The cruelty of boiling lobsters alive!

Worztron

I have always been appalled at the way lobsters are cooked. It is an incredibly cruel death. Those that eat the lobster say it feels no pain, which I believe is utter nonsense.

Tallon

Sensitive chefs, avert your eyes now. An investigation into the most contentious of kitchen dilemmas has reached its unpalatable conclusion: lobsters do feel pain.

The question of crustaceans' ability to experience pain has become an unlikely obsession for some scientists. Over the past few decades, the question has been batted back and forth as fresh evidence comes to light. Two years ago, Norwegian researchers declared the answer was a firm no, claiming the animals' nervous systems were not complex enough.

The latest salvo, published in New Scientist today, comes from Robert Elwood, an expert in animal behaviour at Queen's University, Belfast. With help from colleagues, he set about finding an answer by daubing acetic acid on to the antennae of 144 prawns.

Immediately, the creatures began grooming and rubbing the affected antenna, while leaving untouched ones alone, a response Prof Elwood says is "consistent with an interpretation of pain experience". The same pain sensitivity is likely to be shared by lobsters, crabs and other crustaceans, the researchers believe.

Prof Elwood says that sensing pain is crucial even for the most lowly of animals because it allows them to change their behaviour after damaging experiences and so increase their chances of survival.

The claim will add weight to campaigns by animal rights organisations which protest against lobsters being boiled alive.

But conscientious eaters need not, necessarily, abandon lobster. Other scientists believe the debate is far from over. Many think only vertebrates have advanced enough nervous systems to feel pain, and suspect that the prawns' reaction to having acid daubed on their antennae was an attempt to clean them.

"Shrimps do not have a recognisable brain," said Lynne Sneddon, a Liverpool University researcher who has studied pain in fish. "You could argue the shrimp is simply trying to clean the antenna rather than showing a pain response."

Richard Chapman, from the University of Utah's pain research centre in Salt Lake City, stressed that most animals possessed receptors which responded to irritants. "Even a single-cell organism can detect a threatening chemical gradient and retreat from it," he said. "But this is not sensing pain."

Prof Elwood insists such arguments are flawed. "Using the same analogy, one could argue crabs do not have vision because they lack the visual centres of humans," he said. He urged further work looking at whether crustaceans have the neurological architecture to feel pain.

Of course they feel pain... poor buggers

toadfly

Of course they feel pain, how can people seriously think that boiling them alive isnt painful?

Have never had lobster, they were brought into my house before as a present but after seeing them alive in the pot I couldnt even think about eating them.

g'em

Tallon wrote: »

Of course they feel pain... poor buggers

Look at the bit you highlighted again - that does not in any way conclude that they "of course" feel pain. That's a human interpreting a behaviour in another organism as a result of a stimulus i.e. they're anthropomorphising the behaviour.

Pain is a subjective response to a noxious stimulus as interpreted by nociceptors and the brain. Decapods do have nociceptors but it's highly questionable whether they have the capcity to interpret stimulus of them as pain.

Pain is used for avoidance of danger but you can react to a stimulus produced by threat without feeling pain from it (well, it's likely that we can't but for invertebrates it's most likely the case).

Mr. Presentable

Hmmm, the Prof. Elwood piece is full of "could"s and "likely". The Norwegian study actually made some conclusions, the Belfast one is hypothesis only.

In any event, if you have your water properly boiling when the lobster goes in it will die on impact - not "boil to death".

TooManyDogs

No

Mr. Presentable wrote: »

In any event, if you have your water properly boiling when the lobster goes in it will die on impact - not "boil to death".

Except they don't always die on impact, my friend grew up eating lobster because her dad was a fisherman and she said they often hopped back out of the pot and would be crawling around on the floor.
That's why they always put a lid on the pot, to prevent the poor feckers climbing back out.

