Philosophical Vegan Forum

what says you? okay or not okay and why? http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food ... yster.html

Why bother? It costs me nothing to give them the benefit of the doubt, so I don't eat them.

well meat eaters make the same argument about plants.

Twizelby wrote:well meat eaters make the same argument about plants.

Fair enough, but that's usually done in bad faith.

IME, most writers arguing that vegans should eat oysters are trying to pry open a door back into full-fledged carnism.

Oysters probably aren't sentient. But that doesn't make it OK to eat cows (which I know you are not arguing, but that seems to be where this opening salvo always leads in Slate and similar places).

isn't that a slippery slope fallacy?

Twizelby wrote:isn't that a slippery slope fallacy?

Yes, but that doesn't stop carnists from using it all the time.

I guess my question is, why should I consider eating oysters? They don't supply me with anything I need nutritionally speaking, and the question has no direct practical impact on my life one way or the other. It's an interesting academic exercise, I guess, but I think vegan activists have more important things to worry about.

I wouldn't eat them. I don't find my diet lacking in variety that I would need to add oysters into it. Plus I would be concerned with the damage to the ecosystem from farming them (both extracting them from a natural environment and an in-land farming operation).

TheVeganAtheist wrote:I wouldn't eat them. I don't find my diet lacking in variety that I would need to add oysters into it. Plus I would be concerned with the damage to the ecosystem from farming them (both extracting them from a natural environment and an in-land farming operation).

Aren't you concerned with the vegan aspects of the environment? Shipping etc. I think that if something meets and fits the vegan standard of food why not eat it?

Here by the Chesapeake oyster populations are much less than they used to be, as filter feeders they filter out the nitrogen and algae. We have algal blooms here that would be at least partially resolved by reintroducing oysters into the ecosystem.

dan1073 wrote:

TheVeganAtheist wrote:I wouldn't eat them. I don't find my diet lacking in variety that I would need to add oysters into it. Plus I would be concerned with the damage to the ecosystem from farming them (both extracting them from a natural environment and an in-land farming operation).

Aren't you concerned with the vegan aspects of the environment? Shipping etc. I think that if something meets and fits the vegan standard of food why not eat it?

I am, but by its very nature, you will be loosing when you have to farm animals. Animals will always consume more then they will produce. How much energy through food goes into making their shell and keeping them alive?

There is no "vegan standard"