• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Do Lobsters Suffer When Boiled?

So just reeling this back to the original question of whether or not Lobsters suffer when boiled.....
Has any sort of empirical testing of any sort been done to provide an answer or is all the discussion based on assumption?
And how did it come about in the first place, and then become accepted as the 'standard', that plunging the Lobster into boiling water (or the Boiling Water Method or 'BWM' as I am now calling it) was the best (or least worst) way of cooking them?
Who was the first person to decide to cook a whole Lobster in this BWM way rather than dispatching it first with a well aimed blow from something most likely rather sharp?
And did the BWM exist beforehand for other shellfish and then was just adopted for Lobster too?
And have any similar decapods been tested to see if they suffer in the BWM too?

I know that there is a common 'survival' cooking method if you are near geothermal vents that you can tie a string around a joint of meat and drop it into the extremely hot water to cook it. Maybe this was something that brought about the BWM for shellfish too?
 
Cochise said:
So how do you explain the mass volunteering at the start of WW1, the white feathers dished out by 'ladies' to those who didn't want to kill. It wasn't fear because the popular opinion was that it would be a cakewalk.

Maybe we are herd animals? If the leader of the herd decides on violence are we powerless to resist?

The animal is there in (nearly) all of us. Maybe if we were better at recognising it we'd be less easily led to slaughter.
Click to expand...
I think people volunteered to fight in both world wars for an abstraction of survival, it was about the survival of the nation rather than their own person, a fear of losing their lives and the lives of their loved ones if we were invaded.
 
Souleater said:
I think people volunteered to fight in both world wars for an abstraction of survival, it was about the survival of the nation rather than their own person, a fear of losing their lives and the lives of their loved ones if we were invaded.
Click to expand...

We were in no danger whatsoever in WW1. Until we joined in, obviously. We are gullible saps who can be roused to kill on the say-so of a newspaper.

'Thou shalt not kill'. Apparently except if the state asks you to.

edit: To be clear, I would kill to defend my family. It's the way throughout history that people have been stirred up to kill for the interests of their overlords that fills me with anger. Of course the overlords try and convince you its to save your nearest and dearest. My Grandad saw through that in WW1 - in the trenches - and I guess he's handed it down to me. WW2 - well, different case. There was a genuine threat there, even though it was the consequence of WW1.
 
Last edited:
Cochise said:
'Thou shalt not kill'. Apparently except if the state asks you to.
Click to expand...

“…the King James Version's "Thou shalt not kill" is too broad to convey the sense of the Hebrew of the sixth command. The word used is ratsach [רָצַח] which does not refer to killing in general, but to the premeditated murder of one person by another.

Thus, it is not proper to build a case against war or capital punishment upon the basis of this verse. These activities may indeed be condemned on biblical grounds, but this verse should only be a tertiary part of the evidence.”

https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/bakers-evangelical-dictionary/ten-commandments.html

maximus otter
 
Trevp666 said:
So just reeling this back to the original question of whether or not Lobsters suffer when boiled.....
Has any sort of empirical testing of any sort been done to provide an answer or is all the discussion based on assumption?
And how did it come about in the first place, and then become accepted as the 'standard', that plunging the Lobster into boiling water (or the Boiling Water Method or 'BWM' as I am now calling it) was the best (or least worst) way of cooking them?
Who was the first person to decide to cook a whole Lobster in this BWM way rather than dispatching it first with a well aimed blow from something most likely rather sharp?
And did the BWM exist beforehand for other shellfish and then was just adopted for Lobster too?
And have any similar decapods been tested to see if they suffer in the BWM too?

I know that there is a common 'survival' cooking method if you are near geothermal vents that you can tie a string around a joint of meat and drop it into the extremely hot water to cook it. Maybe this was something that brought about the BWM for shellfish too?
Click to expand...
It's a difficult question. I have read this good (but difficult) book recently:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/313935/anxious-by-joseph-ledoux/

It's difficult to determine what rats feel and think. And it's difficult to translate that to humans.
It's even difficult to determine what humans feel and think consciously or unconsciously:

LeDoux’s groundbreaking premise is that we’ve been thinking about fear and anxiety in the wrong way. These are not innate states waiting to be unleashed from the brain, but experiences that we assemble cognitively. Treatment of these problems must address both their conscious manifestations and underlying non-conscious processes.
 
uair01 said:
LeDoux’s groundbreaking premise is that we’ve been thinking about fear and anxiety in the wrong way. These are not innate states waiting to be unleashed from the brain, but experiences that we assemble cognitively. Treatment of these problems must address both their conscious manifestations and underlying non-conscious processes.
Click to expand...

wow! just wow! brilliant! Thank you @uair01
 
uair01 said:
It's even difficult to determine what humans feel and think consciously or unconsciously:
Click to expand...
Indeed - people with 'locked in syndrome' who are incapable of communication AFAIK are only able to give any sense of their thoughts through eye-movement at best.
I think there have been experimental things done with placing electrodes in the head to measure brain activity to enable some sort of feedback too.
But if we have so much difficulty gaining an insight into the thoughts and feelings of our own species, I can't begin to imagine how much more difficult that can be on any other species.
 