I don't see why chefs don't just kill them humanely right before they put them in the pot. They don't have to be boiled alive

Whispered

No

Did you ever see the poor feckers crawling around in the front of a restaurant. Usually "fine dining" places. How somebody can look at their dinner moving around and say "that one" is beyond me. I wont eat in a place where they boil them alive. And I do ask if it's on the menu. Whether they feel pain as we understand it or not, it's totally unnecessary. And just because something may not experience pain in a way we understand, does not make it ok.

g'em

Whispered wrote: »

How somebody can look at their dinner moving around and say "that one" is beyond me.

Really? Many's the cow I've looked at and thought "I'd love some of that for my dinner!"

Is there a taste preference to sticking them in the pot alive vs sticking them in the freezer first I wonder?

The whole cruelty aspect is very subjective. In order for it to be cruel you have to be able to say beyond doubt that an animal "feels" discomfort or pain, and to my mind lobsters can do neither. As far as invertebrates go, sure, they're very developed, but they don't have the cognitive wherewithall to be able to "feel" like we do - they react, but they don't feel - so I really don't see it as being cruel.

Whispered

No

g'em wrote: »

Really? Many's the cow I've looked at and thought "I'd love some of that for my dinner!"

Honestly, I just can't get my head around it. Hypothetically speaking you'd probably love some of that cow. However if there was a man with a bolt gun there would you find it as easy to choose one out of a field full?

g'em

tbh I would - I've seen it being done and know exactly what's involved. As for whether or not it's cruel, well that's a topic for another thread. What's cruel to a cow and cruel to a lobster are two different things to me purely because of the physiology of the animals involved.

I've killed, skinned, gutted and eaten my own dinner plenty of times and I don't see that as cruel at all - I'm an omnivore, it's my nature to eat meat and I'll make sure anything I kill personally dies humanely.

Ddad

Unless your a vegan, almost all consumption of animal based products carries some form of suffering for the animal. Whether that's on a scale from discomfort to pain there is suffering.I've always found it incredible the level of dissassociation we have from our food. So many people cannot bear to even think of the origins of the meat/animal products they consume. Most fish drown or suffocate. The slaughter of chickens, sheep and cows ain't nice. It's part of the trade off. I'm of the opinion if you won't/cannot commit the act to get the food you have no business consuming it. I'm not suggesting we all kill our own animals. I am suggesting you should be willing and able to if you wish to consume meat. If that was the case far more people would treat it with the great respect it deserves rather tahn treating it as fodder.

I'm not a vegetarian. I can deal with the trade off. It's a moral choice.

I kill my lobster before boiling them. I don't see the point in not killing them.

Whispered

No

The majority of people wouldn't have done that - like people having a fit because someone might eat game, then go and tuck into their battery chicken dinner. :rolleyes: It's rare to speak to someone who has an awareness of where their meat comes from beyond "of course I know it's a cow".

I don't see killing and preparing your own meat as being cruel either, so long as the death is humane. But boiling alive cannot be considered humane. Even if we are unsure as to how a lobster feels pain, is it worth the risk?

g'em

Whispered wrote: »

But boiling alive cannot be considered humane. Even if we are unsure as to how a lobster feels pain, is it worth the risk?

Boiling a lamb or a chicken alive I wouldn't consider humane, no, because these animals have a great capacity to feel pain and suffering. But a lobster can't feel those things - or at least the majority of evidence points to it not being able to - so that's where I make the distinction tbh. And as someone said above when you stick a lobster into a boiling hot pot it dies almost instantaneously, so again I'd see that as quite humane alright.

Whispered

No

But then someone else said that they don't die instantly every time and can sometimes even hop out of the water. I just don't think it's worth the risk of pain they might feel if there is an alternative.

Further, the scientists argue that crustacean brains and nervous systems are configured differently from those of vertebrates (such as humans). Lobsters are able to see despite lacking a visual cortex, therefore it is highly probable that they can feel pain despite lacking the corresponding brain construct found in humans.

Read more at Suite101: Do Lobsters Feel Pain?: Exploring the Debate on Whether a Lobster Suffers When Boiled Alive | Suite101.com http://www.suite101.com/content/do-lobsters-feel-pain-a220490#ixzz1LTVKCmOV

Cú Giobach

No

g'em wrote: »

The whole cruelty aspect is very subjective. In order for it to be cruel you have to be able to say beyond doubt that an animal "feels" discomfort or pain, and to my mind lobsters can do neither. As far as invertebrates go, sure, they're very developed, but they don't have the cognitive wherewithall to be able to "feel" like we do - they react, but they don't feel - so I really don't see it as being cruel.

