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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.
time to ban Halal slaughter now too!
https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/farm/slaughter/religiousslaughter
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.
This is a thing.
https://easycleancook.com/how-to-kill-a-lobster-before-you-cook-it/
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.
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