Is Oyster Sauce Considered Vegan?

From peta.org/living

Since oysters don’t have a central nervous system, does that mean that oyster sauce can be considered vegan? PETA dives into the oyster debate and breaks down why eating oysters isn’t vegan.

Are Oysters Vegan?

Every animal is someone. Oysters may look different from mammals or birds, but they’re still living beings. Oysters protect their soft bodies by snapping their shells tightly closed at the first hint of danger. They have a nervous system, respond to their environments, and play a vital role in ocean ecosystems by filtering water and creating habitats for other sea life.

Although we don’t know for sure whether or not oysters can feel pain, there’s no reason to potentially cause them harm. It’s selfish to eat shellfish and any other animal exploited for food.

What Is Vegan Oyster Sauce Made Of?

Instead of using once-living oyster bodies to make sauce, vegan oyster sauce is often made from oyster and shiitake mushrooms. Mushrooms have a delicious umami flavour, which makes them the perfect base for a vegan oyster sauce.

Vegan oyster sauce is perfect for stir-fries, curries, and can add depth to soups and sauces. Try it in a vegan “beef” and broccoli stir-fry, udon noodle soup, or add it to anything that could use some salty tang.

                                                                                                                                                   © iStock.com/VeselovaElena

Five Vegan Oyster Sauce Options to Try

1. Wan Ja Shan Vegetarian Mushroom Oyster Sauce is rich, savoury, and made with fermented soy and mushroom extract.
2. Lee Kum Kee Vegetarian Stir-Fry Sauce is made with shiitake mushroom extract.
3. Roland’s Vegan Oyster Sauce’s deep, earthy flavour is powered by shiitake powder.
4. Healthy Boy Vegetarian Mushroom Sauce is a Thai-style sauce made with soy sauce and mushroom extract, which gives it a strong umami flavour.
5. Ocean’s Halo No Fish Sauce is soy-free and kelp-based. Its briny, ocean-forward flavour adds depth to any dish.

https://www.peta.org/living/food/oyster-sauce/ 

‘I’ll have them with hot sauce’: should vegans eat oysters?

From theguardian.com

Bivalve veganism is built on the philosophy that molluscs such as mussels and oysters feel no pain. But some say the scientific jury is still out 

Alex Karol is fantasising about the next time she gets to slurp up some freshly shucked oysters. “I’ll have them with lemon juice, shallots, and a couple of drops of hot sauce. Sometimes, I have a couple with a splash of vodka,” says the London- and Toronto-based publicist. Cost curbs her craving for oysters to one meal a month, and so even just talking about them makes her hungry. “I really, really enjoy them – like, properly enjoy them. I wish that I had oysters every single day of my life.”

Oysters are not to everyone’s taste but Karol’s enthusiasm for the filter-feeding bivalves comes as a surprise – because she is vegan. She is otherwise strict: she does not even consume honey. But a few years back she found she was struggling to get certain nutrients in suitable quantities from plants alone, and someone tipped her off to the idea that you could eat oysters and still be vegan. It was called “bivalve veganism” – and Karol was sold.

“I was so excited to bring oysters back into my life,” she says, adding, however that “I do feel like lots of people think I’ve made up the rule myself, and it’s not a real thing.”

Alex Karol, who describes herself as a bivalve vegan, enjoying a meal at Rodney’s Oyster House in Toronto, Canada. Photograph: Cole Burston/The Guardian

Bivalve veganism is built on the idea that molluscs such as mussels and oysters do not possess a brain and are unable to process pain, so eating them does not cause animal suffering. This has prompted a simmering philosophical debate: can vegans really consume oysters?

According to the Vegan Society, “In dietary terms [veganism] denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.” Maisie Stedman, a spokesperson for the UK charity, says it “understands the word ‘animal’ to refer to the entire animal kingdom. That is all vertebrates and all multicellular invertebrates. Oysters and other bivalves are invertebrates and, taking this into account, it is not vegan to consume them.”

