Oysters and Vegans

[Ladygold]

So I was at a family dinner and my partners sister brought up oysters and asked why I didn’t eat them because I had just had the central nervous system eating plants versus animal conversation.

Apparently oysters do not have a nervous system? In the end the conversation went really well in many ways and she seemed to understand my stance on no harm and how I can be a healthy vegan and all etc...but It turned into me going home and looking up info about oysters.

I found this article: Consider the Oyster
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2010/04/consider_the_oyster.html

I know that this seems wrong for me personally and really disgusting to be honest. Its still eating a body of a animal but I’m interested In what others have to say.

What do others think? And have you heard this argument before? I feel like it came out of no where.

LG

[harpy]

I think there have been discussions about this on the forum before; not sure if they were prompted by that article but if you search on "oyster" you will probably find them.

My knowledge of this is a bit rusty but I believe bivalves like oysters do have a nervous system, though not a CNS (with brain). I also gather that they can avoid harmful stimuli by closing their shells, so that seems a pretty close analogue to a mammalian response to pain. So it's pretty difficult to be sure that they don't feel anything like pain. (It is interesting the author of that article talks about "pain resembling ours" as if other kinds of pain were immaterial!)

Having said that, if I were forced to eat either oysters or beef I would go for the oysters, but fortunately we're not likely to face that choice.