Boiling lobsters while they are alive and conscious will be banned as part of a government strategy to improve animal welfare in England.
Government ministers say that “live boiling is not an acceptable killing method” for crustaceans and alternative guidance will be published.
The practice is already illegal in Switzerland, Norway and New Zealand. Animal welfare charities say that stunning lobsters with an electric gun or chilling them in cold air or ice before boiling them is more humane.
Honestly that seems pretty reasonable. Boiling things alive is pretty barbaric.
I feel like chilling them is even worse. They usually live in cold waters, and chilling them in cold air (like a fridge) will just mostly make them suffocate for a while before you boil them alive. They can live a long time out of the water in a cold environment/on ice (think 24 to 48 hours long, not 2 or 3) because it just slows down their biological processes since they’re cold blooded. They’re just going to warm up again as they’re boiling, and it will probably take longer to start boiling as they have to come back up from a lower temperature.
Even the shock method seems kinda useless. It would need to knock them out for about 20 minutes to ensure that they’re unconscious until they’re dead.
The most humane thing to do would be to kill them somehow in one moment, like with a concussive force or stabbing through the brain stem, but that then runs into the issue of how quickly dead lobsters go bad (also the issue of presentation - people don’t want a crushed lobster staring at them from their plate). It’s actually illegal in plenty of places to sell dead lobsters (or even cook them!) due to this, so they would have to be killed on site just before being cooked, which is a tall order when 1lb of lobster meat requires about 5lbs of lobster to make (roughly about a 20% yield on lobsters) and it takes about 5 years for a lobster to reach 1lb in size (and then about 2 years for every pound after that).
All of this said, it’s all still probably more humane than that one company I used to work with back when I was in this kind of industry that was experimenting with getting raw lobster meat out of lobsters by tossing them into a pressure vessel.
Yeah, I don’t really have enough knowledge to offer a solution beyond “if we can’t kill them in a humane way, maybe we just don’t need to eat lobster.”
That was the conclusion I reached a little while ago. So I’ve just stopped eating shellfish as a result.
I’m now trying to reduce the amount of cow I eat.
The most humane thing to do would be to kill them somehow in one moment…
This is a thing.
https://easycleancook.com/how-to-kill-a-lobster-before-you-cook-it/
- The Rapid Destruction of the Central Nervous System
One of the most humane methods of killing a lobster is referred to as the “stabbing method.” This technique involves quickly severing the lobster’s central nervous system, ensuring a fast and painless death.
Procedure (tigger warning/NSFW?)
Prepare the Lobster: Place the lobster on its back on the cutting board. Hold it firmly but gently to stabilize it.
Identify the Right Spot: Locate the cross section of the lobster’s carapace (the hard shell) right behind the eyes. This spot contains nerve ganglia that, when severed, will cause a rapid death.
Make the Cut: Using a sharp chef’s knife, make a swift incision right at the identified spot. Aim for a clean, quick cut to ensure that the nervous system is disrupted immediately.
Confirm the Kill: After cutting, the lobster should not exhibit movement. If it does, wait for a few moments to ensure that the process has been effective.
Basically yeah, as you say, cut its brain stem.
There are chefs who know exactly how to do this, it just requires skill and precision.
This ia arguably the proper way to prepare and serve lobster, as, when done correctly… well, beyond being the most humane method, it also produces the most flavorful dish.
Agreed, and I vaguely remembered something along these lines from my time cooking them, but I also know how many that I was cooking in a day as just a small scale operation at a local fish market cooking and shucking for lobster meat and cooking for the occasional customer to take home with them (I think the most we did in a day was close to one metric ton), and how unfeasible it is to do on a large scale.
I was doing 50 lbs at a time per pot, with 2 large stovetop pots at a time. That’s 25+ lobsters per pot, averaging probably about 60 lobsters per hour that I was cooking by myself. Imagining trying to do that at an industrial scale sounds like the kind of thing that would effectively kill lobster meat as anything other than an expensive specialty item.
And although maybe it should kill mass market lobster meat (why in the hell does McDonald’s sell lobster rolls in the first place???), I also have a visceral gut reaction to the idea of effectively making a food the exclusive domain of the rich. Especially when my boss at that job would make a big stink about people buying fish with Social Security money like poor people don’t deserve to eat anything other than rice and beans.
Well dang, I appreciate the insight from someone who’s actually done it!
But uh… yeah… it really just does seem to be the case that America is run by people who hate poor people, who also become (at least in their own minds) not poor, by creating poor people, who run business models that encourage people to become poor.
