Open Letter To Christopher Cox
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Dear Christopher Cox,
I applaud your effort to persuade people to think harder about their food choices. I am thankful that you are trying to get people to consider avoiding causing animal suffering. I think your version of ethical eating is respectable and commendable.
But please stop declaring that oysters are a vegan food, like how you did in that Slate article titled, “Consider the Oyster: Why even strict vegans should feel comfortable eating oysters by the boatload.” You wrote:
“When I became a vegan, I didn’t draw an X through everything marked ‘Animalia’ on the tree of life. And when I pick out my dinner, I don’t ask myself: What do I have to do to remain a vegan? I ask myself: What is the right choice in this situation? Eating ethically is not a purity pissing contest, and the more vegans or vegetarians pretend that it is, the more their diets start to resemble mere fashion—and thus risk being dismissed as such.”
Please stop calling yourself a vegan. You have a TON of options. You can use different words to describe your eating habits. Here are some suggestions: ethical eater, 90% vegan, flexitarian, part-time vegan, mostly vegan, almost vegan, semi-vegan, veganish, veganesque, vegan wannabe, vegan at heart. But please stop trying to change the definition of “vegan.” Vegan means no animal products. It’s very simple and straight forward.
I will grant, you make a good point in your sidenote:
“These [Tree of Life] kingdom distinctions were [first] demarcated by Carolus Linnaeus, who also believed that Africans and Europeans were different species. I don’t let Linnaeus tell me what to eat any more than I let him tell me who is human.”
Linnaeus’s classification is now outdated and replaced with an evolutionary model, but the distinction between plant and animal remains. One major distinction is that all animals are heterotrophs, meaning they must ingest other organisms for sustenance.
Do plants suffer? Should we worry about broccoli? These are questions most ethical eaters ponder eventually. But for anyone who actually cares about reducing suffering, the answer is simple: Eat lower on the food chain and you’ll cause less pain, simple as that.
That’s easily done by eating vegan. The bright line difference between animal and plant is easier to distinguish. It’s also supported by more modern science than is the line between what/who feels pain and what/who doesn’t. (By the way, how do you determine if someone feels pain? You cause pain. Again and again until the response they give you is something you are willing and able to recognize as pain. That’s not very nice!)
Thus, it’s more rational to choose vegan over ethical flexitarian. It’s essentially choosing simplicity over complexity, with the same end result. This point is well made in Jonathan Safran Foer’s book “Eating Animals,” towards the end where he explains why he’s betting on vegetarian over “humane meat.” A vegan diet is simply simpler.
Again, Mr. Cox, I ask that you please stop trying to change the definition of “vegan.” You may worry about vegans being “dismissed” and so you want to emphasize the ethical aspects of veganism over the plant/animal distinction, I understand that. But I help run a vegan potluck group full of mostly nonvegans who like to experiment with preparing and eating vegan food. Because of you, I had to remind them that oysters are not vegan.
In an era where very few people understand what the word vegan means, we needn’t worry about being “dismissed” when we’re not even understood! Vegan means NO ANIMAL PRODUCTS. By implying that vegans should eat oysters, you are confusing people. Please stop.
Sincerely,
Elaine Vigneault
Agreed! Omnivores are confused as is, why confuse them further?!?! Many people know I am vegan and still ask me if I eat fish or if I eat cheese. Why is this? Because of confusing people like yourself who aren’t vegan but claim that you are. Vegans don’t eat animals or animal products. A vegan that eats oysters = not a vegan. I agree that the name for your diet should be more like “ethical eater”.
I think part of my reaction to Cox is based on the fact that a number of nonvegans have asked me specifically about oysters. I’ve always interpreted them as looking for loopholes. It’s never the first question they ask (as if oysters were their favorite food) and they’re never genuinely interested in going vegan (as if I could provide an answer about oysters that would compel them to eat fewer pigs, chickens, and cows). They’re usually they’re just pushing buttons. They’re not actually interested in animal suffering; they don’t care.
Excellent post, thank you! I’ll be passing this on to others.
.-= Jacqueline´s last blog ..Health Benefits of Vegetarianism Abound =-.
Elaine, do you kill insects? There are vegans that do that and still consider themselves vegan. Even vegans who will eat something they bought that has honey as an ingredient and still call themselves vegan. Maybe oystro-veganism has a better chance than “pure” veganism because there are types of animals that people don’t really see as worth any ethics. Obviously, people are concerned about the ethics of eating eggs due to the cruelty against the hens, the ethics of milk due to the cruelty against the cows. But oystro-vegans would avoid those things given that. All they would be doing is changing the rules that work for them. The truth is, while you would like to see a big wide space between the animals and plants, most people are not going to see oysters as that much different than plants.
