Campaigners call for boiling alive of crabs and lobsters to be banned

[Tinykong]

I've cooked for almost 20 years and can tell you, that it won't matter.

Okay, but, you're wrong.

[Orange Joe]

Reading comprehension

Not one of those titles means a dam thing.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaela_Strachan


She has no actual education that matters.

[belfpala]

I myself am in favour of said ban

Are you cool if I lobotomize them with a quick knife stroke first?

That's the other option.

And, in my opinion, lobsters are literally just sea roaches. I have no problem cooking them alive. It makes good stock too.

[PACOX]

Honestly couldn't care less if they are being killed for food. Whatever makes the preparer and consumer happy. Prey animals can meet far worse deaths.

[Izalla]

Are you cool if I lobotomize them with a quick knife stroke first?

That's the other option.

And, in my opinion, lobsters are literally just sea roaches. I have no problem cooking them alive. It makes good stock too.

I feel like spraying poison onto smaller bugs is about as horrifying as boiling a lobster. Do we only care because they are way bigger? Sure kids burning ants with magnifying glasses is certainly questionable but that's because the kid seems to enjoy burning things to death for the sake of it... Anyone who wants to crack open a lobster and try to identify the organs and find the brain stem can go right ahead, but everything I've ever seen in that body cavity is green paste so good luck.

[Vash The Stampede]

Stupid when you realize that we do far worse things to other animals. All you're doing by supporting this is increasing the cost of food. Also, nobody cares what a bunch of celebrities think today. Nobody outside of California will either. If celebrities wanted to do something that really helped, then they should donate their wealth to help us progress in laboratory meat. No death. No chemicals. Less resources. More food.

[s_bushido]

All you're doing by supporting this is increasing the cost of food.

I find it hard to believe that having to kill the thing right before cooking it takes that much more effort/time than killing it by cooking it.

[Tholl]

Okay, but, you're wrong.

How so?

What you described with the wet towel and fridge is cutting off their oxygen supply until they are almost dead. Its not slowing down a metabolism due to cold. As I said, they live in waters that are colder than a fridge. The towel/fridge trick is a myth.

So how is slowly 'torturing' them until they are almost dead from not breathing, then throwing them in a steamer better than just taking them from a tank and throwing them in a steamer?

[Tinykong]

How so?

What you described with the wet towel and fridge is cutting off their oxygen supply until they are almost dead. Its not slowing down a metabolism due to cold. As I said, they live in waters that are colder than a fridge. The towel/fridge trick is a myth.

So how is slowly 'torturing' them until they are almost dead from not breathing, then throwing them in a steamer better than just taking them from a tank and throwing them in a steamer?

It's not a myth, it's something I have done myself many times, as well as professional chefs have recommended in various media forms.

An article linked elsewhere in the thread also referenced the study in which lobsters were chilled and the response to stimuli was noted, and the colder they were, the less responsive they were.

In other words:

you're wrong.

[Fargus]

Just my opinion here, but I think this is a waste of resources and time.

How? This kind of thing costs little to nothing in the grand scheme of things... considering how wasteful governments are already, you're saying that being more humane to animals is one of them?

We are the only species on the planet that has removed itself from the food chain.

But we haven't. A shark can still kill you. So can a crocodile and a tiger, given the right circumstances.

Do you know how life ends for everything else on this planet? It either gets ripped apart by other species and devoured while still alive, or it gets eaten outright. (I'm looking at you insects).

Naturalistic fallacy.

People need to stop with this stuff.

Yeah! Let's stop being kinder to the animals we eat!

Anyways my point...

Crab and lobster taste good, even though they are just bugs of the sea.

Keep eating them.

Its either going to be you throwing them in a steamer, or something in the wild leaving them crippled for life, and or eaten.

What point?

You're arguing the point as if they're banning the eating of lobster and crab entirely. Using a "dead is dead" argument is just dumb. When you need to kill an animal, you don't torture it, you do it as humanely as possible. That's how it should be done, that these animals might die a worse death in the wild is completely irrelevant.

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I am much less concerned with how an animal is killed than with how it is treated while alive.

This is an oxymoron.

What the animal feels before the moment of death is suggestive of how it's treated while still alive.

[meowfurion]

http://www.itv.com/news/2018-01-31/c...-to-be-banned/



I myself am in favour of said ban

"I don't like a thing, so therefore I want nobody to be able to do it."

Let's ban sharks from eating fish alive.

Let's ban tigers from chasing down baby gazelles, biting their throats until their blood drains out and they die slowly and painfully, and then being eaten.

Let's ban crocodiles from snatching a deer off the side of a river and eating it alive.

Let's ban monkeys from killing the weakest of their troop and eating them.

I feel pain when people like you post forum topics like this. Can we implement policy to ban you from posting? My feelings matter.

Let's implement worldwide sweeping policies, limiting people's individual freedoms, all because you watched too many Disney movies as a child and your 'feelings' should dictate other people's lives.

Everything you propose is the very essence of fascism and dictatorships.

[Usernameforforums]

You are supposed to do a quick slice from behind head towards before boiling. This is what most japanese and french restaurants do.