Its like a tautological loop of ‘I’m scamming you and that makes me better than you’ as an ethos.
The pathological malignant narcissist society.
time to ban Halal slaughter now too!
https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/farm/slaughter/religiousslaughter
I mean… its not really banning Halal slaughter.
Its adding a step to it.
Around 88% of animals slaughtered in the UK for Halal are stunned first. All animals slaughtered under the Shechita (for Kosher) are non-stunned.
Just gotta get that 88% up higher toward 100%, of stunning them (ie, obliterating their frontal lobe, I think?)… and also put that step into play for Kosher slaughter as well.
It frightens me that we can’t 100% agree that boiling a living thing that feels pain, is bad.
Humans are the worst.
Most killing involves pain, all meat requires killing.
all meat requires killing.
Technically not true… You could amputate and eat part of an animal without killing it
So like harvesting claws from stone crabs?
Roadkill and scavenging exists. It’s pretty safe when done responsibly
How useful :p
Can you eat starfish?
Yes, you can.
Not true.
As at least one commenter said already, meat can be extracted without killing.
And further, you can wait for something to die of natural causes, and then you get the meat.
And now, arguably, “meat” can be made in a lab. Perhaps suppressed secret tech already has star-trek style replicators.
At least 3 distinct ways of meat without killing.
At a stretch… seeds and mushrooms can be considered/called “meat”.
Probably more ways yet I’ve not thought of.
You are so clever. Pardon me while I cook this bacon.
I hope the pig was dead, and you didn’t just gouge a chunk out of its buttocks.
[PS, Ima go run a mile from the idea of me being clever. I don’t wanna become that smugnorant and stupid.]
Have you ever seen felines hunting? They are fucking psychos by your standards.
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In case you didn’t know, we are animals.
We should always keep that in mind and stop pretending “being human” is some universal thing.
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LOL so being against your perspective means validating the worst of humanity? Wow! Such arrogance…
We can “do better” from our own perspective. We are “sapient” from our own perspective.
I’m sure there are also a lot of groups of disgusting people you could fit, but how is that relevant? Is it just that you lack arguments and you resort to insulting a person that you don’t know? Is this what you call being “born with sapience”?
What a petty animal you are…
You sound insufferable
😎
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Stay safe in your bubble.
To be very crass, animals also rape other animals, and I hope to god that you will not use “but we are animals” as an argument there as well.
We are different from other animals in that we are moral agents. We can know the difference between good and bad. That makes us responsible to act upon that difference, too.
You think very lowly of other animals if you think they have no morals, or no discerning of good and bad.
Or are you valuing your specific moral more than theirs? Because that’s a very classic specist reasoning, with no basis whatsoever except human arrogance.
Also, humans rape other humans too, so how do you justify this? Are rapists not moral agents? You consider them beasts, different animals than yourself?
Then what makes a human a human, what makes them the moral agent you talk about? Is it the respect of the law? Is it a particular neurological state?
More importantly, do you really need this sort of validation to be “good”? Do you need to believe that you are different? That you have a responsibility? That you are “better” than other animals?
Are you not capable of being equally “good” even knowing that morals are relative? That there is no actual universal good? That you have nothing more than other animals?
They get a free pass because they are cute.
Cats are neither human, nor do they boil their kills just because they can. Cats kill, yes. Cats are murderous little fuckers, yes.
However the issue the above poster is talking about isn’t about killing of whatever. Or about eating meat. Their point was about doing it in as humane a way as possible.
We don’t boil lobsters just because we can, but because we cook our food.
Cats are neither human, nor do they boil their kills just because they can.
But, we all know they would if they could.
I said felines by the way, so cats AND all others too.
Have you ever seen lions hunting their prey and eating it from its ass while it is still trying to run away?
Or playing with their prey before eventually strangling it?
That’s their way of doing it, it’s gruesome but it’s fine.
We have our own ways of doing it too, some methods are even considerably more painless than others.
Also you should note your own use of “humane”, that’s a key point there. All this talk is just human specist nonsense.
Last but not least, I could even argue (as a human) that it’s ridiculous to judge what killing method is acceptable (and even what is acceptable to eat) based on things like pain, or having a nervous system.
FUCK YOU AND YOUR SPECIST CRINGE ARGUMENTS! Killing a human, a lobster, a mosquito or a tomato plant is just killing, no matter what lies you tell yourself.
Haha, all those words that I didn’t read…and yet I still know they all amount to “I’m an angry tool”.
No worries, I understand that it’s too much text to process for some individuals.
Yeah, it’s deffo that. And it’s definitely not that you are an angry tool that posts rants about shit that’s got nothing to do with boiling lobsters, haha.
