Are scallops, muscles and oysters suitable for vegetarians?
Q My partner and I have been vegetarian for almost 12 months now and don’t know how we could have ever eaten meat, we don’t eat any fish but at a party on the weekend another vegetarian told me we can eat scallops, muscles and oysters as they don’t have a brain or organs? I havent eaten them and won’t do so until I know for sure, what do you think? A The presence of organs or a brain in an animal is not what determines whether it is suitable to be eaten by a vegetarian. A ‘vegetarian’, by very definition, excludes ALL meat from the diet, including scallops, muscles, oysters etc. Technically vegetarians avoid eating any organism that has been classified into the taxonomic Kingdom Animalia. Some people who eat fish and seafood but no other meat refer to themselves as ‘pesco-vegetarian’. But as well as scallops, muscles and oysters they usually eat fish and other sorts of seafood. These diets are not, strictly speaking, vegetarian. (In fact, to avoid confusion about the term ‘vegetarian’