Actually the "default" position should be to assume it does feel pain and in order to say "it isn't cruel" it must be proven beyond reasonable doubt that it doesn't.
Any attitude other than this leaves open the possibility of inflicting unnecessary pain on animals.

Pain is a subjective response to a noxious stimulus as interpreted by nociceptors and the brain. Decapods do have nociceptors but it's highly questionable whether they have the capcity to interpret stimulus of them as pain.

Why is it questionable whether they feel pain or not?

g'em

C&#250 wrote: »

Why is it questionable whether they feel pain or not?

Basic physiology. Lobsters don't have the neural capacity to feel pain. They can respond to stimuli, but they can't process a stimulus as being painful.

Mr. Presentable

Whispered wrote: »

But then someone else said that they don't die instantly every time and can sometimes even hop out of the water.
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In such a case the water is not boiling.

What about the frog, which can apparently be cooked without expressing pain so long as you start with cold water?

Zapperzy

What is the advantage of putting it straight into boiling water alive as opposed to killing it before it is boiled? Is there a difference in taste or something?

Whispered

No

Mr. Presentable wrote: »

What about the frog, which can apparently be cooked without expressing pain so long as you start with cold water?

Just as disgusting. Where is it common practise to cook frogs alive? :eek:

Cú Giobach

No

g'em wrote: »

Basic physiology. Lobsters don't have the neural capacity to feel pain. They can respond to stimuli, but they can't process a stimulus as being painful.

Lobster physiology is not something I know anything about, would you be able to provide a link to a study done on this?
Has it been proven that these animals don't feel pain or is it a case of not finding similar physiological structures to mammals?
This whole area stinks of the "Descartes attitude" to dogs ie; unfeeling machines only responding to stimuli.
Why should a mechanism as perfect for purpose as pain not have evolved in other complex organisms or have a completely different physiology behind it.

CJhaughey

Lobsters are wired differently, How often do you see a Dog with multiple legs torn off in a fight eating a dinner normally?
Lobsters routinely fight and rip limbs off each other and continue normally, Life in the ocean is a tough place.

Cú Giobach

No

CJhaughey wrote: »

Lobsters are wired differently, How often do you see a Dog with multiple legs torn off in a fight eating a dinner normally?
Lobsters routinely fight and rip limbs off each other and continue normally, Life in the ocean is a tough place.

Temperature of water would be a matter of life and death to any water living animal, how can you say this animal is not acutely sensitive to changes in temperature with an efficient pain response to extremes of temperature.

Evolution usually finds similar ways of dealing with similar problems eg; the evolution of the eye many times in unrelated species with roughly the same result, why should the pain response be any different?

g'em

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Lobster physiology is not something I know anything about, would you be able to provide a link to a study done on this?
Has it been proven that these animals don't feel pain or is it a case of not finding similar physiological structures to mammals?
This whole area stinks of the "Descartes attitude" to dogs ie; unfeeling machines only responding to stimuli.
Why should a mechanism as perfect for purpose as pain not have evolved in other complex organisms or have a completely different physiology behind it.

It's very hard to prove that any organism can 'feel' anything when it has no ability to communicate with us. All we can do is study its physiology, its responses and make educated best-fit guesses at to what is really going on - science is essentially based on theory after all.

In the case of invertebrates who have even fewer abilities to communicate than higher animals (who can express distress by means of calls or howls or other behavioural indications) all we can really do is compare their responses. It's not perfect but it's the only means that we have. So if you want to find evidence that proves that lobsters either feel pain or don't feel pain then you'll be looking for a long time. But then you can go back to your own assertion that we should assume that they do.

There is, of course, a benefit to pain - it enhances perception of danger, but the absence of it doesn't mean that an organism is not evolutionarily disadvantaged. If that were the case ameoba and other simple animals wouldn't exist.