Yeah, it’s deffo that. And it’s definitely not that you are an angry tool that posts rants about shit that I don’t understand, haha.
FIFY
Fuck. What hope is there for my verbose replies then…
Curse the twittification tiktokification of our minds.
There’s some kind of wisdom and (albeit self-serving) kindness to how felines kill things (sometimes). Whereby they get their prey to settle into their fate, and calm down, before they go in for the kill. Seemingly because all that adrenaline and muscle tension makes the meat taste worse, and impairs their mood and feels after eating it.
Have you ever seen felines hunting?
Devastating scenes. CW: I’m going to eat you little fishy
Yeah. I kinda like meat, but seriously. At least make it quick and/or painless, not torture.
Imagine how vegans must feel about the world lol
Vegans don’t care about the natural world with regards to suffering caused by the natural world itself. That’s just how things are.
Vegans instead are more interested in suffering caused by humans inflicted on the natural world. This suffering can be more or less wicked than what you’d find out in the wild.
Big distinction.
Inb4 plants feel just as much pain, just differently
Yeah but they are masochists and they like it.
Time to chew rocks
In that moral framework ig fruits and veggies would be fine since the plant wants us to eat it
there is no proof plants want anything
Pretty sure we’re supposed to surgically extract the seeds after anaesthetizing the fruits whilst it’s still on the tree.
I don’t know much about it but Jains in India actually have rules about causing minimal harm to all living things
You monster!
Pretty poorly, all things considered.
which animal can 100% agree with you on that? maybe crabs but even then maybe not
Doesnt the UK eat tons of veal? Seems like if youre gonna pretend to care about animals that would be a prime target but what do I know?
LOL-Ouch!
Reading this
It frightens me that we can’t 100% agree that boiling a living thing that feels pain, is bad.
Humans are the worst.
the very next thing after having just finished writing:
provided that you didn’t consider humans animals
And it’s daunting how many people are in a popularised fervour of seeing their misanthropy as a virtue, unwitting of the historical company they keep; unwitting of the totalitarianising psyche they have more than a toe in with that shit. Nor how dangerous and wrong and deluding that is. Horrors, even the worst horrors, propped up with fallacies in service of inverting reality, making atrocities seen as necessary virtues. Especially the animals=good people=bad crowd.
The worst, eh?
Maybe study more nature before throwing around such dangerous hyperbole.
Will always be funny to me that lobsters are such an expensive delicacy at fine dining restaurants when they started out as food for extremely poor people in coastal communities. In the old days the general public viewed eating them as you would view eating a rat today.
Oysters have made the switch between poor people food and rich people food quite a few times. Tuna has made the switch in my lifetime. It probably has something to do with how easy they are to harvest/catch when plentiful versus the results of overfishing, and how delicate the food is in the supply chain.
Bacon also, it used to be cheap as fuck. Same with chicken wings. Two of the cheapest parts of the animal, now magically nearly the most expensive.
Its both here, cooking bacon is the cheapest boneless meat I have ever seen per weight. But you can also get pretty fancy expensive bacon choices too.
Pork chops are cheaper than bacon.
They aren’t here. At least not the cheapest bacon.
There’s a theory that carbonara used to be a “war time” food.
Give the tech bros long enough and rat will be a delicacy for the rest of us aswell
It always comes back to demolition man
Not looking forward to the clamshells… maybe lobster claws could be a cheap alternative?
Lobster is only ok. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything with lobster in it that wasn’t independently good, or improved in any meaningful way with lobster.
That said, when lobster was viewed the way you’re describing, it was seen as more of a pest. There was so much lobster freely available, it was literally piling up on beaches. No one was fishing for lobsters, they were just scooping them up and then making a rather revolting stew with them. That was being served to prisoners as a form of penance, meant to be bland and unstimulating. Sandy guts and all.
There are several types of lobsters. US Red lobster has nothing to do with the big blue ones they have here in fancy restaurants.
While they were called ‘sea rats’,they werent considered quiteas bad as rats- it was common for servant’s contracts to limit the number of meals lobster could be served to them for, usually 1 or 2 a week, not the hard 0 that serving rat would have been.
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I don’t think you’re allowed to boil trans people alive either
You certainly shouldn’t be eating them
I mean you can eat them if you know what I mean
I have no idea what you mean. Would you be able to provide some study material for me? Perhaps a research paper?
The bad thing is that these goals do not conflict with each other: they could easily do both if they wanted to.
Maybe time to start identifying as a lobster…
Is this a poorly executed joke or whataboutism.
