Last Updated on April 12, 2024 by Fasting Planet
You’ve got a hankering for seafood, but then you remember that you’ve recently started the vegan diet. Maybe if you just make one seafood dish or even a side, that would be okay, or is all seafood not vegan?
Seafood is not vegan, and that goes for mollusks, crustaceans, and bony fishes. Foods such as scallops, shrimp, oysters, clams, crabs, lobsters, and salmon are all off the menu once you commit to veganism.
In this article, we’ll explain in more detail what constitutes seafood, why vegans can’t eat it, and which substitutes are available. You won’t miss seafood once you get a look at all the great plant-based alternatives!
What Counts as Seafood?
When vegans eschew shellfish and seafood, they’re ensuring they avoid the consumption of all aquatic creatures. We’ll talk more in the next section about why that’s so important to vegans, but for now, here are the types of seafood to know.
Crustaceans
Crustaceans are arthropods or invertebrates with exoskeletons that act as hard shells. Their bodies are also segmented. Examples of crustaceans that are not allowable on the vegan diet are krill, lobsters, crabs, prawns, and shrimp.
Krill are small aquatic creatures with at least 10 legs and external gills. Although krill isn’t a seafood species that is widely consumed in the United States, that’s not the case in Russia or Japan.
Lobsters such as spiny or clawed lobsters also have 10 legs, although they’re known more for their claws. The claws are not identical so the lobster can use one claw to cut and the other to crush its prey.
Crabs are much smaller than lobsters but are yet a third crustacean with 10 legs. This sideway-moving animal has eyes on stalks, antennae, and two claws of about equal size that can grip into prey.
As for shrimp, we just wrote about these sea-dwelling creatures in our last post, so please do check that out. Prawns and shrimp look a lot alike in that they’re small animals with stalked eyes that usually act as prey for many larger animal species.
Mollusks
Mollusks or molluscs are also invertebrates, but unlike crustaceans, their bodies are not segmented. Without an exoskeleton (except for gastropods and bivalves), the flesh of a mollusk is very soft.
One subspecies of mollusk is the cephalopod, which includes cuttlefish, squid, and octopus. Cephalopods have limbs emerging from their head, which is why their name translates into head-foot.
Gastropods such as periwinkles, whelks, limpets, conch, and abalone feature a shell. Their name is stomach-foot due to how gastropods crawl on their bellies.
The third subspecies of mollusk is the bivalve, which has a hinged body. Their name translates into two shells. Edible bivalves include cockles, mussels, scallops, and oysters.
Fish
Fish live in different environments. Freshwater fish come from ponds, reservoirs, lakes, and rivers. Those species are trout, bass, catfish, tilapia, and carp. Diadromous fish can switch between freshwater and seawater include lampreys, eels, shad, and salmon.
Demersal fish are bottom-feeders like stingrays, grouper fish, flatfish, and cod. Pelagic fish are the opposite, as they feed closer to the water’s surface. Examples of pelagic fish are menhaden, anchovies, sprats, sardines, herring, pelagic salmon, mahi-mahi, billfish, tuna, and sharks.
Other Animals
Although you’re far less likely to come across them on restaurant menus, other aquatic animals must be mentioned as well. That goes for jellyfish, which some people do consume, and echinoderms. These invertebrates with no heads are bottom-feeding sea dwellers that are considered a delicacy.
Sea turtles have unfortunately become endangered due to their frequent capture. Not only are the turtles themselves used for food, but sometimes their eggs as well. Marine mammals such as whales and dolphins are also eaten.
Can Vegans Eat Seafood?
Vegans are staunch defenders of animals and their welfare. The way that sea creatures are cruelly taken from their ecosystems to be reproduced or used for food is anything but good for the animal’s welfare. In this section, we’ll look at fish farms, octopus farms, and prawn farms so you can better understand the cruelty that transpires within.
Fish Farms
Let’s start first by discussing fish farms, which is where commercially-produced trout, carp, cod, tilapia, catfish, and salmon might come from. Some fish are born into fish farms and others are captured from their homes and added to the farms. The fish are kept in very close quarters and not particularly clean water.
Pathogens can easily enter the water, spreading between the gills of the fish from one to another and possibly infecting and killing the whole lot. Even if that doesn’t happen, the fish don’t have room to swim, and they’re in far from humane conditions.