[Fargus]

After educating myself on Google, lobsters apparently like bugs, don't have a brain and only a primitive nervous system like grasshoppers.
So they probably don't feel much pain, if any.

Based on what scientific literature?

As for the bolded, haha what?

People are denying facts to make themselves feel less guilty. This reminds me of centuries old studies where people stated dogs don't feel pain. Now, if we don't know... why not give them the benefit of the doubt then?

[MatadorMedia]

So cut their head off first? No big deal there.

[Fargus]

Everything you propose is the very essence of fascism and dictatorships.

Invoking cruelty laws that make the death of an animal less painful is fascism? Hahahaha. Now I've heard it all.

Let's implement worldwide sweeping policies, limiting people's individual freedoms, all because you watched too many Disney movies as a child and your 'feelings' should dictate other people's lives.

I should have the freedom to boil a dog alive then, like they do in China on the belief that the meat tastes better because of it. Mah freedumbs are at stake otherwise.

[Strawberry]

Based on what scientific literature?

As for the bolded, haha what?

People are denying facts to make themselves feel less guilty. This reminds me of centuries old studies where people stated dogs don't feel pain. Now, if we don't know... why not give them the benefit of the doubt then?

There's a bunch of information out here, but here's a quote from one of the articles I read:

After all, their brains aren’t much more complex than an insect’s. They only have a hundred thousand neurons, and no true centralized brain. They’ve got a set of ganglia (which is like a smaller, less organized brain made up of far fewer neurons) spread throughout their body. In terms of mental capacity, there’s a decent argument to be made that lobsters and crabs are just big bugs.

[Puri]

I don't really care, since here eating crabs and lobsters is rather unusual.
But since there is no drawback in killing them before boiling them and even if there is a tiny chance they feel the pain there is no reason not to outlaw this.

[Fargus]

I myself am in favour of said ban

Me too. I agree with stronger animal cruelty laws. No one is going to have their precious lobsters taken away from them; it's only a legal requirement to do one or two extra steps prior to cooking. That's it. And for some reason, people are angry about treating animals more humanely. The amount of stupidity on this thread is hilarious. "They're taking away our freedoms, those fascists", "it's going to cost more now", "they don't feel pain", "they're just sea bugs", etc. Ridiculous, nonsensical arguments.

Anyone who is arguing that they feel nothing when you put them in boiling water is arguing either out of indifference or for convenience's sake. Do they feel pain like humans do? Probably not, but then again, how many animals do? You can't exactly know for sure unless they can communicate it to you, verbally.

Personally, I think the practice is horrendous. I don't think any animal should be boiled alive before you eat it. Not when you can render it insensible pretty quickly. Many chefs do it that way, not because it's a legal requirement, but because they have principles. Sadly lacking in this thread with some people.

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There's a bunch of information out here, but here's a quote from one of the articles I read:

What scientific paper is that from? That looks like an opinion piece. That quote doesn't even conclude that they don't feel pain... if they have to say "probably don't" then it's not exactly conclusive is it?

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Make it illegal to step on ants or spray poison on spiders. There is no evidence, AFAIK, to suggest these creatures even process pain.

You might want to dig a little deeper, then. This article from the Journal of Experimental Biology throws that up in the air.

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I am waiting to see where it says "These celebrities have found conclusive proof and have had it peer reviewed for study by unbiased sources that lobsters do indeed feel pain."

Until then, it's still just something people are saying and still haven't proven. I could say the sky is purple six thousand times, get a degree and continue saying it, and the sky would still not be purple no matter how hard I insisted it.

Actually, scientists are saying that they might.

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Unless they put a camera in my house, how the hell would they know how I prepare my food?

Also, it is safer for us to boil them alive.

http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa/why-a...they-feel-pain

So Gordon Ramsay has been doing it all wrong when he killed them first before chucking them into the pot? One of the best chefs in the world who, as you'd be aware of, is extra strict about cleanliness when it comes to preparation of food?

Give me a break. If you kill the lobster first then cook it straight after, there's no danger of that happening. I've done it hundreds of times, and I've never fallen ill and neither have my friends and family.

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And that's another thing. People are essentially getting upset over the treatment of overgrown waterbugs. It's the same kind of dumbass sentiment that lead to horses becoming a 'pet' animal rather than what it should be. But nope, white girls saw the dog food and glue markets and were like 'omg my ponies!'.

Speaking of dumbasses (hint: lobsters aren't bugs)...

Heaven forbid people are concerned about an animal suffering if they're to take its life! No, the sentiment comes from people who actually aren't sociopaths and have a respect for animals other than cats and dogs. What should a horse be? What the hell are you talking about? You make no sense at all.

[Sunseeker]

This is an oxymoron.

What the animal feels before the moment of death is suggestive of how it's treated while still alive.

No, that's really not true.

[Fargus]

No, that's really not true.

But it is.

Technically speaking, the animal is alive when you start the process of killing it (depending on what the process is). If it's a long and painful one, it's going to feel all that happening to it as it's still alive. That means you're abusing it, treating it with cruelty until its final breath.

That's why I called your statement an oxymoron. Don't pretend that there's somehow no link with killing an animal, and how you treat the animal when it's still alive... because I gave you a clear example of one.