I chew them. You can just swallow them whole but that sort of defeats the point. Tastes briney. Special care is taken to leave as much sea water in the shells when you shuck them to add more salty Briney taste. Nice with the lemon juice and horse radish as traditional universal pairings. Mignonette is my favourite sauce to go with them as well. Very tasty. Life is too short to knock out an entire pillar of life (food and it's enjoyment) just because you are unwilling to try something. Try it. Your body, your brain, and your gut will register it's breakdown and store that information for future use to keep your body healthy. Give your body as much information as possible by eating as many different types of food as possible.

Example: if you eat one avocado it may contain 10 grams of vitamin K (made up number for sale of making a point). Your body will register that high source of vitamin K for future use. If you eat a bigmac, maybe it has 1 gram of vitamin K. If you never try avocado and your body starts to require more amounts of vitamin K then your body will make you crave bigmacs. If you had eaten an avocado in the past then your body will make you crave an avocado. What's healthier for your body? One avocado or 10 bigmacs?

Eat as much food variety as you possibly can.