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Not just “trans people”.
Just people.
Not the only category suffering their cruelty and indifference.
I’ve survived several rounds of the culls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvRz8HrEVKY
No fun being dependent on your abuser trying to include you in their democide.
The amount of people that are in knots trying to defend a barbaric practice is quite telling.
Chopping down plants & eating them is also barbaric.
Do plants feel pain the way a lobster would? I genuinely don’t know.
I do know that making an animal suffer rather than giving it a quick death is wrong.
Do plants feel pain?
From what I’ve read so far, unfortunately, it seems like they might. Plants can communicate with each other and form underground resource networks with other plants, fungi, and microorganisms. Including for illness, boring bugs and pain responses. The smell of fresh cut grass is one of those warning/pain responses.
I’ve wanted to do some bonsai succulents, but the process towards any living thing seems cruel and painful.
You only quoted part of their question. Yes, plants react to pain, but that doesn’t mean they feel pain the same way a lobster does.
We cannot measure pain for neither plants nor animals. You presuppose the feelings of the animal while at the same time rejecting it for the plant when we really do not know.
Do they require a nervous system? Maybe. To what extent? We do not know.
No, I’m simply going by my best guess, informed by what I know about the current state of research. That’s not conclusive evidence, but it is morally incredibly hard to argue against it.
After all, I cannot measure pain for humans besides myself. You may just be a philosophical zombie. When I’m treating you like you can experience pain, I’m presupposing your feelings. What if you’re programmed to act scared of pain & secretly wish to experience it?
I do not know. Does that mean you may have a lesser pain experience than plants? How should that affect my decision making?
No, you are at best basing your opinion on measured pain response in order to determine the level of pain experienced. Many animals have a measured pain reaction. You also know of your own experienced pain and assume it in other people and animals while excluding plants.
The first part is scientific and the second is not. The problem is that you are acting like your belief about how animals feel pain is qualitatively different from the above regarding plants.
We both know why you get agressive about it: You want to some extent anthropomorphize animals because you care about them, which is ok, but not scientific.
Now this I can agree with.
Yes agreed so lets just starve then, only proper thing to do
Just learn to photosynthesize like that guy obviously does
You’ll avoid eating carrion and probiotics and fallen fruit and seeds and nuts? Did you simply overlook other possibilities than harming living things?
I’m daunted by the possibility some may fall for that false dichotomy, and not mean it in jest.
Don’t have to be a failed breatharian.
Can be fruitarian.
Seeds and nuts are offspring. Carrion/Roadkill is caused by unsafe/Subaru infrastructure standards and not practical as a law dir everyone without killing a lot of people. Fruit are somewhat fair game, but could also be eaten by wild animals and are unnatural cruel breeds.
Avoiding all suffering is embracing death for all. Existing is suffering by necessity.
Some seeds (~ and some nuts?) require/want(?) to be imbibed and crapped out, to spread the offspring further, strip the germination inhibiting layer, and provide fertiliser for.
Avoiding all suffering is embracing death for all. Existing is suffering by necessity.
Though be careful with that, otherwise suffering can be made a fetish.
there is no proof seeds or nuts want anything at all
hence the “(?)” on that linguistic quirk.
though, some evolutionary biologists and others still would use that expression, that shorthand, without flinching.
Nah, you starve. You’re the one who’s into that stuff.
No, it fucking ain’t.
And it’s also not a funny joke.
Curious response.
Indifferent, dismissive, in denial, about the suffering of plants? Speciesist? Just never been introduced to plants, be it with plant medicine, or scientific studies? Plants feel. Just because it’s not expressed in familiar mammalian ways, does not mean they’re not living feeling beings. Seeing chopping down plants and eating them as barbaric is a valid perspective to take. I wonder if you have anything above contradiction on Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement to make your argument have any compelling substance…? Or if this will just remain as a limbic reflex to preserve self image, without entertaining the idea in curiosity. Come, get curious, not furious. :)
[Edit: Oh wow. Just saw the up/down votes ratio on that “Chopping down plants & eating them is also barbaric.” comment. At time of writing, up 8, down 55! Wow. Presumably a lot of other people also kicking off all reflexive in defence of their magnanimous morally-superior identification/self-image (presumably) being vegetarian or whatever. Face the horror, folks. 'Ain’t the angels promoted to be in that moral relativism and speciesistical ignorance. LOL. (Cue all the more down votes on this comment, due to this edit clashing with those who’ll still double down in wilful ignorance refusing to look into this. Hehehehehe).]
Cause it’s a stupid fucking argument.
