“But is it vegan?” Deployed at events and restaurants that are not fully controlled by trusted vegans, the answer to this question is essential when vegans find a food they think they might want, but are not yet sure of all its moral, health and environmental ramifications.

A pig corpse on a spit is self-explanatory, but a plate of cupcakes with carrot designs on top might give a vegan hope. “Those look delicious! But are they vegan?” In situations like this, it is an easy question to answer. Whoever made the cupcakes will either say: “Unfortunately, I used eggs, milk, lard, and ghee,” or “What’s vegan?”

Other times there are vegan gray areas for entire types of foods, and vegans have to ask each other: but is it vegan?

The blog Dallas Vegan did a poll on whether oyster mushrooms are vegan. The issue wasn’t that they had an animal product in their name (which of course can’t help), but that oyster mushrooms are a carnivorous plant, so when vegans eat them, they might be eating the roundworms that oyster mushrooms slaughter to get their nitrogen.

I had never heard of this controversy before, and it must be a pretty obscure one, because I couldn’t find any mention of it anywhere else on the internet. Apparently this is more of a word-of-mouth concern. Luckily, the commenters arrived at a consensus:

Kit Chen: I see where they’re coming from but must ask: where do you stop? I mean, can anyone be 100% certain that the soil in which our food grows doesn’t contain remnants of dead insects or earthworms or whatnot?

EddieG: Yeah, I got into this argument with another vegan recently. It just seemed odd to me that the person didn’t consider oyster mushrooms vegan, yet other mushroom varieties that are cultivated on manure were deemed acceptable.

Drew: I agree. Plus, I don’t know if I could give up my oyster mushroom calamari. The Artful Vegan has an amaaaazing recipe.

Monique: A big part of my veganism is that I don’t believe anything should suffer to fuel my body. And I’m fairly certain mushrooms don’t suffer. But I have to admit this is a very interesting question…and it makes me realize how ridiculous people can get.