged vegetarian, but continued to eat mollusks. “I don’t think they feel pain in the same way,” she says. “I’m all for minimizing harm to animals and the environment, but I also love good food and culinary and cultural experiences.”

Oysters are perhaps the rare (if not the only?) animal whose farming and consumption benefits the environment in a meaningful way. Oyster farming – which is encouraged by eating farmed oysters – helps restore depleted, overfished wild oyster populations while cleaning up waters, so a plant-based diet based on environmental concerns makes more room for the little critters.

“A single oyster filters up to 50 gallons of water per day,” says Rubba. “Oyster reefs protect coastlines from storms and wave action – something we’re seeing more and more. These reefs are home to all kinds of symbiotic life that enriches the water and restores balance.”

A vegan tasting menu with oysters as a course does not seem inappropriate to the chef – on the contrary. “We like the grey area of ​​sustainability because it creates space for growth and discussion.”