# Are oysters alive when you eat them? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 5, 2010, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568 "2010-07-05T00:02:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/21 "2010-07-05T20:53:14Z")
Wait, eating them kinda sorta takes away their ability to make a pearl for to hang on my sweetie’s pretty neck, doesn’t it? Waste of a good pearl factory, if you ask me. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/22 "2010-07-05T21:24:12Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > …but I was almost certain Americans, in general, would be squicked by eating anything living. Only if it’s noticably moving and has something resembling a face. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/23 "2010-07-06T01:25:04Z")
> [@Turek](#): > > Not the Norwegian Blues. They prefer kippin’ on their backs. Look, You, this is no laughing matter. ---
**Author:** ![Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swords_to_Plowshares)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/24 "2010-07-06T01:40:27Z")
The shells should always be closed when you buy them. That’s why they have to be shucked - although I’m surprised they survive the shucking (if that is indeed true). ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/25 "2010-07-06T02:41:55Z")
> [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](#): > > The shells should always be closed when you buy them. That’s why they have to be shucked - although I’m surprised they survive the shucking (if that is indeed true). Shucking should not be fatal, as it only severs the adductor muscle from the shell. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/26 "2010-07-06T04:07:43Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Given that a chicken, which has a brain of sorts, can survive the trauma of having its head cut off, _Survive_? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/27 "2010-07-06T04:10:35Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > _Survive_? :dubious: [Mike the Headless Chicken](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken) ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/28 "2010-07-06T04:14:07Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Only if it’s noticably moving and has something resembling a face. I have had _kawakani_ a couple of times, which are most certainly alive, crawling river crabs. You eat them by popping them in your mouth and biting them before they bite you. They are said to be an aphrodisiac. In my experience, that is true - they work on the date who is mighty mighty impressed by the eating task, and having been told by the waitress that the crabs are in fact an aphrodisiac, gets the hint. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Hen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Small\_Hen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Hen)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/29 "2010-07-06T05:15:56Z")
If you’d asked me yesterday, I’d have tried an oyster on the half shell. Now, no way in hell. If there is \*any \*chance that my food might have even a \*vague \*awareness of, “fuck! I failed!”, then it’s not a tasty good time. I have enough of a complex without wondering if my food is thinking negative thoughts while I eat it. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/30 "2010-07-06T05:21:00Z")
> [@Small\_Hen](#): > > If you’d asked me yesterday, I’d have tried an oyster on the half shell. Now, no way in hell. If there is \*any \*chance that my food might have even a \*vague \*awareness of, “fuck! I failed!”, then it’s not a tasty good time. I have enough of a complex without wondering if my food is thinking negative thoughts while I eat it. Cool! More for the rest of us! ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/31 "2010-07-06T05:42:12Z")
> [@Small Hen](#): > > If you’d asked me yesterday, I’d have tried an oyster on the half shell. Now, no way in hell. If there is any chance that my food might have even a vague awareness of, “fuck! I failed!”, then it’s not a tasty good time. I have enough of a complex without wondering if my food is thinking negative thoughts while I eat it. They can’t think; they don’t have brains. They are alive, but pretty much in the same sense that plants are alive. This opinion is backed up by the Wiki article on oysters. To wit: > [@](#): > > While technically an animal, the oyster is considered by some ethicists to be an appropriate food choice for vegans and vegetarians, arguing it is acceptable to eat oysters, because **in the relevant ethical terms they are rather closer to plants than animals**.[22] Two common ethical objections to the consumption of animals is that they feel pain (and that causing pain is wrong), and that their cultivation is environmentally harmful. On both of these, oysters are significantly closer to plants than animals.[citation needed] **Regarding pain, oysters lack a central nervous system, and are not believed to experience pain in the same way as humans do, with them and other bivalves being closer to mobile plants than to plant perception**. (“plant perception” = the mechanisms by which plants recognize changes in the environment.) [bolding and parenthetical comments mine] [Link to Wikipedia article on oysters.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oysters) ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/32 "2010-07-06T05:50:55Z")
Wow, I had no idea oysters were alive when I ate them. Well, actually, I suspect this may be one of those things I knew at one time and then managed successfully to forget. Years ago when I was still nominally vegetarian, I used to justify eating sushi with the utilitarian argument that I LOVE eating sushi and how much fun could a fish possibly have? I don’t suppose a bivalve can have much utility in its life at all (and no less an authority than Peter Singer agrees with me!) but to eat them alive . . . ! Luckily for me (or my conscience, at least) I live pretty far inland. We have “oysters” on the menu here in the Rocky Mountains, but they ain’t seafood! (And the one time in my life I was drunk enough to want to try them, the restaurant was all out.) Next time I get a chance to eat a _real_ oyster I’ll hopefully have managed to forget this fact again. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/33 "2010-07-06T07:21:00Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > [Mike the Headless Chicken](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken) At the height of his popularity, the chicken earned $4,500 USD per month ($50,000 in 2005 dollars) and was valued at $10,000.This is not helping my self-esteem. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/34 "2010-07-06T11:32:34Z")
I find it adds to my oyster dining experience if I imagine a tiny [Wilhelm scream](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio). ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/35 "2010-07-06T14:16:06Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > I find it adds to my oyster dining experience if I imagine a tiny [Wilhelm scream](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio). **Suburban Princess:** Ooh! This one’s still wiggling! **Oyster:** [Wilhelm Scream as Suburban Princess eats it] **Suburban Princess:** Tee hee hee! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/36 "2010-07-07T18:41:58Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > Unless you see they are cooked, yes the oysters are alive when you eat them. > > If you eat raw oysters, you will see an open shell. If you tap on it, the oyster will close the shell. Then it is safe to eat the oyster. If you tap on an open shell and it doesn’t close the oyster is dead and it is not safe to eat. Cool - self-vetting foodstuff! Good oyster! > [@Quartz](#): > > The whole point of the lemon slice is not to flavour the oyster but that you touch the slice to the oyster and the oyster should move, demonstrating that it is alive and safe to eat. One can also apply a soaked napkin to the oyster, at which point it should name the leader of your local Al Quada cell. This establishes, not only that the oyster is alive and safe to eat, but that you have exhausted its stock of useful information before consuming it. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568/37 "2010-07-07T19:05:34Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > … I’ve squirted lemon juice on many an oyster and applied horseraddish and cocktail sauce to many others, and I’ve stabbed most of them with those little oyster forks like you do if you don’t slide them out of the shell into your mouth, and I’ve yet to see any reaction at all. Then off to the mastication and the acid bath! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-oysters-alive-when-you-eat-them/545568.md?page=1)