Why We Eat Oysters Alive

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Raw oysters are either still alive - or freshly killed - when you eat them. Most people think keeping them alive longer makes them safer to eat, but that's not the full story.

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#WhyWeEatOystersAlive

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Following is a transcript of the video:

Raw oysters are either still alive - or freshly killed - when you eat them. Most people think keeping them alive longer makes them safer to eat, but that's not the full story. Oyster expert Julie Qiu explains.

Following is the transcript of the video.

David Anderson: "Wanna know a secret? This oyster I'm about to eat could still be alive! So, why do we do this?"

Most people think it's a food safety issue. Keep the oyster alive as long as possible, to reduce the risk of bacterial contamination.  And there is a little bit of truth to that. Oysters can carry a scary flesh-eating bacteria called vibrio vulnificus. You can get it from oysters or from swimming in warm brackish water. But let's put that into perspective. 

Julie Qiu: "The risk of running into a bad oyster is lower than people think it is. My biggest pet peeve is that people go crazy over one bad oyster but they don't really care that hundreds of thousands of pounds of lettuce are contaminated with salmonella"

About 100 people die from vibrio infections (including from vibrio vulnificus) each year, about 450 die from salmonella. Plus, the FDA requires that oyster farms have to test water quality before sending oysters out to markets and restaurants. And that's important, because oysters are filter feeders. They soak up basically anything that's in the water around them — including fecal matter which can come from rain runoff.

But there’s a clever way to check if your oysters are good.

Julie Qiu: "one thing that you can ask for is a shellfish tag, which every retailer or restaurant is required to have for every bag of oysters that they purchase for up to 90 days after they make that purchase. So that tag, if they don't have it, don't eat those oysters."

This tag is a way for restaurants to track where and when their oysters were farmed. Qiu says that she looks for the most recent dates on the tag. Anything further out than two weeks won't taste as good and increases the risk of a bad oyster.

Some chefs may look at you funny for asking for the documentation, but it's a strategy that apparently works.

Julie Qiu: "I've had thousands of oysters and never had a bad one"

Ok great, so basically, oysters are safe, why on earth are they sometimes alive when we eat them??

Julie Qiu: "You really want your raw shellfish to be really fresh and the freshest you can get is something that is recently killed, so it goes back to not only the food safety but the actual taste and texture is going to be far superior when it's a fresh oyster." 

So yeah, freshly killed oysters taste better. And it's hard to tell exactly when an oyster dies, because before it's served, it's shucked. It's not a gentle process. Shucking involves separating the oyster’s abductor muscle from the shell. This muscle gives the oyster control over opening and closing its shell. Similar to how your spinal cord helps you move. So, severing the their abductor muscle is almost like severing your spine. Yikes.

Most restaurants in the US keep their oysters alive - on ice - up until this shucking process, which afterwards, either leaves the oyster dead, or immobile. Since they don’t move around much in the first place, it's not easy to tell which.

So you're eating an oyster that was either just killed or is dying. And that seems pretty cruel, right? But considering that the oyster's biology is very primitive, it's possible they might not even feel pain at all.

Julie Qiu: "They don't have a brain, they're not really processing pain the same way the same way we are feeling so I don't think they're feeling pain the same way we are thinking of it."

So really, it's up to you. If you don't want to eat oysters, that's fine. If you do, you'll be far from the first.

Julie Qiu: "It's one of the few foods that have not changed for thousands and thousands of years so being able to appreciate that is something that's really special and remarkable and something that should be celebrated for what it is."
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One day, oysters are gonna rise up and rip our spines out

xjustaprofile
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I don’t even like oysters why am i here

breadgenie
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“More people die from salmonella than vibrio each year” I’m pretty sure lettuce is also eaten more often and by more people than oysters.

kathyl
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"You wanna know a secret?" "This oyster that I'm about to eat, could still be *ALIVE!!!* "
* *_absorbs oyster_* *

shep
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Oyster expert... what do I have to do in order to specialize on something so specific.

BrianVelez
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.... You know she did it and had no remorse 4:10

MrGreen-ssvj
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* They don’t have a brain *

Oysters: No u

deadlocker
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I've never had a oyster in my life

iluvmantu
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I never ate an oyster before but this seems really important to me and I have no idea why.

cureputer
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So the answer is: something that is freshly killed tastes better than something old? Really. I had no idea.

Negligible
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The video: explain the science of serving oyster as food

My brain: _Mr. Bean_

copporn
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This is what the government doesn’t want us to know

just-a-silly-goofy-guy
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I don't eat oysters why am I watching this

viridianz
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The worse food poisoning of my life came from a raw oyster. And it hit me 36 hours after eating it. Vomiting for 7 hours and physically ill for 2 weeks.

LeDebutDeLaSuite
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But people eat more lettuce than oysters...

michaelalper
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Why is this reminded me of mr. Bean? You know, the one when he's at a hotel craving for dinner and the one in mr. Bean's holiday

raviolibirb
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I got food poisoning from eating raw oysters twice from 5-star hotels in Hong Kong. So did my companions proving it wasn’t just one bad oyster but the whole lot was contaminated. Theory: the water used to keep the oysters alive before serving by the hotels or suppliers were contaminated.

therover
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When I was teaching English in Japan, we had a lesson on food that included a discussion question about food poisoning. So I heard hundreds of food poisoning stories over the years, and 2/3 were about raw oysters. And this is in a country where people eat anything raw. I don't doubt the video that oysters aren't usually deadly, but they can definitely cause you to have a bad day.

bellsofohio
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[man about to eat a live oyster]
Oyster: eat me daddy
Man: what?
Oyster: what?

Edit: B R U H

kiwiboi
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While seeing this I’m imagining the oysters in a super high pitched voice going like don’t eat me noooo I’m dyi....”

jenifermh