I mean, that’s a fair assessment. Honestly, the main reasons it bothered me were:
- The idea of consuming the entire body of something disturbs me (I don’t have a valid reason for feeling this while being happy to eat meat, it’s just my subjective reaction)
- While flesh does refer to more than just skin, when I hear the word I think of skin, so I briefly thought of the oyster shell as the flesh, which made me think of harlequin ichthyosis
- Oysters are gross, as we’ve agreed, so I figured being somewhat wry would be funny
If you’re not familiar with the second, I’d recommend not googling it as you’ll likely find some gruesome images. The page I linked does have one somewhat cartoonish depiction of the syndrome, fair warning, but no actual photos.
edit: Converted paragraphs to list format to avoid line break shenanigans.
The reason you have an aversion to eating whole animals is because you can’t distance yourself from the act of choosing to have that animal killed for a delicacy.
When you get a package of meat, most of negative mental impacts of the decision are taken out on slaughterhouse workers, who have tremendously higher rates of depression and anxiety. Put simpler, they have to find ways to deal with the negative emotions that come from the type of work they do.
Thats sort of how paying for stuff always has been, just the distance is father and we’ve figured out how to take the bad feelings and put them on marginalized groups who aren’t us. Bad feelings affect profit.
So if you had to go and point out which animal you want your cut of meat from, you’d likely have the same negative reaction to watching it be butchered as you would putting a whole dead animal in your mouth.
Perhaps you’re right.
I think the reason is eating parts I don’t normally eat. For example, I don’t usually eat eyes or bones. (I recognize that this conversation is about oysters, which don’t have bones (or maybe eyes, I’m not sure) in the way most animals I eat do, but my aversion extends beyond oysters.) Therefore, consumption of unusual (to me) body parts is upsetting, especially considering the lack of hygiene in many kitchens. For example, while I don’t, my wife enjoys shrimp and has pointed out the lack of poop removal in several restaurants. Sounds pretty gross to me.
I’ve never eaten lobster, so I’ve never had to point at a living creature and say “feed me that”; I’ve never gone the H2G2 route and selected a section of meat from a living animal; I have occasionally looked at a cut of meat and thought it used to be part of something living and felt brief revulsion, but it hasn’t yet stopped me from enjoying a meal. (That sounds like a sarcastic comment but wasn’t meant to be.)
I don’t eat crab because I’m allergic, but the idea doesn’t disgust me (Marylandian that I am), so I don’t think it’s metaphorical or literal distance from the creature that causes me to object.
I recognize the moral position of vegans and others who object to the consumption of meat. I don’t even necessarily disagree with them, other than that I don’t think there’s an objective morality in the universe. I just don’t like eating things that my upbringing did not teach me to think of as edible.
Two more basically irrelevant things that amuse me to mention:
- I sure do love oyster crackers!
- You might enjoy Ryan Trahan’s video about luxury restaurants that includes one making sure you interact with the animal that became your food.
I agree with the creepy parts, I felt that way too when I ate animals although I didnt know all the icky stuff you posted like with shrimp!
Its interesting you mention having fleeting negative feelings from a cut of beef but crabs are not given any consideration when boiled alive or stabbed through the skull and then boiled.
I’m not trying to pin you down to a contradiction either, Im aware its common to sort of treat different groups if animals differently but it always is interesting to me the justification.
So why no moral consideration for crabs compared to cows, even if its only a little bit?
Edit: the video you posted reminds me of a story of a Chinese place that would allow you to bring a cat or dog and they would cook it for you. Yikes!