Also, pain in itself is subjective - we, as humans, interpret pain in a certain way, but we can't be sure that this is the very same way that other animals feel it. Humans feel pain differently between themselves too.

I don't have a link to show that lobsters can't feel pain - papers are scant on the whole idea of invertebrates experiencing such a sensation as it's been largely widely accepted that due to their much reduced neural capacity it seems almost impossible for them to 'feel' something as subjective as pain as we do. They have the receptors for it (nociceptors) but not the brain power to interpret it.

I did however find the article that keeps being referred to in one of hte links about that suggests that hermit crabs experience pain (as displayed by applying electrical shocks to their shells) and there's the article from a lab in Queens that suggests that prawns can feel pain as interpreted by their behaviour following noxious stimulation.

So perhaps my mind is being slightly changed on this - but I'm still highly dubious about the whole idea of what kind of 'pain' it is that's elicited. Lobsters have approx. 100,000 neurons compared to our own 10 billion. I'm very wary about anthropomorphising such a subjective phenomenon when all we can go in is ultimately incomparable behaviours. Where does distress stop and pain begin?

Discodog

No

g'em wrote: »

Where does distress stop and pain begin?

Most proper animal welfare law makes causing unnecessary distress an offence. The 1911 Protection of Animals Act made it a cruelty offence to "terrify or infuriate" any animal.

We allow Lobsters to be kept with their claws tied with rubber bands & in tiny tanks awaiting sale.

Cú Giobach makes a good point regarding the fact that our laws & our practices should be to minimise cruelty. There is no need to boil a lobster alive so why do it ?.

g'em

Discodog wrote: »

Most proper animal welfare law makes causing unnecessary distress an offence. The 1911 Protection of Animals Act made it a cruelty offence to "terrify or infuriate" any animal.

Out of curiosity does the Act distinguish between higher/lower animals or are all animals equal under it?

Cú Giobach

No

g'em wrote: »

It's very hard to prove that any organism can 'feel' anything when it has no ability to communicate with us. All we can do is study its physiology, its responses and make educated best-fit guesses at to what is really going on - science is essentially based on theory after all.

We can also use our experiences and feelings in relation to something like pain to gain an insight into how other animals feel it, we are animals and emotional responses aside the physical sensation of pain would be pretty similar and isn't something we developed only when we became hominids.

In the case of invertebrates who have even fewer abilities to communicate than higher animals (who can express distress by means of calls or howls or other behavioural indications) all we can really do is compare their responses. It's not perfect but it's the only means that we have. So if you want to find evidence that proves that lobsters either feel pain or don't feel pain then you'll be looking for a long time. But then you can go back to your own assertion that we should assume that they do.

There is nothing wrong with assuming that an evolutionary response like (what we consider) pain has developed a number of times in widely divergent species as it is such an effective method.

There is, of course, a benefit to pain - it enhances perception of danger, but the absence of it doesn't mean that an organism is not evolutionarily disadvantaged. If that were the case ameoba and other simple animals wouldn't exist.

The more complicated the animal the more it would need a mechanism like pain as a safeguard, and lobsters and even prawns are pretty complicated animals.

Also, pain in itself is subjective - we, as humans, interpret pain in a certain way, but we can't be sure that this is the very same way that other animals feel it. Humans feel pain differently between themselves too.

People feel differences in the amount of pain but the unpleasant sensation is pretty much the same for all of us, and we can be very sure also for other mammals.

I don't have a link to show that lobsters can't feel pain - papers are scant on the whole idea of invertebrates experiencing such a sensation as it's been largely widely accepted that due to their much reduced neural capacity it seems almost impossible for them to 'feel' something as subjective as pain as we do. They have the receptors for it (nociceptors) but not the brain power to interpret it.

There is no reason why even a small brain can't have a section devoted to the interpretation of pain or even to have the interpretation localised in other parts of the body. The more we are learning about how brains function the more we are realising how much we don't fully understand.
Cambridge professor Donald Broom actually sugesets that the more complex the animal the better it can deal with pain, because they have more varied responses and flexible behaviour to deal with situations. (there is no link to this as it is something I read on paper).