I’m not a vegan or vegetarian (anymore) but that’s my opinion.
Aren’t fungi at the same rung on the food chain as oysters? But they’re vegan food, no?
The author’s point is that these sorts of labels lose meaning when a strict line is drawn across something that more resembles a grey area. Oysters are definitely a grey area, for ethical and environmental reasons. If the label is of so much importance that it stops having any basis, then the label ceases to have any meaning and just becomes a fashion statement like your t-shirt.
As a paleontologist, I have to disagree with this:
“Eat lower on the food chain and you’ll cause less pain, simple as that.”
The nervous system and the ability to feel pain, just like anything else, is a feature which can be gained or lost over the course of evolution. Oysters are descended from ancestors with complex nervous systems suited to a mobile, predatory or grazing lifestyle, but the oysters themselves are sessile filter-feeders which have essentially lost their nervous systems due to not needing them for their lifestyle. This is one of the important things to remember in reconstructing the tree of life: traits can be both gained and lost during evolution. And, in this particular case, this one has been lost.
The rest of your points stand, but that one, which is crucial to your criticism of the essay in Slate, is subtly and significantly incorrect. Sorry.
On the other hand, clams have substantially more nervous system than oysters or mussels, and scallops even more so. This cuts both ways. I’m on my way back to the Slate essay right now to point out that the author should rule out these two taxa.
octopod – Are you seriously arguing that eating only plants causes more pain than eating plants plus oysters? Really?
Punctum – It’s actually a food web and it goes in many directions. “The food chain” is a rhetorical device. When veganism is explained via “the food chain”, people easily understand that plants generally require fewer resources because they are “lower” on the “chain.” Thus, if one is interested in causing less pain than the typical developed nation’s omnivore diet (such as the Standard American Diet), then a vegan diet is a good method of to cause less pain amongst other living beings.
But more to your point, people avoid animal products for all kinds of reasons. Veganism is a set of actions, not a set of beliefs. As explained at the top of this website:
vegan: person who seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose.
Some people do it to spare animals’ lives, others do it to prevent animal suffering, others do it for health, others do it for the environment, others do it for fun or fashion. Whatever the reason, the action matters more. Thus, it makes sense to keep the definition as it is and not try to modify it.
Stancel – you said that you’re “not a vegan or vegetarian”. Well are you an “oystro-vegan”? If you think it’s such a great idea, I’d imagine you would adopt such a diet.
Elaine,
I disagree with much of your post, but most strongly I disagree with your most recent comment in response to punctum. Someone cannot be a “person who seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose” without believing in animal rights or welfare. Concern for the environment doesn’t stop someone from beating their pet, visiting a zoo, or eating honey. Concern for personal health similarly does not extend to any non-food activities, like wearing leather or fur. Someone can practice a vegan diet without caring about animals, but to BE vegan, animal advocacy is required.
I used to agree with you frank, and in fact my posts here on the Soapbox from a couple years ago agree with you.
Then I met more vegans, many of whom claim the vegan identity but say it’s for health or environmental reasons. At first I argued with them and suggested there were not health or environmental reason to avoid animal products in clothing or cosmetics… they told me they avoided those things too and that in fact there are environmental and health reasons to do so.
So I decided to stop trying to assume or assert other people’s mental states and concentrated more on what actually helps the animals: behaviors.
Hi Elaine!
What an interesting couple of articles! I thought it should be noted that Cox never said why he felt the need to eat oysters… many pescetarians note the importance of b12, and meat-eaters always talk about protein, but Cox just said he was going to eat oysters because he could, and because he liked them and didn’t want to deny himself of them… There wasn’t any discussion as to why he felt it so important to eat them, only that he felt he ethically could… how strange.
Also, one of your readers above mentioned not killing insects… aren’t there times when it is necessary? Unlike with bees, where they are killed en masse because beekeepers find it financially infeasible to keep them alive through the winter, (hence why vegans don’t eat honey), when my house was infested with ants, I had to call an exterminator and set up traps… the ants were here when I moved in, so there was no way I could prevent the situation… is this un-vegan?
Thanks so much for all your informative articles and cute videos! ^.^
Does anyone have an email for Christopher Cox? I want to contact him directly.
My sister (love her to death, BUT) calls herself vegan but eats seafood like it’s going out of style.
IF YOU EAT SEAFOOD YOU ARE NOT VEGAN. Not even vegetarian. Thing is, she knows the difference and actually gets hostile and snarky when you point out that her rationale (“Fish don’t feel pain”) doesn’t change the fact that she ended an animal life so she could deep-fry it and dip it in garlic butter. I love that she’s making more healthy choices, but the holier than thou attitude is starting to grate.