- cross-posted to:
- unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
- cross-posted to:
- unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
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.
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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.
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.
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.
what are you talking about. bacon and chicken wings are cheap. almost every other desirable cut of pig/chicken is more expensive. chicken wings are often 1-2 dollars a lb.
At my grocery store, pork tenderloin and chicken wings are $6/lb, and pork shoulder or chicken breasts are $3/lb. Bacon starts at $5/lb for the scraps.
where i live chicken breasts are 8 dollars a lb. bacon is like 5 bucks for really nice stuff. chicken wings are 2 bucks. thighs are 6 dollars. pork tenderloin is 9.
Where are you getting wings that cheap? They’re usually like $3-4 a lb in the south and bacon is usually $6+ a lb…only if you grab it in bulk does bacon go down to like $3.50ish and you’re buying the rejection stuff that doesn’t look pretty but still tastes fine.
the grocery store.
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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Good. This may seem like a joke now but slowly over decades people will stop doing this.
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
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.
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.
Culinary school recommended a quick kitchen knife through the brain immediately before boiling
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).]
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.
Cause it’s a stupid fucking argument.
If consumption of plants is unethical extinction of life is the only moral choice.
Isn’t it time you checked in on Carol?
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
You can have more than one law being established at once.
There has been systematic reduction in the humanities/philosophy, arts, literature etc. In countries. The affect it has is a society focused on work and compliance with status quo. (The USA is actively destroying their own system purposly)
A law ending cruelty should be celebrated as a glimmer of hope that we as a society are still capably of thinking at a higher level, that we are still questioning life, and meanings around it. If we cease to do those things we will be a dead automata society that lives only to work.
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.
Most people don’t cook lobster and those that do cook it once a year.
No, they don’t know how to kill a lobster. They buy it at the store, it sits in the fridge for half a day or two an they toss in in boiling water.
I feel like most people who actually cook live lobsters know what they are doing. Who else buys a live lobster?
Anyone with a few bucks and a grocery store nearby that carries them? I am happy to say that this is pretty rare. As a kid in the 90’s it felt like every grocery store had live lobsters for sale.
My middle school home economics teacher told us the story of her cooking lobster for the first time. She thought they killed them for you when you get them at the grocery store.
She got home and opened the bag to find two live lobsters. The only pot she had big enough was glass. She watched those two lobsters boil to death and never had lobster again.
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
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.
This is how I found out that lobsters don’t have a single centralized brain like humans do.
Lobster as Lemmy mascot when?
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
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
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.
Yeah they also do things like that with other animals also, the point of the legislation is we have science showing animals (and fish also after bad science before) feel pain. And we are far enough in history where we can be a kinder species.
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 about as massive a thing as plastic straws and that annyoing little tab in all caps now.
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.
Please stop using "even Hitler … " It just doesn’t work.
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.
even Hitler banned it
That’s kinda interesting.
What reasoning did that govt. have?
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.
I like this
Good!
After watching Seaspriacy on Netflix, I stopped eating seafood, with exception to dried seaweed.
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.
I’m all for this but how are they going to enforce it on a consumer level?
