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.
Lobsters eat each other.
What’s more cruel?
Boiled for 35-45 seconds before death?
Or
Being crushed and dismembered bit by bit, being gnawed on, for many minutes, and possibly even being left in parts, to suffer on for longer yet, after the other lobster had its fill?
When I eat prawns, I often think of this, often putting it context how I’m not doing anything they don’t do to each other, simply meaning they know how tasty they are, and eat each other… but seeing this, makes me realise how much less cruel what I’m doing to them is, than they do to each other.
I’m open to even more humane ways to dispatch them, of course, not resting on any “lesser evil” fallacy, but also, lets not remove this context entirely.
Also, while we’re talking context…
The government in the UK, last decade, committed assault and fraud, dereliction of duty of care, torturing and starving and denying medication, transport, and nearly every human right, to the disabled poor, propagandising against them to drum up hate with more fraud, to cull over 130,000 people in a very slow cruel way. So it’s a little rich to think these tories (no matter if blue, yellow, or red), now “care”. Those who were Killing people over durations often into the months and years of suffering, are now concerned for lobsters suffering for seconds?
I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs, a very endearing sight, I’m sure you’ll agree. And even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half submerged log.
As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature’s wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children.
And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.
Lord Vetinari in Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett
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.
But their feelings!
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.
Ikr. They stopped the lobsters from being slowly boiled alive but not their own citizens lol
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.
Worked at Red Lobster back in the 90s. The cook would just flip it over, split it down the middle and gut it. 5 seconds, it’s dead as a rock.
Maybe the citizens have been asking for them to deal with lobbyists and they just misheard
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’s a fucking bug! Boil it and eat the shit already.
I worked at Red Lobster for a number of years as a young’un. A large part of my work in the prep kitchen initially (after I graduated from the dish ring) was to slice live Maine lobs in half to make “princess lobsters” (half a lobster with body cavity stuffed with yummy). These stupid bugs are no more sentient than a cockroach that you smash with a shoe.
Why would anyone spend even a second considering the feelings of a fucking bug?!
The science would tend to disagree with you.
All the evidence points to the fact that lobsters do feel pain in the same way humans do. As they’re being boiled alive they release significant amounts of cortisol, the same as us.
Bug or not, it is sentient. If we are going to insist on eating them then we have a moral responsibility to minimise their suffering before we do.
The same? That’s a completely unbelievable conclusion to reach. The priorities of some people seems like mental illness to me.
Humans and other mammals release cortisol as part of the pain response.
So do lobsters.
They feel pain when they are boiled alive.
That alone should be enough information for a sane person to think “huh, if they feel pain maybe I should put in a small amount of effort to make sure they don’t suffer when I kill them” instead of trying to justify why it’s ok and use thinly veiled insults aimed at those of us who don’t think animals suffering from avoidable pain is acceptable.
Disregarding the pain of something just because it doesnt have a cute face or fur is far more evidence of mental illness tbh.
The presence of cortisol does not mean that the experience of pain is equitable between humans and lobsters.
It certainly indicates it. It’s certainly a much more plausible explanation than not feeling anything. Fucking strawman argument so thst you can, what, save 2 minutes of your time and not have to kill it humanely?
No, it doesn’t indicate that. It only shows that cortisol is present in both, it doesn’t conclude anything about the subjective experience. You can’t even say ‘pain’ is what the lobster experiences, or what the nature of lobster experience even is. Even humans don’t all feel pain the same way, some even enjoy the experience.
Because people have gone just as far to the left as those to the right. Meanwhile the rest of us are just trying to live our lives with what little we have yet somehow everything we do to make our living easier is an inconvenience to those on both extremes.