I did however find the article that keeps being referred to in one of hte links about that suggests that hermit crabs experience pain (as displayed by applying electrical shocks to their shells) and there's the article from a lab in Queens that suggests that prawns can feel pain as interpreted by their behaviour following noxious stimulation.

So perhaps my mind is being slightly changed on this - but I'm still highly dubious about the whole idea of what kind of 'pain' it is that's elicited. Lobsters have approx. 100,000 neurons compared to our own 10 billion. I'm very wary about anthropomorphising such a subjective phenomenon when all we can go in is ultimately incomparable behaviours. Where does distress stop and pain begin?

Interesting about the prawns, and this shows the possible dangers of linking the number of neurons to the actual physical sensation of pain.
A much bigger danger than anthropomorphising, is automatically assuming that just because we feel something one way, other animals feel it differently or not at all.
Anthropomorphising something like pain is not the same as imagining one lobster is jealous of another because it has a bigger claw, our actual physical reality as animals gives us an insight into this actual sensation in other animals.

You ask "Where does distress stop and pain begin?" well a good guide would be when something will cause irreparable or serious damage to an organism, in the case of most animals this would include immersion in boiling water.

RubyGirl

The way we do it is put them in the freezer for about 30mins beforehand and this make's them unconcious first.

The Sweeper

Worztron actually resurrected an old thread on Cooking & Recipes to discuss this first up, so I'll post here what I posted there.

First, humane kill linkie (and apparently yes, boiling alive affects both the taste and texture of a lobster because it undergoes stress while dying):

From The Telegraph, February 2009: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/4581872/A-humane-way-to-cook-lobster.html

Additionally here are guidelines from the RSPCA regarding the cooking of crustaceans:

http://www.rspca.org.uk/ImageLocator/LocateAsset?asset=document&assetId=1232716301988&mode=prd

I believe lobsters feel pain. I think that if you trust in the theory of evolution, you need to accept that anything that's currently alive developed the capacity over millions of years to feel pain and to learn from experience. The level of sentience notwithstanding, a claim that an animal doesn't feel pain is, to me, unrealistic. The ability to very simply translate sensation into one of two camps, good or bad, is at the core of the evolutionary process of every living creature.

At the core of my personal belief system is euthanasia in its most literal sense: 'a good death'. Everything has the right to a good death, to go the way we'd want to go ourselves. We need to minimise pain, suffering and distress to the greatest level we can. I don't think that's unreasonable, I think it's simply civilised practice.

It just comes down to one question for me: why boil something alive when you can render it insensible first and spare it the experience? Lobsters do not die in seconds in boiling water, and honestly anything more than a second or two, in my mind, is too long. 10 seconds? 20 seconds? 30 seconds to boil to death? Not euthanasia.

There is a fine line between doing something because it's the right way to do it, and doing something simply because you can. We boil lobsters alive because we can. It's not necessarily the right way to do it.

I had a discussion on this recently with Minder, because we both use the Cooking & Recipes forum a lot. He's started to cook his own crab recently, buying live, whole crab, rendering them gradually insensible in ice water and then boiling. He said recently he was more disturbed at the reaction of shellfish - razor clams - wiggling when dropped into a boiling sauce than he was at the lack of reaction from the insensible crab he cooked.

As part of that discussion I brought up a recent news story here in Australia, where the beef industry was trying to change legislation to allow them to transport bobby calves (the male offspring of dairy cows - they don't give milk and they don't have the bodies for meat, so they're essentially 'useless' to the beef industry) in a more cost effective way. The proposal was that the legislation be changed to allow bobby calves be denied food or water for 36 hours before slaughter to enable shipment of them in a more cost effective manner.

See that there, to me, is a perfect example of why, just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should do it. To deny a five day old calf sustenance for 36 hours for the purpose of profit - that's barbarism.

Embrace euthanasia, and render your crustaceans insensible before you cook them.

Excedion

I'd say the way turkeys are killed is far worse. The stun rod down your throat or decapitation.

