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.
How can I stun mussels before I steam them?
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.
Watching carnists try to discuss animal welfare while their own cognitive dissonance is constantly triggering is creepy as fuck.
I had to tactfully shame my mom for this. Asked if she wanted her end to be quick or slow. She didn’t have the capacity to even think of it cause it’s not a possibility. Some folks just don’t really think about others in certain ways.
After watching Seaspriacy on Netflix, I stopped eating seafood, with exception to dried seaweed.
The usual way of dispatching a lobster is a knife straight in the centre of the brain and cutting forward. Not sure why anyone would want a lobster to be alive when its actually cooked.
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.
Good!
I’m all for this but how are they going to enforce it on a consumer level?
Good. This may seem like a joke now but slowly over decades people will stop doing this.
Culinary school recommended a quick kitchen knife through the brain immediately before boiling
UK government caring more about lobster welfare than that of trans people.
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?
Maybe time to start identifying as a lobster…
The bad thing is that these goals do not conflict with each other: they could easily do both if they wanted to.
Is this a poorly executed joke or whataboutism.
It’s the Streisand effect, when an ineffectual government actually does something it becomes a reminder of its failures
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.
It frightens me that we can’t 100% agree that boiling a living thing that feels pain, is bad.
Humans are the worst.
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?
Most killing involves pain, all meat requires killing.
And it should be instant. Not like the extreme polar end of those asian guys skinning a dog while it was still alive for the meat market.
✂️ this kills the crab
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.]
all meat requires killing.
Technically not true… You could amputate and eat part of an animal without killing it
A TV reporter became lost on the back roads and stopped at a farm to get directions. As he was talking to the farmer he noticed a pig with a wooden leg. “This could be a great story for the Six O’Clock News. How did that pig lose his leg?” he asked the farmer. “Well”, said the farmer, “that’s a very special pig. One night not too long ago we had a fire start in the barn, and that pig squealed so loud and long that he woke everyone, and by the time we got there he had herded all the other animals out of the barn. Saved them all.”
“And that was when he hurt his leg?” asked the journalist anxious for a story. “Nope, he pulled through that just fine.” said the farmer. “Though a while later, I was back in the woods when a bear attacked me. Well, sir, that pig was nearby and he came running and rammed that bear from behind and then chased him off. He saved me for sure.”
“Wow! So the bear injured his leg then?” questioned the reporter. “No. He came away without a scratch. Though a few days later, my tractor turned over in a ditch and I was knocked unconscious. Well, that pig dove into the ditch and pulled me out before I got cut up in the machinery.” “Ahh! So his leg got caught under the tactor?” asked the journalist. “Noooo. We both walked away from that one.” says the farmer.
“So how did he get the wooden leg?” asked the journalist. “Well”, the farmer replied, “A pig that good you don’t eat all at once!"
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.
all plant eating is killing too
Correct. Scientists have done studies on vibrations from plants and they have a reaction to being cut and pulled that could be equated to a “pain” response.
Let’s suppose that you actually genuinely care about reducing the amount of plant suffering in the world. If this is the case, surely you would be vegan, because 3/4 of our total agricultural land is used to grow plants to support animal agriculture. (Since grass feels pain just like soybeans do, this includes pasture land.) So far fewer plants would be killed if everyone was vegan.
Of course, you don’t actually live your life in a manner consistent with believing plants feel pain. I don’t think anyone would think twice about swerving into some flowers to avoid a dog in the street for fear of causing suffering to the flowers.
Do you have any idea how many animals and bugs suffer at the hands of your monocultures in to produce soybeans and tofu? They destroy the habitat, poison the ground and the water, and make it impossible for most things to live on vast tracks of land. They interrupt migration patterns of larger animals.
You guys must all be small scale organic farmers like me! Surely if you cared about all life so much, you would be doing more of your personal space to accommodate? Shall we analyze your diet Friend? Let us discuss what you were eating and how you are acquiring it.
Cmon let’s be real, again this is a very simple trophic levels thing. If you truly care about the suffering of all the field mice and bugs and whatever being killed in soybean monocultures, and their other various environmental harms, then surely you would be vegan, because 75% of all soybeans grown globally are used as animal feed. (Source)
75% of the weight of the crop is fed to animals, but 69% of the crop weight would be industrial waste if it wasn’t fed to animals. that’s a conservation of resources
If you truly care about the suffering of all the field mice and bugs
they’re saying they don’t and neither does anyone else. it’s a silly concern: animals die, and humans eat animals.
a soybean is about 20% oil. about 85% of all soybeans are pressed for oil, that leaves about 69% of the total soybean crop as industrial waste if it’s not fed to animals. another 7% is fed directly to livestock. only 7% of all soybeans are grown for animals.
far fewer plants would be killed if everyone was vegan.
I doubt this
That’s ok, totally understandable. Just read the comment again
still not convinced
How so? Have you seen the energy pyramid diagram?
The one I am referring to is specifically figure 2
much of what animals eat are parts of plants people can’t or won’t eat. I don’t actually believe any fewer plants would be harmed if people were vegan.
You’re talking to vegans not biologists or ecologists. They don’t have any idea how their food is grown, or what the ecosystem it’s grown in can support.
I’ll share your downvotes o7
Have you ever seen felines hunting? They are fucking psychos by your standards.
Judging ourselves by what animals do is a wild take. I guess we’ve just all broadly stopped caring about being human sometime around when “alpha males” became a serious topic of discussion in human behavior.
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.
I’ve heard a lot of the world’s worst people use that as an excuse to do the most horrible things, and I despair that so many people readily embrace it as a validation.
We are animals but we are different than every other animal, and we can be better and do better, and if holding yourself to a higher standard because you were born with sapience is too inconvenient, I’m sure there are some political and ideological groups out there who would love to have you.
edit: I regret spending any time responding to the obvious trolls in this post. Block and move on people. If you ever find yourself having to argue that we’re better than animals, you’re not arguing with someone participating in good faith.
Removed by mod
You sound insufferable
😎
I don’t engage with kids trying to troll, get lost.
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.
Have you ever seen felines hunting?
Devastating scenes. CW: I’m going to eat you little fishy
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.
Cats are neither human, nor do they boil their kills just because they can.
But, we all know they would if they could.
We don’t boil lobsters just because we can, but because we cook our food.
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.
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.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Fuck. What hope is there for my verbose replies then…
Curse the twittification tiktokification of our minds.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Yeah. I kinda like meat, but seriously. At least make it quick and/or painless, not torture.
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.
which animal can 100% agree with you on that? maybe crabs but even then maybe not
pain isn’t bad.
you are projecting your fear of pain onto other animals.
also you are implying animals that kill and ate other animals, are bad. there is no morality outside of human societies
Yes, and we humans clearly live outside of human societies and thus we shouldn’t hold ourselves to human moral standards.
It’s cute how we set ourselves apart from nature, and use terms like “humane” to mean better, refined, less brutal, yet the moment that notion might even slightly inconvenience us, then we’re just animals.
Humanity? Pfft, fuck that! We’re just animals. We’re like cats, or dolphins!
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Since you point out that there is (allegedly) morality in human societies, let’s try to act on it, no?
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.
Pretty poorly, all things considered.
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!
I like this
Honestly that seems pretty reasonable. Boiling things alive is pretty barbaric.
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.
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.
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.
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.
boiled potatoes are barbaric, agree. roasting and frying is the way to go
dumb