The food the fish eat may be laced with antibiotics and chemicals. If you believed these substances disappear between the time the fish is killed, packaged, and shipped to your grocery store, think again. Cooking the fish might not even kill off the antibiotic and chemical residue, which you then consume, often unknowingly.
Those fish are considered the lucky ones. The fish that aren’t kept in a fishery get sent to a slaughter plant, which is exactly what it sounds like. Factory workers will slice into the gills of the fish so they bleed out. Lots of data have pointed in the direction that yes, fish are sentient, which means they do feel pain and they suffer in their last moments.
Salmon, tuna, and other large species of fish aren’t only sliced, but often hit in the head using a bat. They feel all the pain that slowly kills them.
Octopus Farms
While once considered a delicacy, octopus is becoming more and more of a staple food. This has led to the prominence of octopus farms despite that octopi may only reproduce a single time in their lives. The eggs they do lay are multiple, somewhere in the thousands, but a lot of the eggs don’t make it. The mother can die after giving birth as well.
Unlike fish, octopi are good at getting out of tight situations, so enclosures might not hold them well. If octopi are stuck together, they can become cannibalistic, attacking any octopus that tries to be the leader. Female octopi don’t need a male companion after mating and tend to kill him and then eat him.
These issues have made octopus farming difficult but not impossible. Although octopi lack a central nervous system, their long arms are full of neurons. We’re not yet sure if octopi are sentient, per se, but even still, putting octopi in conditions where they’ll kill each other is cruel.
Prawn Farms
In our article about shrimp, we introduced you to prawn farms. On these farms, the farmers remove the eyestalks of female shrimp because it activates a gland that tells the shrimp to reproduce and reproduce some more.
Crab farms are just as sad. The intelligence of crabs is not to be understated. These animals keep a tidy home, raise their young for months on end, and even understand when they’ve made a mistake and won’t repeat it. They’re known to be sentient, so when they’re put into containers on a farm, in their anxiety, they can start fighting with other crabs. Even before then, they can arrive damaged from the roughness of the net that catches them.
Before crabs die, they may be electrocuted, microwaved, or cut, and yes, they feel this.
Vegan Seafood Substitutes to Enrich Your Diet
If you want the above animal cruelty to stop, then you have to quit eating seafood. Yet that’s easier said than done, we know. Here are some great vegan-safe seafood alternatives to incorporate into your diet that will make transitioning away from real seafood much easier.
Yam Root Instead of Prawns
Not only does yam root make an awesome replacement for any prawn-based dishes you like to make, but this root is very beneficial for your health in its own right. Studies such as this 2016 report from the Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics found that yam root may be able to prevent the onset of breast cancer or slow down its progress.
The diosgenin or plant steroid in wild yam root can produce dehydroepiandrosterone or DHEA as well as cortisone, estrogen, and progesterone. On top of that, this plant steroid might also pose healthful benefits, including potentially lowering cholesterol, reducing blood sugar, and even treating skin pigmentation from the sun.
Diosgenin as a wild yam root extract might even prevent the development of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, says this 2015 report from the International Journal of Clinical & Experimental Pathology.
Glucomannan and Curdlan Gel Instead of Squid
Squid has an undeniable flavor, but you don’t have to eat the animal to get the same texture. Instead, combine glucomannan with curdlan gel. Glucomannan is a type of dietary fiber from elephant yam roots. You can take it as a supplement to lose weight, which is another awesome benefit. Curdlan gel comes from curdlan, a type of elastic glucose residue.
Vegan Sushi Instead of Real Sushi
Raw fish is still fish, but sushi doesn’t always contain fishy ingredients. You can make your own sushi at home with sticky white rice, bell pepper, algae leaves, avocado, and cucumber. When dining out at your favorite sushi spot, order the avocado roll. This sushi roll is only seaweed, white rice, and avocado!
Marinated Carrots Instead of Salmon
To make carrots as close to salmon as possible, first, cut them into thin, long strips. Then combine liquid smoke, algae, vinegar, and oil in a bowl and let the carrots soak. After a few hours, the carrots will taste a lot more like salmon.
Conclusion
Seafood in all its forms is not vegan, which goes for fish, crustaceans, and mollusks. Although foregoing seafood can be a challenge, just think of how many animal lives you’re saving each time you eat plant-based food instead. Best of luck!