Odysseus

@ G'em this question of jumping out of the pot, could it be nerves. Like what you may see when you kill game. I see rabbits jump all over the place after a perfect head-shot. With the ammo I would be using and the damage done to the rabbits brain their is no way the animal could be consider to be still alive; yet I have seen some do a lot of nervous jumping. Personally I don’t think it is cruel to boil them alive.

MadsL

Totally baffled as to the live boiling need, or stupid expensive electric machines.

Here.

http://www.cooking-lobster.com/cooking-lobster/lobster-killing.html

Job done.

If I die as quickly and efficiently as that I'll be happy enough.

If you don't like the thought of killing lobsters, don't eat them. More for me.

Discodog

No

g'em wrote: »

Out of curiosity does the Act distinguish between higher/lower animals or are all animals equal under it?

The wording is as follows:

"1.-(1) If any person –
(a) shall cruelly beat, kick, ill-treat, over-ride, over-drive, over-load, tortue, infuriate or terrify any animal, or shall cause or procure, or, being the owner, permit any animal to be so used, or shall, by wantonly or unreasonably doing or omitting to do any act, or causing or procuring the commission or omission of any act, cause any unnecessary suffering, or, being the owner, permit any unnecessary suffering to be so caused to any animal"

(a)the expression “animal” means any domestic or captive animal;


(b)the expression “domestic animal” means any horse, ass, mule, bull, sheep, pig, goat, dog, cat, or fowl, or any other animal of whatsoever kind or species, and whether a quadruped or not which is tame or which has been or is being sufficiently tamed to serve some purpose for the use of man;


(c)the expression “captive animal” means any animal (not being a domestic animal) of whatsoever kind or species, and whether a quadruped or not, including any bird, fish, or reptile, which is in captivity, or confinement, or which is maimed, pinioned, or subjected to any appliance or contrivance for the purpose of hindering or preventing its escape from captivity or confinement;

g'em

The Sweeper wrote: »

I believe lobsters feel pain. I think that if you trust in the theory of evolution, you need to accept that anything that's currently alive developed the capacity over millions of years to feel pain and to learn from experience. The level of sentience notwithstanding, a claim that an animal doesn't feel pain is, to me, unrealistic. The ability to very simply translate sensation into one of two camps, good or bad, is at the core of the evolutionary process of every living creature.

In order to feel pain something has to have the brain in order to be able to interpret that 'feeling'. You can feel good vs bad without interpreting that 'bad' as pain. Lower animals will respond to a threatening stimulus in such a way that it helps them avoid danger but they don't feel pain from it.

Odysseus wrote: »

@ G'em this question of jumping out of the pot, could it be nerves. Like what you may see when you kill game. I see rabbits jump all over the place after a perfect head-shot. With the ammo I would be using and the damage done to the rabbits brain their is no way the animal could be consider to be still alive; yet I have seen some do a lot of nervous jumping.

Animals (and humans) frequently display reflex responses after death - it's quite normal but the first few times you see it it can be quite disconcerting. They are clinically dead though and not feeling any pain. The lobster jumping out of the pot is a reflex too, but I imagine that's more likely to be premortem as the boiling may not kill instantaneously.

@Discodog - cheers, that's very woolly where lower animals are concerned. Technically speaking anything from sponges upwards is an 'animal' (although we could have a lengthy discussion about the taxonomy of Parazoans). If you kill a nematode in your garden are you therefore guilty of animal cruelty under that Act?

Personally - and this is really only a personal belief - I'm inclined to think that only vertebrates are able to feel 'pain' in the same way that we would perceive it. Anything without a spinal chord may feel distress but it's a reflex response and not a subjective feeling per se.

Discodog

No

g'em wrote: »

Anything without a spinal chord may feel distress but it's a reflex response and not a subjective feeling per se.

But distress is just as unacceptable as pain. One could argue that it is psychological pain. Surely it "boils" down to not causing distress if there is an alternative.

g'em

It's only psychological if you have a brain which invertebrates don't have

Discodog

No

g'em wrote: »

It's only psychological if you have a brain which invertebrates don't have

You know that even that is debatable depending on how you define brain. The central nervous system of invertebrates may be different but they can show a huge degree of sophistication.