However, some say the argument is more nuanced. Philosopher Peter Singer says: “You can say, by definition, a vegan won’t eat oysters. But that doesn’t solve the ethical question of, ‘is there anything wrong with eating oysters?’”

Singer is emeritus professor of bioethics at Princeton University in New Jersey, US, and in 1975 published Animal Liberation, a book that argues for the more ethical treatment of animals. He decided to be almost exclusively vegan, so he would “not be complicit in inflicting unnecessary suffering on any sentient beings”. But occasionally he will enjoy an oyster, believing that oysters do not suffer pain.

The idea behind ‘bivalve veganism’ is that molluscs such as mussels and oysters do not feel pain, so do not suffer. Photograph: Cole Burston/The Guardian

To understand this, it makes sense to find out more about how pain works. Firstly, pain involves a “nociceptive response” where nerves react to a harmful stimulus, such as heat, by triggering a reflexive withdrawal of the exposed body part to protect it from further harm, says Lynne Sneddon, a professor at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden who studies aquatic animal behaviour.

For some organisms, nociception tips over into a second phase, sensory pain, which promotes behaviours such as nursing a wound. We know from human experience that sensory pain can lead to suffering.

But oysters and mussels lack what is considered a critical ingredient required to process sensory pain: a centralised nervous system, or brain. The logic follows that killing and consuming oysters causes them no suffering.

Adding to this theory, oysters and mussels are anchored to rocks and unable to flee their attackers compared with other bivalves such as scallops, which can swim away.

“It’s harder to see why [oysters and mussels] would have evolved the capacity for pain since there’s not much that they can do about being ripped off the rock,” Singer says.

Singer’s recent book, Animal Liberation Now, excludes scallops and clams from the list of bivalves he is happy to consume. But oysters remain on the menu. “I think that the ethical reasons for being vegan don’t apply to eating some bivalves. So I think that people who are vegan and would like to eat some bivalves … are justified in doing so.”

The subject of animal pain continues to compel researchers and, according to Sneddon, “there’s nowhere that it is more hotly debated than in aquatic animals”. Unable to get into animal minds, researchers rely on behavioural changes as the closest evidence that these organisms might experience pain. Sneddon’s own studies on behavioural changes in fish add to a mounting body of research suggesting that fish do feel sensory pain. Meanwhile molluscs such as octopuses have been observed cradling wounded tentacles, and other experiments show that such behaviours subside when animals are supplied with pain treatments.

Oysters and mussels show potential signs of nociception, such as closing their shells against a threat, Sneddon says. They may not have a centralised brain, but they do have a diffuse system of nerve cells, she notes: “Their [central nervous system] is just laid out differently.” And considering the close evolutionary ties between these bivalves and other molluscs, she thinks it is worth investigating further whether they can experience pain.

But there is currently almost no pain research underway on bivalves. “The jury’s out. We don’t have the science in place to inform anyone’s decision about that. But if you’re concerned that there might be a likelihood that these animals suffer in some way, then I would suggest you should avoid eating them,” Sneddon advises.

Sneddon and Singer agree, however, that there is more to this question than the welfare of individual animals, such as what seafood production does to wider ecosystems. “I’m a little bit biased: my concern is for the individual animal, that’s the priority,” says Sneddon. “But there are so many other questions about how the animals were caught, what was done to them and how that affects the wider environment – the ecosystem and other animals.”

For example, there is evidence that scallop dredging destroys whole ecosystems, which raises questions about how this affects the wellbeing of other living things. Similarly, while oyster and mussel farms filter the water and are generally considered the most sustainable aquatic foods you can consume, there are some concerns around the chemical pollution and wider biodiversity impacts linked to largescale bivalve farms.

While the research catches up with the philosophising, Karol, who identifies as a bivalve vegan, prefers to source her oysters from sustainable fisheries and farms. But, she says: “I’m always open to listening. I would be open for someone to sway me into complete veganism, for sure.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/12/ill-have-them-with-hot-sauce-should-vegans-eat-oysters

Does eating oysters count as eating meat?