If consumption of plants is unethical extinction of life is the only moral choice.
Allow me to upvote you👌
Id say the distinguishing difference is the function being the thing, where suffering relies on the set of distributed tools being used to measure and process suffering.
Many people excuse animal suffering by denying these parts exist, despite being basal and meadurable even in fish.
While I do think to some degree you are right, and we should be careful where we bound expected suffering, but eating a plant is much more like eating a disembodied part of an animal, or cell culture, rather than the full animal nervous experience.
At the very least, near the bottom of the triage. Its a constant energy balancing act as we progress as intelligent life. Also case by case as different eco-niches are fit. Don’t underestimate life and intelligence.
This is coming from a perspective inspired by Michael levin from tufts university, in the understanding of diverse intelligent systems.
Isn’t it time you checked in on Carol?
Good. This may seem like a joke now but slowly over decades people will stop doing this.
it’ll be 80 years before this policy reaches Southeast Asia, where they are regularly cutting live frogs in half below the torso with scissors in the markets, tossing all the dying frog torsos together in a big pile. maybe 180 years actually
Why do they cut them that way in particular?
they eat the legs. some folks will cut the head off and some folks will cut down by the torso. the frog will be grabbing at the scissors uselessly. if it bites, they will snip the mouth off. its very quick. grab a frog, snip snip, toss the frog into the pile, repeat. like harvesting a plant
why don’t they all just cut at the head? i have no idea. i think the experience of the animal is simply not considered
I think it’s just the legs that are eaten? Not sure though.
I do think the next human milestone would be to realize killing animals for sustenance is wrong, and I’m saying that as a meat eater.
I think “decades” sadly is a bit too optimistic
Most people are happy to eat alternatives provided they are as cheap and taste good. The meat industry can be killed by good vegan food.
I reckon culture-grown meat will be the big one that shifts people away from slaughter meat.
Sure, growing it from a culture will still have people refusing on ethics grounds, but it’s damned sight less suffering.
Growing meat from a culture onto a framework will likely result in more consistent, better cuts of meat.
There is no such thing as a good tasting vegan meat replacement. Beyond meat is the closest I’ve seen and even that is a little gross
With this administration’s track record, I’m half expecting this to turn out to be the justification for putting “lobster-verification” cameras in everyone’s kitchen.
Calling the UK Gov the “administration” sounds off.
The proper term for parliamentary systems is just “government”.
Oh, then that.
I didn’t realise they weren’t interchangeable. They feel a lot like administrators.
I didn’t want to be as vague as saying “these twats” to a possibility international audience.
“A bobby at every table and a camera in every pot.”
- Liz Truss or something, idk UK politics
Uh, does anyone in this thread even know how to kill a lobster?
I feel like this is barely a problem, you usually slice into its head and then immediately boil to avoid any chance of rapid bacteria breakdown. I dont even know if theres any other practical method aside from boiling without slicing into the head.
Also not to be that guy, but is this really such a massive concern that the government needs to focus on right now? Seems like they are more concerned about handling lobsters than their own citizens after they labeled Palestine Action a terrorist group and had anyone supporting them arrested and charged as such.
Maybe the citizens have been asking for them to deal with lobbyists and they just misheard
I do think it’d be more humane to not boil lobbyists alive. We can find less grotesque ways to dispatch them.
I for one think it’s highly appropriate
I think boiling is a little too traditional for me. Personally I think the good old fashioned French methods cut just right, you know?
I worked at a country club that would, occasionally, and on the hush hush for VIPS inject them still live, with a syringe of boiling butter, poaching them from the inside out. I believe that is the old fashioned French method
Killed a lobster? I’ve never even tasted one. Sounds like a rich people problem.
Lobsters used to be poor people’s food. The taste is really just giant shrimp.
1800s new England, they were refered to as sea rats, and it was a common clause in servants contracts limiting how many meals a week they could be given lobster.
it was a common clause in servants contracts limiting how many meals a week they could be given lobster
Can you imagine, hahaa
Honestly not missing much. I don’t get all the fuss, plenty of other seafood that imo tastes loads better.
Also not to be that guy, but is this really such a massive concern that the government needs to focus on right now?
Labour is flailing. They came into office with an enormous popular mandate to undo the corrupt and abusive practices of the Conservative government, then proceeded to extend and cement these same unpopular policies while engaging in all the same corrupt practices - in many cases taking money and gifts from the exact same people.
This is what they’ve got. Haphazardly pandering to any special interest group that won’t step on the toes of a mega-donor or trip over graft being committed by another influential MP.
