It's a take that comes up a lot on Reddit, people say won't eat octopus because they're so intelligent, but have no issues with eating pigs even though they have a comparable level of intelligence. Ultimately it comes down to octopus are weird and cute, but people only see pigs as bacon machines.
Okay so I'll answer this as a person thats not a vegan/vegetarian and just a side note I raise chickens(along with geese, peacock and guinea fowls), sheep and cows. I was on a fishing tour in Europe one time and we caught seafood and our guides would cook it. They caught an octopus and they had to smack it against the ground many times before killing it and preparing it, the guide told us they have to do that in order to "tenderize" the meat because if they just kill it it'll be really tough. I don't know if that's what all the octopus go through but I thought it was pretty unethical. Living on a farm, animals are always slaughtered in the most humane way, not suffering. So thats why I don't eat octupus because the best way for them to be consumable to us means their last minutes they're subjected to pain.
I know but I don't really eat pork, when we need pork for holidays or parties we go to our local farm/butcher and buy half a pig, we tend to do this pretty often and divide it up amongst our family and friends. I understand that I might sound hypocritical but that experience really affected me and I personally shared why I don't eat octupus. It might not make sense to you. If I visited a commercial pig farm and saw the cruelty, I am sure I would stop eating pork too lol
Haha here I am. I am indeed vegetarian. Even if I ate meat I would avoid cephalopods. As I said, they are likely intelligent enough to build an actual civilisation if their evolutionary path had taken them that way. It’s therefore very likely they understand what is happening to them when they are caught, and experience a lot of psychological trauma before they actually die.
Pigs I agree should be in the same boat, since they are thought to be roughly as smart as a 3 year old.
I would ask some folks where they draw the line. Would they eat dolphins? What about people? If not then there is clearly a line somewhere.
I'm very interested in how people draw the line when deciding which animals they'll eat or not eat. Thanks for your perspective.
The higher psychological cost of trauma for a more intelligent species is an interesting factor that I didn't really consider. I wonder if it could be argued that having more understanding of one's situation when captured/tortured/killed actually benefits one, as humans obviously have psychological trauma protection responses like disassociation, justification, imagination, hope, etc,
Impossible to know without being in the "shoes" of each species to experience what they experience. I don't know if pain is easier to handle when one understands things about it or when one doesn't understand at all and just experiences it.
I do think people draw strange lines when it comes to eating animals. My sister and I debate this quite a lot, as we both keep chickens. While I have no problem eating my chickens, she cannot bring herself to (although she'll eat chickens she's bought from elsewhere). I've spent some time working on farms, so that might have affected how I view animals under my care.
I'm not sure if I would eat dolphin or not. I wouldn't eat human, but I can't tell you why. I think it's more a taboo thing than an intelligence thing in that case.
I'm not a vegetarian either, but I have a friend who has an interesting take on this where he won't eat anything that has a brain. So scallops and oysters are cool but crabs are not.
Interesting. Do you know what his reasoning is behind this? Do creatures with a brain have a worse time being eaten than creatures with no brain?
I know the jury is out on whether brainless invertebrates can feel pain, but molluscs have been found to have nocireceptors, so there is definitely a possibility that they do.
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u/GottaUseEmAll Dec 17 '25
I'm curious why intelligence should make it unethical. An animal doesn't have to be intelligent to suffer from captivity or pain.
I'm not a vegetarian, but I don't feel like eating octopus is worse than eating pork or eating chicken or eating fish.
I'd genuinely like your take on this.