Alex Karol fantasizes about the next time he gets the chance to gobble some fresh oysters. “I eat them with lemon juice, shallots and a few drops of hot sauce. Sometimes I have a few with a splash of vodka,” says the London and Toronto publicist.
The price limits his appetite for oysters to one meal a month, so just talking about them makes him crave them.
“I like them very, very much – really very much. I wish I could eat oysters every day of my life,” she says.
What is “Bivalve” Veganism
Oysters aren’t to everyone’s taste, but Karol’s enthusiasm for them is a surprise – because she’s vegan. Moreover, she is also very strict: she does not even consume honey.
A few years ago, however, he found himself struggling to get certain nutrients in adequate amounts from plants alone, and someone suggested the idea of being vegan at the same time. It was called “bivalve veganism” – and Karol was convinced.
“I was so excited to bring oysters back into my life,” she says, adding, however, that “I feel like a lot of people think I made up the rule and it’s not real,” she notes
Bivalve veganism is based on the idea that molluscs such as mussels and oysters have no brain and are unable to process pain, so eating them does not cause animal suffering. This has caused a philosophical debate: can vegans eat oysters?
Speech cannot be just black and white
According to the Vegan Society, “in dietary terms, (veganism) denotes the practice of giving up all products derived in whole or in part from animals.”
Maisie Stedman, a spokeswoman for the British charity, says it “understands the word animal as referring to the entire animal kingdom. That is, all vertebrates and all multicellular invertebrates. Oysters and other bivalves are invertebrates, and with that in mind, eat them.”
However, some voices say the argument is more nuanced.
Philosopher Peter Singer points out: “You can say that by definition a vegan will not eat oysters. But that doesn’t solve the ethical problem: Is there anything wrong with eating oysters?”
Singer is professor emeritus of bioethics at Princeton University in New Jersey, USA, and in 1975 he published Animal Liberation, a book advocating for a cure.
He decided to be almost exclusively vegan, so as “not to be complicit in causing unnecessary suffering to any being”. But occasionally he enjoys an oyster, believing that oysters do not suffer.