Trevp666 said:
So just reeling this back to the original question of whether or not Lobsters suffer when boiled.....
Has any sort of empirical testing of any sort been done to provide an answer or is all the discussion based on assumption?
And how did it come about in the first place, and then become accepted as the 'standard', that plunging the Lobster into boiling water (or the Boiling Water Method or 'BWM' as I am now calling it) was the best (or least worst) way of cooking them?
Who was the first person to decide to cook a whole Lobster in this BWM way rather than dispatching it first with a well aimed blow from something most likely rather sharp?
And did the BWM exist beforehand for other shellfish and then was just adopted for Lobster too?
And have any similar decapods been tested to see if they suffer in the BWM too?

I know that there is a common 'survival' cooking method if you are near geothermal vents that you can tie a string around a joint of meat and drop it into the extremely hot water to cook it. Maybe this was something that brought about the BWM for shellfish too?
Click to expand...

I suspect the BWM originated way back in the past as the best way to ensure your seafood was fresh; we all know how bad food poisoning from seafood can be, and in the days before refrigeration, it would make sense to keep everything alive until the last possible moment.
 
Fluttermoth said:
I suspect the BWM originated way back in the past as the best way to ensure your seafood was fresh; we all know how bad food poisoning from seafood can be, and in the days before refrigeration, it would make sense to keep everything alive until the last possible moment.
Click to expand...
Exactly ... Lobsters and other shellfish are often carriers of bacteria that can proliferate to seriously toxic levels and / or cause toxic changes in the "meat" within a short time following the shellfish's death. As a result, shellfish must be cooked not only thoroughly but also quickly following death.
 
So I think we can all agree on that then - that fully cooking any shellfish, as soon as possible after death, is the desired option if being consumed.
Also then, by extension, that the BWM is 'the soonest after death' that can be achieved, as it is the BWM that does the despatching.
 
Trevp666 said:
So I think we can all agree on that then - that fully cooking any shellfish, as soon as possible after death, is the desired option if being consumed.
Also then, by extension, that the BWM is 'the soonest after death' that can be achieved, as it is the BWM that does the despatching.
Click to expand...
I agree with the first part, but the second part (BWM = soonest method) is a matter of debate. Some argue that the lobster should be expeditiously killed first and then put in the boiling water.

This raises the problem of how to quickly dispatch a lobster. One common suggestion is to pith the lobster by cutting into its "brain." However, the lobster equivalent of a brain is a string of ganglia - making it difficult to determine when this multi-node neural system is effectively killed. I've seen claims that electrocution is sometimes used for the initial kill.
 
So if we are unable to determine which is the quickest way to dispatch a lobster, and any method (other than BWM) will lead to a time interval between dispatch and cooking, then although possibly (undetermined at present) suffering might occur, for consumption purposes the BWM is the safest, is not necessarily the most humane, way for the lobster to meet it's maker.
 
Again, another thing that I am not ever going to see talked about on any other website anywhere ever.
I'm sure I've got better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than to discuss the best way to create a carked crustacean.

Hmm...evidently not though.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Exactly ... Lobsters and other shellfish are often carriers of bacteria that can proliferate to seriously toxic levels and / or cause toxic changes in the "meat" within a short time following the shellfish's death. As a result, shellfish must be cooked not only thoroughly but also quickly following death.
Click to expand...

Fermentation is an alternative to cooking.

I've eaten this dozens of times--no toxic poisoning yet!

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

Koreans call it 'rice-thief' because it's so moreish that one is inclined to keep on shovelling more rice into it to consume.
 
Well, she loved a bit of lobster.
Like Jayne Mansfield.
 
Yeah, people can look that one up, this is a family friendly thread after all.....
 
The most successful humans/proto-humans were omnivores as they were less likely to starve if one type of food fell into short supply. Their offspring were more likely to survive, grow into adulthood and reproduce, passing on those traits.

We can thrive on a purely plant-based diet, but we have the tools to eat meat if that becomes necessary for survival because our ancestors had them.

I'm not vegetarian by the way, but I eat hardly any meat as MrsCarlos is vegan so we don't have it in the house. I might have meat if we're out for a meal but I'm really fussy about where it comes from, and I pretty much always go for a veggie option now.

And I really don't care what other people eat, life's way too short - but I do find it bizarre that someone would eat something knowing a creature had suffered for that meal, when there are other options available.
 
