[garth]

I did a quick search and didn't find any threads specifically about this. For all the ovo-vegetarians out there, do you consider caviar and fish roe acceptable to eat?

I think it was because I was thinking about trying to make vegetarian sushi and it suddenly occurred to me that there were lots of fish roe sushi available. Are there ethical/environmental issues surrounding fish eggs?

 

[GhostUser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Commercial caviar production normally involves stunning the fish (usually with a club to the head) and extracting the ovaries, although a number of farmers are experimenting with surgical removal of the roe from live sturgeon, allowing the females to produce more eggs during their lifespans. Caviar is an animal product and not considered to be vegetarian, but there is a soy-based imitation caviar available on the vegetarian market. As sturgeons do not have scales, caviar from sturgeons is not kosher.

How about vegan sushi? With all the options available, why include animals in any part of the dish?

The Post Punk Kitchen has awesome vegan recipes, and I found some for vegan sushi! http://www.theppk.com/recipes/vegansushi.shtml

 

[Amy SF]

I do not consider caviar and fish roe acceptable to eat for the same reason I don't eat chicken eggs. If it came from an animal, I don't want it.

My sister once found vegan caviar (soy-based, I think, and I think she found it at Whole Foods), but I can't remember the brand name. I don't remember what it tasted like; it was a few years ago that I tried it.

ETA: It MIGHT have been this, but I'm not sure. http://store.foodfightgrocery.com/vegancaviar.html

 

[4EverGrounded]

Cruelty-free "caviar".

I've tasted this product and it's very good stuff - muuuuch better than ANY fish roe out there.

If I were making vegetarian sushi, this would definately replace the roe step.

 

[4EverGrounded]

Oh, and to answer your question about the enviromental impacts surrounding fish eggs...

In short, our waters are dangeriously overfished. Eating caviar/roe contributes to that overfishing. Eating things that aren't from fish help to lessen that demand and helps to lessen the enviromental impact that the overfishing has brought this planet.

Sorry if that's not very coherent. The coffee hasn't quite kicked in yet.

 

[garth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Commercial caviar production normally involves stunning the fish (usually with a club to the head) and extracting the ovaries, although a number of farmers are experimenting with surgical removal of the roe from live sturgeon, allowing the females to produce more eggs during their lifespans.

Ugh, that sounds horrible. Well, that rules caviar/roe out.

Yep, I'm all for vegan sushi. I just was thinking it'd be nice to have another option at sushi restaurants that don't have the best selection. I didn't realize the process for getting cavier was so horrible, I kind of figured they laid the eggs and they were collected afterwards. But that's why I asked!

Thanks for the information.

 

[GhostUser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by garth

Ugh, that sounds horrible. Well, that rules caviar/roe out.

Yep, I'm all for vegan sushi. I just was thinking it'd be nice to have another option at sushi restaurants that don't have the best selection. I didn't realize the process for getting cavier was so horrible, I kind of figured they laid the eggs and they were collected afterwards. But that's why I asked!

Thanks for the information.

You're welcome!

I can understand that it would be nicer to have more of a selection, but that's life, right?

Besides, some of those PPK sushi dishes sound pretty yummy!

 

[garth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy SF

ETA: It MIGHT have been this, but I'm not sure. http://store.foodfightgrocery.com/vegancaviar.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4EverGrounded

Cruelty-free "caviar".

I've tasted this product and it's very good stuff - muuuuch better than ANY fish roe out there.

Thanks for the tips guys! With my next paycheck, I'll order both and have a vegan sushi taste test.

 

[4EverGrounded]

Amy and I gave link to the exact same product. Great minds think alike...

I've only had the lumpfish flavour, not the salmon flavour (available only from the link I gave).

Happy taste testing and let us know which one you like the best!

 

[Tesseract]

Considering the OP asked specifically how egg-eating vegetarians felt about caviar, I think it's inappropriate and not helpful for the vegans to post just so they can spout off about how eating the eggs of any animal is bad. Of course YOU don't eat caviar-- you're vegan. The OP wasn't asking you.