From inquirer.com

Some vegetarians and vegans— bivalvegans — make an exception for eating oysters. Here's why 

At the Washington, D.C., restaurant Oyster Oyster, chef Rob Rubba serves a tasting menu that’s entirely vegan, save for a single oyster course. Rubba, who eats “a vegetarian and more often plant-based diet,” says that oysters are central to the restaurant’s ethos, which is committed to preserving ecosystems. “Oysters have a long history here, and our waterways have been depleted of the benefits of oysters due to wild harvesting,” says Rubba, who was born in South Jersey and recently did a one-night pop-up at My Loup. “Therefore, we support oyster farmers who are environmentally in tune and working to restore our watershed.”

There are vegetarians and vegans, in fact, who eat oysters. Those amorphous grey molluscs look less like animals than most cars do, yet animals they are, with a teeny heart and two kidneys. So why the oyster exceptionalism?

“Ostrovegans” or “bivalvegans,” as they are sometimes known, tend to offer two main justifications for eating these animals, which typically also include mussels and clams: Oysters probably feel no pain, and oyster production and consumption is good for the environment, unlike, say, burgers. And they’ve been around for a while. In the 2010 Slate essay “Consider the Oyster,” author 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 is minimally cruel to the molluscs 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 thrived in a factory-farm cage, one that subsisted on nutrients plucked from the air and that was insensate to the slaughterhouse blade?”

For people whose vegetarianism is rooted in the reduction of suffering, oysters’ rudimentary nervous systems is proof enough that they do not suffer when killed — they don’t have a brain or a central nervous system, so it’s believed they don’t feel pain. Alicia Kennedy, an oyster-loving vegetarian and author of No Meat Required: The Cultural History & Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating, considers oysters to essentially be “sea plants” for this reason, but she also eats them because of their social and environmental significance.

Sopy Aguilar shucks oysters at Dock’s Oyster House in Atlantic City Wednesday, July 17, 2024.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

It should be noted that we can never 100% confirm the claim that oysters don’t feel pain because, as researchers put it, “the definition of pain includes a subjective component that may be impossible to gauge in animals quite different from humans, [so] firm conclusions about the possible existence of pain in molluscs may be unattainable.” But we do know that oysters filter water, help protect the shoreline, and are vital to so many ecosystems.

“They’re an important aspect of ecology wherever they are, cleaning up water and thus becoming important culturally,” says Kennedy. “The town I’m from on Long Island, Patchogue, was once a very significant oyster source. I like that it’s becoming that again: It provides a sense of heritage and place that few foods do.” She tries to order oysters whenever she’s in a place where they’re prevalent, not only because they’re delicious, but also because they’re “a good source of camaraderie to share and discuss,” she says. “Those things are more important to me as I get older than any ideological purity.”

For some vegetarians who eat oysters, the entire mollusc category is a go. Carly DeFeis, a 34-year-old woman who stopped eating land-based animals as a kid, eventually cut out fish as she got older to become a full-blown vegetarian, but she continued eating molluscs. “I don’t think of them as feeling pain in the same way,” she says. “I’m very much in the camp of minimizing harm to animals and the environment, but I also love good food and dining and cultural experiences.”

New Jersey Commissioner of Environmental Protection Shawn LaTourette (front gun) and N.J. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Wengryn (rear gun) take a turn at the high-pressure water guns, blasting oyster shells off a barge into the waters of the Mullica River Monday, July 2, 2024. Oyster shells discarded by diners are collected and cleaned by researchers and workers at the Nacote Creek Research Station in Port Republic, before dumping them on one of the last self-sustaining oyster populations on the east coast. The discarded shells form oyster colonies/reefs where free-floating baby oysters (called spat) in June and July attach to the shells to mature. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Mullica River project is currently only growing the oysters for ecological purposes, not for commercial harvesting (but maybe in the future, as in the Delaware Bay).   Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

Oysters are perhaps the rare (if not only?) animal whose farming and consumption benefits the environment in a meaningful way. The cultivation of oysters – which eating farmed oysters encourages – helps restore depleted, overharvested wild oyster populations all while cleaning waterways. Therefore, a plant-based diet rooted in environmental concerns has more space for the little guys. 