Seems like they are more concerned about handling lobsters than their own citizens after they labeled Palestine Action a terrorist group and had anyone supporting them arrested and charged as such.
AIPAC fully has its hooks into the Labour government, especially at the leadership level. In many ways, the sanction on boiled lobster and the sanction on Palestine Rights activists is coming from the same place. A need to crank up policing on everyone everywhere for anything that can justify a government sanction.
The UK police state is metasticizing again.
It’s such a non issue to dispatch a lobster before throwing it into the pot using your method. The guys who are against it are just fucking assholes.
Lobsters have a decentralized nervous system, so stabbing it in the head doesn’t really do anything. It’s pretty much just something chefs started doing to appear to know more than the home cook. There’s no scientific reason for stabbing them first.
So then not only are you still boiling them alive, but you are also causing a lot of pain by unnecessarily stabbing their face off?
This is why the correct method is splitting, where you cut the head in half down the middle and partway into the main body. Cutting the head off still leaves a significant chuck of the “brain” alive and unwell.
So, how WOULD you kill it without pain?
Not at all would be fine.
Sure. But, like, is this law pointless? Because unless it bans it altogether (and the comment I replied to is correct about the pain) then it sounds like it’s pointless.
People said freezing. But that just sounds like more psuedo science. Is it science based? Or is it just “people say”.
Freezing just slows them down. A lot of lobsters are caught in the Atlantic around Maine, they can handle your fridge just fine, and your freezer for a painfully long amount of time.
Give them a shot of morphine first
Lol I could see this becoming a delicacy- lobster that gets you high when you eat it
This is how I found out that lobsters don’t have a single centralized brain like humans do.
Lobster as Lemmy mascot when?
focus
How much “focus” does something like this actually require?
Ikr. They stopped the lobsters from being slowly boiled alive but not their own citizens lol
Two ways to dispatch a lobster.
One is to put the knife behind the eyes, stab down and chop towards the front of the lobster, bifurcating the head.
The other is to put the lobster in the freezer for 30-45 minutes. This slows its metabolism to the point of practical death, so it doesnt feel anything when you put it in the boiling water.
second option is less…actively choppy, so i imagine most squeemish people would prefer that option.
oof i’d take the head chop over being rapidly frozen and then boiled, thanks
Cause you’re not cold blooded, or a lobster. So you don’t have the same response to it that they do.
Valid point but you cant prove that im not either of those things
i can’t prove you’re not coffee either
they also got that lobster gun that does the choppy for you if you’re doing it in bulk or are squeamish
The best I know is to freeze them first, not like solid, but just for an hour or so which makes them super lethargic.
You can just put them in the fridge. They don’t need to be in the freezer.
Then drive a knife through their head. Dead before they know what’s happening.
i guess the moral question is whether that’s arguably significantly more humane than skipping the severing step. to me it seems possibly unknowable; either way the thing does suffer the slaughter and the question is to what degree. if there’s any culinary or other practical advantage to doing it, and folks believe it’s more humane, why not…
It’s just silly that this is still a thing in almost 2026. It’s so obvious even Hitler banned it, and he was no animal rights activist.
He actually was, despite his horrific treatment of human beings.
More formally, on May 15, 1942, the Nazis issued an order instructing all Jews to bring all of their pets to collection points where they would be euthanized.
Of course if animals were in the care of the “wrong” human beings then they had to be killed. Fascist ideology has always, and will always, be an incoherent mess of contradictions in service of bigotry.
PETA expanded on that by declaring all humans to be the wrong kind.
Well, I’ll be damned.
I’ll need to read up on this.
Hitler was a maniac and a despicable person, but I seem to remember reading that he was vegetarian and at least liked dogs. Maybe he was an animal rights activist, provided that you didn’t consider humans animals.
provided that you didn’t consider humans animals
And it’s daunting how many people are in a popularised fervour of seeing their misanthropy as a virtue, unwitting of the historical company they keep; unwitting of the totalitarianising psyche they have more than a toe in with that shit. Nor how dangerous and wrong and deluding that is. Horrors, even the worst horrors, propped up with fallacies in service of inverting reality, making atrocities seen as necessary virtues. Especially the animals=good people=bad crowd.
Please stop using "even Hitler … " It just doesn’t work.
Culinary school recommended a quick kitchen knife through the brain immediately before boiling
Is the recommendation the same for other crustaceans?
Instead of boiling them alive, yes.
Lobsters are the one you are going to see alive most, though, as their meat breaks down very quickly after they die. That isn’t true of most other crustaceans, at least not to the same degree
proof that their flesh is only held together by their immense psychic powers :)
I’ve seen crabs boiled alive, and shellfish like clams and oysters are steamed alive.
