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Answers: cause pain and suffering?

If so, you'll be happy to know that you can eat oysters, clams and other bivalves because these animals do NOT have brains and are unable to feel pain.

For those of you who won't eat honey, the bees brains aren't developed enough to feel pain either.

"Bivalves (a class of mollusk; including oysters, clams, mussels, and scallops) are much more complex than sponges. They don't have a brain, but rather very basic nerve ganglia (bunches of nerves). It is doubtful that their nervous systems are developed enough to be conscious of pain. Because they have nervous tissue, there is an argument to be made for avoiding products that may have harmed bivalves.

Insects (including bees) do have brains. But their brains are not highly developed, and they are likely not large enough to facilitate the consciousness of pain.

http://www.veganoutreach.org/starterpack...

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Additionally, honey collection brings no harm to the bees so there isn't any reason vegans should disapprove of it.

Attaching emotion to the bees in that they feel "pain" or "distress" when the honey is collected is a purely human projection of a higher level of thinking. Insects are purely instinctual and have no such intellectual feeling. When their honey is gone, they simply react by making more.

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Thanks for the info. I've never liked clams or oysters though!
Honey isn't vegan but it is vegetarian isn't it?

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I love your questions and answers!!!!

I am just trying to eat healthier so I can keep drinking beer....

edit: yea put em in there place

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They have nervous systems.

They can move to avoid danger or harm. Just because they don't have nerves concentrated into one area does not mean that they aren't all connected in a network.

I don't need sea animal to be healthy but I do need plants.
The same goes for bees and honey.

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Plants can't move away from danger so I see it quite differently. Even if they did have a network of nerves, I still have to eat them and I kill less of them by eating them directly.

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Lol! Good question.

I don't eat meat, because I don't like it.

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ODD but thought provoking.

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Wow I am amazed.I am a vegetarian because I dont like the taste of meat and choose to be one.I did not do it for the animal thing that PETA is advocating.

I believe that people have the right to eat whatever they want to..Dont force somone to do something because you are doing it.

Interesting facts and thanks for providing the links and source of your information.Many dont do that.

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I don't eat animals because I choose not to do so. To begin with it was based soley on health and not the animal kingdom as a group of nonedibles. However, I have learned that I do not wish to harm animals at all because I am an animal and I can relate to them as a group. I am a strange vegetarian to say the least. I have ideas that are far from mainstream in the moral arena... for instance... I know that animals are harmed in research and for the sake of knowledge. I can not bring myself to protest this for the simple fact that I know there are medications that keep people alive that should not be. For instance, a child with who is diabetic and has to have insulin to live makes a perfect example. Now-a-days insulin is generated from bacteria pools instead of from pigs for the most part... but this is where it becomes a personal delima for some and a division for many.... two reasons... First, before the finding of modified monera to produce insulin there were only animal sources... pigs had to die so the boy could live... in a case such as this I look at the child and at the pig and have no internal termoil as to which is to live... but as a vegetarian... this could be a problem to some... just not me. Second, to find an alternate source of insulin there were many trials on animals to make sure it was done right... here again... if it weren't tested on the monkey because it was wrong... it would have had to been tested on the child... killing many before it was properly formulated for pharmacutical use... again... no problem for me when I look at the child versus the monkey. Either the monkey is the test subject or the boy dies. There are a million examples that could produce things like this for situational arguements but to keep myself from any of this as a weight on my heart, I look at it like this.
If it is in the work of research and there is no other way around it... so be it... as long as there is no unnecessary suffering of the animal and I don't have to watch. While selfish, it is how I view it. save lives... animals have to die. I wish it weren't so... but it is. Also, I do not eat any animal. By doing this I assure myself that I am not inflicting pain on an animal. Eliminating the whole kingdom allows me an assurance that I will not be contributing to their pain. As with any study.. we find out that what we believe now is not always the case because we as a species only BELIEVE ourselves to be the supreme all knowing beings on earth... but as we learn we have to adapt our theories. For instance, out of the animal kingdom for this one... we are only learning about the communication between bacteria and the things they are capable of. So we adapt what we knew for sure to fit what we learn... but I dare say we have not come even close to gaining a full understanding of them as living creatures... same goes with many things in the animal kingdom... I mean we don't even know how it is EXACTLY that asprin works... Asprin? Our own brains? How can we presume to know what animals don't feel pain because they are only as complex as a ganglion for neural awareness? I don't pretend to have all the answers but I'll leave you with this... when you step on a tack your body acts without communication with your brain... not to say that after the fact you realize that it hurts like hell when you have stepped on one... but that the action of lifting your foot has nothing to do with your brain and would do the same without it... how can you be absolutely sure that bivalves don't feel anything? I mean anything in it's own way? I can't make that jump... so I don't eat them. If you choose to do so that is your choice to make.. but I won't be having any of them.

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Very thought provoking as usual. I like your citations to authenticate your statements. Too bad some of the commentators can't do the same. But we read those for the humor value.

I'm a Flexitarian vegetarian so what you say rings true with me.

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Maybe some do, its not my thing though.

Im really doubting the nutritional content of oysters and clams and all the other gooey things from the bottom of our polluted oceans : ) i never liked them when i did eat meat anyway.

I think they are more than capable of deciding for themselves if they are happy about it or not.

Some people also dont eat honey because its stealing the fruits of the bees hard work.

Im not so worried about eating honey but then im not a vegan. Depending on where it comes from and what the bees are fed on, honey can contain many trace elements and heaps of nutrients.

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well its not very reliable to get all your information from internet sites. from what ive been told...by entomologists and animal behaviorists at my univeristy, we do not have sophisticated enough testing techniques to truely determine the total perception of an animal, including insects and bivalves for example. i think we should probably stay on the side of caution...especially since eating oysters and other sea food is grooosssss

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The point is that vegans avoid as much as possible killing living creatures. yes, bees can actually feel pain and they do have brains. As a vegan i woudl never consume honey, oaysters, clams etc, as they have as much right to live as a cow or pig. Its not up to us to decide what creatures can be eaten. No difference btwn eating your pet cat or dog or a pig. If bee brains are not as 'highly developed' does that make it ok to smoke them out and kill them inorder to obtain their honey? If a human has a brain that is not as highly developed as another human is it ok to treat them differently? is it ok to cause harm to them becase they might not understand it?
Give me a break.

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