The sad thing is that we legislate & then try to find reasons to exclude certain animals. For example we designate some as vermin & use that as an excuse to exercise cruelty.

People should not need law to know that causing unnecessary, severe, discomfort, distress & pain to any animal is wrong.

g'em

Discodog wrote: »

You know that even that is debatable depending on how you define brain.

Yeah, sorry, that was very woolly on my part. It's wrong of me to say that invertebrates don't have brains, they do (sort of), but I don't believe those brains are capable of cognition and learning, I don't believe that they have an ability to 'feel' anything on a psychological level.

Discodog wrote:

The central nervous system of invertebrates may be different but they can show a huge degree of sophistication.

Absolutely not arguing with you there - but again an orgnaism can be sophisticated and very complex but that doesn't inherently imply any level of intelligence.

Cookie_Monster

Ddad wrote: »

I kill my lobster before boiling them. I don't see the point in not killing them.

how? just as a matter of interest.

EDIT: I assume as per MadSL link

Galway K9

No

of course they feel pain...they scream when their put in the boiling hot water.

The Sweeper

MadsL wrote: »

Totally baffled as to the live boiling need, or stupid expensive electric machines.

Here.

http://www.cooking-lobster.com/cooking-lobster/lobster-killing.html

Job done.

If I die as quickly and efficiently as that I'll be happy enough.

If you don't like the thought of killing lobsters, don't eat them. More for me.

If you read the RSPCA link I posted you'll see that no, that's not job done. Lobsters don't have one brain, and there's a second nervous centre where the tail meets the body. So your link demonstrates how to maim and decapitate a lobster before boiling it alive.

MadsL

maim and decapitate

Bit strong... but as they will be cut in half eventually, no harm in "making sure".

I'd best not tell you how I like my sushi prawns I'd guess...

The Sweeper

Still kickin? /makes gack noises

I watched Iron Chef a while back and it showed the chefs preparing crayfish - take live crayfish, and do something that involves breaking open the end of the tail piece and pulling out the central nervous ganglion string, or 'backbone' or whatever you want to call it. Apparently that can be unpleasant to eat, so they tear it out and then cook the crayfish.

I have to admit I was pretty horrified at watching crayfish, disembowelled, still scratching and stumbling about in the sink they were dropped in after the procedure, and before being cooked.

Someone on here linked to a video recently on how to prepare crab for cooking, which included cutting its face off with a scissors.

I mean, seriously???? There's embracing the apex-predator-highest-on-the-foodchain mentality, and eating what we're arguably evolved to eat, and then again there's just barbarism...

Norwayviking

Worztron wrote: »

I have always been appalled at the way lobsters are cooked. It is an incredibly cruel death. Those that eat the lobster say it feels no pain, which I believe is utter nonsense.

Who cares as long as they taste good.:D

SophieSakura

No

Are prawns and crabs and other animals boiled alive too?

I think whether or not they feel pain, they must be able to feel some kind of negative feeling/distress so I don't like it . . . even before they're killed they must be stressed and scared.

I'd say the same thing about other animals before they're slaughtered too. So I'm not sure if boiling alive is any worse or not . . . it seems worse.

BunShopVoyeur

Galway K9 wrote: »

of course they feel pain...they scream when their put in the boiling hot water.

That's a myth. How do you scream without vocal chords?

Alun

BunShopVoyeur wrote: »

That's a myth. How do you scream without vocal chords?

It's probably just air escaping from within the shell as they're plunged into the hot water.

BunShopVoyeur

Alun wrote: »

It's probably just air escaping from within the shell as they're plunged into the hot water.

Absolutely.

Bullseye1

On watching Australia's Top Chef I think the new technique for cooking them is to first put them in a feezer before cooking.

Norwayviking

Bullseye1 wrote: »

On watching Australia's Top Chef I think the new technique for cooking them is to first put them in a feezer before cooking.

Thats right,but it have to be alive when you freeze it,for it to last longer.:D

Ken.

Seen a thing on tv not so long ago that said in America lobsters are classed as insects to get around the various cruelty to animals acts.