With the crabs you can snip them between the eyes for a quick death but I’m not sure what to do for a clam
I could be wrong, but I don’t believe that crabs flesh contains the enzymes that break it down the way lobsters do. I do believe you can buy fresh, dead crab at some markets.
But you should definitely kill any living ones before boiling
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Lobsters don’t have vocal cords. Its physically impossible for them to scream.
Ok but that isn’t really the point they were making
That was literally a point they made.
pushes glasses Well akshually… 🤓
So exhausting. I can’t believe we have to explain boiling animals alive is animal cruelty, against a sea of “bugs lol who cares” and joking about inconsequential details. It’s sad
While they are alive and conscious.
That’s why I fill my lobsters with propofol before cooking them. People always say my dinner parties are a snooze. I don’t know why, I always have a good time. Of course, I don’t eat lobster.
From what I’ve been told lobsters will release a toxin if not killed properly. Boiling alive is/was the easiest way to do it and thus widely adopted especially at consumer level.
Quickly in the sense that bacterial growth on them becomes toxic within a far shorter time than other things we eat. Bacteria isn’t growing in the 10 seconds it takes to kill them and then dump into the pot. Just don’t leave them laying around for a long time.
Apparently it’s not easy to kill lobsters. They don’t have a single brain that you can drive a nail through like mammals, AFAIK.
One of the researchers who showed that lobsters feel pain recommended freezing them as the best available method, but maybe it’s better to just stop eating them?
Edit: the article says that electrical stunning works.
Electrical stunning isn’t an option for home chefs. I have heard of chilling but not sure if that is also being banned in the UK or not, given that they would still be alive. And yeah, no idea how reliable someone is going to be in actually killing it and not just rendering it unable to move but still feeling everything.
Even if a perfect knife cut works, how precise do you need to be? The best method would be the one which is pretty easy to do successfully. Also what about other crustaceans?
Freezing is an interesting method. Humans, being warm blooded, have a hard time in the cold. A lot of cold blooded animals just slow down when they get cold. I’ve no idea how it works for lobsters though, would be interesting to know.
Yeah that is how I understand it too. Could freeze them to death I presume, not sure how easy it is to kill them by freezing and not turn them into a solid block, or if you did freeze them solid how different it is to cook from frozen.
I can get free crab if I catch them myself, usually small ones but I have seen spider crabs at the shore. But prawns are tiny, even a shore crab has more meat than a prawn. Then use left overs for stock?
Nah, they don’t release a toxin, at least not in the sense of “self-defense” that is usually meant with that phrase. After death they rot very quickly, so they do become toxic, I guess that’s similar enough. My dad cooked lobsters often and he always stuck a paring knife in a very specific spot in the head right before boiling, I assume this information is about to become much more widespread to comply with these new laws.
Put them on ice to slow/sleep them, then slice through the center on the head with a sharp knife.
Just leave these animals to live their lives however they seem fit. Without unnecessary human interference. As we do have that option.
I.e. prohibit all hunted meats? Then say that. But this is not a practical solution.
Yes.
Start with prohibiting animal farming, then ban animal murder alltogether.
It is the only solution, it is not actually that difficult, and it is an inevitable outcome of human development.
In a few centuries, humans will look at today’s animal explotation the same way we look at cannibalism and slavery.
In a few centuries, humans will look at today’s animal explotation the same way we look at cannibalism and slavery.
some already do, but most people who have heard this argument are not convinced of it, so I doubt this is how things will turn out
I really don’t think we’ll ever stop eating animals. We’ve been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years, it’s practically part of our DNA. Why would we stop now? Vegans haven’t made a lot of progress convincing people, that’s for sure
We’ve done a lot of other awful things since forever: forced child “marriages” (or just sexual abuse before then), child exploitation, some form of slavery, have all been a thing for millenia. And yet many societies now frown upon those, punish the perpetrators and help the victims.
What makes you think this (or other awful shit we still do) will be any different?
All those actions are no more or less “in our DNA” then meat consumption.
And, well, vegans have convinced some non-trivial amount of people, as you can deduce by the fact that many companies put “vegan” stickers on their products, because they think it will increase their profits.
example, violence for entertainment. yes we’ve majorly turned against that which is good. child marriage, also good we got rid of that.
meat for food though, that is in our biology. our bodies need the nutrients that come from meat. we are biologically omnivores. yeah we can try to supplant that, but it’s through an artificial means.