“A single oyster filters up to 50 gallons of water a day,” says Rubba. “Oyster reefs protect shorelines from storms and wave damage – something we are seeing more and more of. Those reefs house all kinds of symbiotic life that enriches the waters and restores balance.”

A vegan tasting menu with an oyster course doesn’t strike the chef as incongruous — rather, quite the opposite. “We like the grey area of sustainability as it creates room for growth and discussion.”

https://www.inquirer.com/food/why-vegetarians-vegans-eat-oysters-20240814.html

Are oysters vegan?

From theguardian.com

Oysters are animals, so the answer’s simple, right? Apparently not. Welcome to the moral maze of bivalves and eating things with faces ...

I’ve read that it’s OK to eat oysters if you are vegan. Can this really be true?
Elia, Ham, Surrey

Is that a trick question, Elia, or are you just having a laugh? Something tells me I’m bound to get into all sorts of bother for even dipping my toes into these particular waters, so here goes nothing.
At face value, the answer would appear to be an open-and-shut case (#sorrynotsorry). Oysters are bivalves, and as such are clearly much more closely related to the likes of clams than to any plant matter, so they’re animals, right? And The Vegan Society defines a vegan as a person who avoids “all animal foods such as meat (including fish, shellfish and insects), dairy, eggs and honey – as well as avoiding animal-derived materials, products tested on animals and places that use animals for entertainment”, which surely rules out oysters full stop. “Veganism is about rejecting the notion that animals are food or products, therefore we don’t view oysters as something to eat,” a Society spokeswoman confirms. Phew, I’ve no idea why I was worried now. This culinary agony-aunting lark is easy: 130 words in, and I’ve already earned my corn. I’m off to the pub …

Er, not so fast, sunshine, because this is where those waters get murky. You see, there is a school of thought that argues the exact opposite, even though that may seem a wildly have-cake-and-eat-it opinion. Far from it, says chef Alexis Gauthier, of Gauthier in Soho, one of the UK’s top vegan-friendly fine dining haunts, complete with a £70 nine-course vegan tasting menu. Gauthier is himself vegan, yet as far as he’s concerned, it’s fine to eat oysters. “You what?” you may well ask, but let’s hear the man out.

    ‘There is a case for saying osyters are less sentient even than trees,’ argues chef Jackson Boxer.                                                         Photograph: Lizzie Mayson/The Guardian

Gauthier takes an “eat nothing with a face” approach to veganism. “For me, a vegan diet is fundamentally about compassion,” he explains, “and, as current research confirms, oysters are non-sentient beings with no brain or advanced central nervous system, so they’re unable to feel pain. That’s why I’m happy to eat them.” He accepts this view isn’t shared by all, which is why oysters don’t feature on his vegan menus. “There are plenty of other ingredients to choose from.”

Gauthier is not a lone voice, either. It turns out the “Are oysters vegan?” debate has been going on for decades, and while the naysayers are in a clear majority for obvious reasons, there are a surprising number of advocates out there. Chef/restaurateur Jackson Boxer of Brunswick House and Orasay in London is among them: “I’d never dream of foisting oysters on anyone who doesn’t want to eat them for whatever reason, ethical or otherwise,” he says, “but there is a case for saying they’re less sentient even than trees. Unlike most farming, oysters have a demonstrably beneficial impact on the environment around them, too – they filter and purify the water, which in turn encourages secondary ecosystems.”

You might think Boxer would say that, wouldn’t he, considering he’s not a vegan and everything, but this column’s far too cowardly to start pointing fingers at anyone about dietary purity one way or the other – after all, what we choose to put in our mouths is entirely up to each of us as individuals. As the bioethicist and philosopher Peter Singer put it in 2009: “It’s hard to imagine [oysters] can feel pain. But if you have doubts about it, don’t eat them.” And vice versa, presumably.

So, clear as mud then. I now need a lie-down, rather than a pub. Thanks, Elia, I hope you’re pleased with yourself.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/sep/27/are-oysters-vegan-kitchen-aide