I will submit that almost any method of killing an animal (by which I mean a member of kingdom Animalia) and leaving it safe to be consumed will be painful, and - assuming they do feel pain - lobsters do present a challenge as to what would be the least painful. I am still not convinced that anything would be quicker and less traumatic than BWM for a lobster, which has a distinctly different biological makeup compared to mammals.

As to the general morality of eating - and killing - animals, I am reminded of a fellow named Fort who saw everything as existing on a continuum. It's a multidimensional continuum at that. Some of us draw the line at animals, and others at a certain level of animal complexity. I think there must be some animals that are stupider than the most "intelligent" plants, so we all set our own multidimensional limits as to what we eat, what we feel comfortable killing (or having killed for us), how they're killed, and why we don't do that to the others. All this is to minimize, not eliminate, what we inflict on the living world.

I used to eat octopus, but as I became more familiar with how intelligent they are (sorry to bring that up, SimonBurchell) I decided they didn't taste good enough to justify killing them. I don't criticize anyone who feels differently. I don't think pigs or cows are much dumber, but I still eat them. Maybe someday I'll change my mind. By the way, I certainly don't subscribe to the arbitrary classification of some animals as friends and some as food, based on little more than tradition: I have no problem with eating horses - or cats or dogs for that matter - even though I don't personally choose to do so.

There is also the matter of cultural differences when it comes to the humane killing of our food; one need look no further than the original Iron Chef show to see this. The octopus episode was filled with the creatures being butchered alive, and with body parts writhing long after being removed. (Fans of the show used to award episodes like this "PETA points".) In an special international episode the Japanese commentators were confused as to why the American chef was killing his lobsters with a knife to the brain before chopping them up. They thought it would be detrimental to the taste. I also once saw a Japanese show about food at weekend vacation spas, which included a shot of a whole fish, filleted and made into sashimi which was put back on the carcass which still had quivering gills.
 
maximus otter said:
“…the King James Version's "Thou shalt not kill" is too broad to convey the sense of the Hebrew of the sixth command. The word used is ratsach [רָצַח] which does not refer to killing in general, but to the premeditated murder of one person by another.

Thus, it is not proper to build a case against war or capital punishment upon the basis of this verse. These activities may indeed be condemned on biblical grounds, but this verse should only be a tertiary part of the evidence.”

https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/bakers-evangelical-dictionary/ten-commandments.html

maximus otter
Click to expand...
Yes, but I'm not Hebrew. 'Thou shalt not kill" is pretty plain to me. And the intent is made fairly clear throughout the New Testament. Going to war is not something Christians should do, except figuratively. That's why Christian saints martyr themselves instead of fighting back.

Anyway, I would agree that it doesn't refer to lobsters. :)
 
Cochise said:
Yes, but I'm not Hebrew. 'Thou shalt not kill" is pretty plain to me. And the intent is made fairly clear throughout the New Testament. Going to war is not something Christians should do, except figuratively. That's why Christian saints martyr themselves instead of fighting back.

Anyway, I would agree that it doesn't refer to lobsters. :)
Click to expand...

If we're going all Biblical, then the only marine animals that are permitted for consumption are fish:

"Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams you may eat any that have fins and scales. But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales—whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water—you are to regard as unclean.”
Leviticus 11:9-10
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
If we're going all Biblical, then the only marine animals that are permitted for consumption are fish:

"Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams you may eat any that have fins and scales. But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales—whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water—you are to regard as unclean.”
Leviticus 11:9-10
Click to expand...
Again, I'm not Hebrew and the New Testament makes it clear that the rules in Leviticus do not apply to Gentiles. Neither do I have to wear plaid nor have battlements on my house. And, to my great joy, I can eat bacon.
 
Do we even know if Moses was even aware of the existence of Lobsters though?
And how accurate is the translation into English from the ancient language Leviticus was written in anyways?
(Would that have been Hebrew or Aramaic?)
The original text might have actually meant 'Don't eat whales or otters' for all we know.
 
Trevp666 said:
Do we even know if Moses was even aware of the existence of Lobsters though?
And how accurate is the translation into English from the ancient language Leviticus was written in anyways?
(Would that have been Hebrew or Aramaic?)
The original text might have actually meant 'Don't eat whales or otters' for all we know.
Click to expand...

Which was my point.
If scriptural proclamations on diet are unreliable, then quoting "Thou shalt not kill" to claim that war can never be justified, is also questionable.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Which was my point.
If scriptural proclamations on diet are unreliable, then quoting "Thou shalt not kill" to claim that war can never be justified, is also questionable.
Click to expand...
You don't like boiling lobsters but you are happy for people to kill thousands because their overlords want more power?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top