I’m all for it, but i don’t think it’s going to be frowned upon in the future and i don’t think all humans can switch over to a plant based diet tomorrow. vegans are too much caught up in themselves to think of the practicality.
our bodies need the nutrients that come from meat.
This is definitely false. You can live as a vegetarian (i.e. stop eating meat) without any supplemental nutrients.
If you wanna go vegan, you will need to supplement your diet with B12. That’s the only nutrient that can’t be found naturally in plant-based sources. TBH practically speaking, if you’re in the west, you’ll probably be fine nowadays, because most prefab vegan foods (incl. vegan milks) are enriched with B12.
I’m vegan, all I do is take a B12 pills weekly, and all my vitamin levels were fine last time I got a check. I could probably skip the pill if I went out to eat more, or bought more prefab food, but I mostly cook for myself and so don’t get many B12-enriched foods.
Most humans live in cities nowadays, and all of those humans can easily switch to a plant-based diet within a couple of years (which would mostly be redirecting the supply chains for plant proteins from animal agriculture to humans directly). There are some edge-cases where people really do depend on animals (subsistence farming, hunter-gatherer societies, etc). We can deal with those later.
supplement your diet with B12. That’s the only nutrient that can’t be found naturally in plant-based sources
that’s not true
presumably there will be more suitable protein sources when space travel becomes a thing
Start with prohibiting animal farming, then ban animal murder alltogether.
That certainly would be an interesting civil war.
ban animal murder
no such thing.
Im always supriced how many people think huntings only reason is to kill the animalls and eat the carcasses.
There are many places where humans have killed the natural predators for some animals and in those places animal population is in danger to grow uncontrollably spreading disaeses and dangering natures balance even further. Herbivores without carnivores can and will destroy the forest floors and growth if let unchecked, wich can cascade to further destroy enviroment for different species like small mammals, bugs and birds.
Most obvious fix (and best for enviroment) would be introducing the big predators back in the area, wich is very easy to say when you live in a big city and your, children, pets or livelyhood is safe and sound. People dont want wolfs on their backyards any more than people want lions on the streets of NY. Also i dont see much difference for the animal if they get shot by a rifle or tearn down by a pack of predators.
Other solution for protecting the animals would be capturing and shipping hunted animals to wildlive reservois where they could live with the predators without any interactions with humans, but that would again leave the nature where they were transported from in a unbalanced state where for example plants like vines could spread suffocating other plants.
Then there are exotic animal trophy hunting that many people seem to hate. Most places that offer that have chosen the hunted animal preforehand. Like old male lion that are not fertile anymore, but still tries to kill other lions cubs, or elephant that has started to showing extreme aggression. With that money source safaries can fight against illegal poachers and protect endangered animals like black rhinos, while they keep the other animal population healthy. Those animals would need to be killed anyway and if somebody is willing to pay for doing it I dont see how that is bad.
I personally live in rural area. This year wolfs have killed few dogs and livestock like chickens from the yards of my neighbors. Do i wish all the wolfs to be killed? No. Do i wish childrens could walk or bike to school without fear of being attacked. Yes. I have also lost family in accident where moose ran in front of their car. I definedly dont wish for uncontrolled moose population making accidents like that more common.
But i agree with your sentiment that we need to move away from animal farming. Not because reason i personally find naive and childish like “cows are friends” but because its bad for enviroment and we as a humankind are eating meat in our meals more than we need.
Start with prohibiting animal farming, then ban animal murder alltogether
What do you do with livestock animals that make up 62% of all mammals on Earth?
Stop forcefully reproducing them, sterilize as necessary, let them live out the rest of their lives. It’s not too complicated.
sterilize
sounds like you don’t actually care about their autonomy.
I do care about the planet actually surviving this. We’ve created way too many animals, the natural ecosystems won’t be able to sustain them all if we release them into the wild and let them reproduce. The outcome will be devastated ecosystems and a lot of animals dying due to starvation. Sterilization is the least inhumane way out of this mess.
oh. you’re not vegan: you’re ecofash.
We’ve created way too many animals
Thats not the animals fault though. Why should they pay the price for our mistake?
Sterilization is the least inhumane way out of this mess.
You’re bascially suggesting that we wipe out entire species of livestock because humans deem their existance is no longer necessary.
Ecosystems can’t accomadate them in the wild yes, but without farming neither can the human economy.
So the only option left is extinction via sterilization.
And that just sounds like animal murder with extra steps.
I mean…this should be framed as an attempt at fixing an urban myth: that lobster tastes best when cooked alive.
I worked in restaurants for years and we always killed them quickly and humanely before we boiled them.
To me this is just low hanging fruit.
