Written by Grace Kingsbury

One common misconception about oysters, which often prevents people from embracing them as food, is a misunderstanding about what it means to be a filter feeder. Environmentalists (myself included) celebrate oysters as ecological warriors, citing projects like the Billion Oyster Project as examples of how oysters can dramatically transform marine environments. If oysters are so good at filtering polluted water, doesn’t that make them toxic?

Oysters can be used either as tools for water filtration or harvested for human consumption, but the two goals are not always compatible, and they are tightly regulated to prevent overlap. The oysters used to clean our waters are not the same oysters served to you in a restaurant, ever.