Q&A: Eating Creeping Creatures for Someone Who Is Vegetarian for Ideological Reasons
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Eating Creeping Creatures for Someone Who Is Vegetarian for Ideological Reasons
Question
As far as I understand, the brains of creeping creatures (for example, shrimp) are less developed than the brain of cattle, so it stands to reason that they “feel” less suffering than cattle do.
A person who avoids eating beef for a moral reason, because of the suffering that livestock undergo in being raised—would it be correct to say that eating seafood involves less of a problem (again, morally, not halakhically)?
Answer
If you are factually correct that they feel less suffering, then yes, it does make sense that there is less of a prohibition here. What’s the question?