I think one of the reasons you don't hear a lot about caviar is that there are a lot of people who simply have never eaten it anyway, so it's off the public radar. I've never eaten caviar in my life that I know of, unless I ate a piece of sushi that had some rolled around the outside and didn't notice. So when I went veg, nothing changed. I just kept on not eating caviar.

I don't know alot about harvesting methods, but my impression was that the traditional method is to simply catch the fish, kill her, then cut her open and scrape out the roe. If that's so, that would make it NOT vegetarian IMO. And all of the environmental issues would probably be identical to those surrounding the eating of fish flesh, as 4EG pointed out.

 

[GhostUser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tesseract

Considering the OP asked specifically how egg-eating vegetarians felt about caviar, I think it's inappropriate and not helpful for the vegans to post just so they can spout off about how eating the eggs of any animal is bad. Of course YOU don't eat caviar-- you're vegan. The OP wasn't asking you.

Well, the OP did ask if there were ethical issues surrounding fish eggs. I found information that answered their question. I don't believe it mattered who delivered that information.

How was my post NOT HELPFUL?

Take a look at the OP's response, and then tell me that my post wasn't helpful.

I didn't "spout off" on animal cruelty/exploitation in a self-righteous manner. There wasn't anything inappropriate about my post, at all.

 

[lillym]

From what I understand most caviar is harvested by killing the fish, which makes it not vegetarian.

As an ovo-lacto vegetarian that's the reason I don't consider them vegetarian. However, I wouldn't eat caviar anyway because of the enviornmental/overfishing issues.

 

[Tesseract]

Quote:

Originally Posted by veggiejanie

I didn't "spout off" on animal cruelty/exploitation in a self-righteous manner. There wasn't anything inappropriate about my post, at all.

No, you didn't, and there wasn't. It wasn't your post I was talking about.

 

[GhostUser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by veggiejanie

Well, the OP did ask if there were ethical issues surrounding fish eggs. I found information that answered their question. I don't believe it mattered who delivered that information.

How was my post NOT HELPFUL?

Take a look at the OP's response, and then tell me that my post wasn't helpful.

I didn't "spout off" on animal cruelty/exploitation in a self-righteous manner. There wasn't anything inappropriate about my post, at all.

VJ, you post was entirely appropriate. but a L/O with a guilty conscience will apparently take any comment from a vegan about eggs as "spouting off".

 

[Seusomon]

My understanding is the same as Tess's - most caviar is a byproduct of the fishing industry, the eggs are just removed when the fish is cut open. Hence I wouldn't regard it as even an ovo-vegetarian product.

 

[Gita]

I am an ovo-lacto. I dont agree with eating caviar because most of the fish are killed to get it. Roe sturgen are farmed too, They live in big tanks-- so I doubt they impact "dangerously overfished waters"-- unless you really picture divers with big hammers chasing fish. I've had the real stuff once. I didnt like it, and saw no use for it.

 

[kpickell]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seusomon

My understanding is the same as Tess's - most caviar is a byproduct of the fishing industry, the eggs are just removed when the fish is cut open. Hence I wouldn't regard it as even an ovo-vegetarian product.

My thoughts as well.

 

[bstutzma]

Another ovo-lacto who agrees that caviar is not vegetarian, because it is cut out from the (previously) living fish to acquire it - and isn't the fish thrown away after that?

To me that's no different than shark fin soup.

 

[WonderRandy]

when I worked at the salmon cannery in my bloody past, the roe was collected at the same time the guts were removed from the very dead fish. The sperm sacs were collected from the male dead fish as well (apparently it's useful in some pharmaceutical concoction in Japan).

 

[meatless]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tesseract

No, you didn't, and there wasn't. It wasn't your post I was talking about.

Who were you talking about then? 4evergrounded, who doesn't identify as a vegan? AmySF, who's a moderator and who wasn't judgemental at ALL?

That's a lot of hostility and defensiveness over some benign posts, particularly when the OP was very happy with the responses.