So boiling lobsters alive save us from a world of pain, but what about the lobsters? For starters, lobsters don't scream when you boil them. In fact, they lack lungs and don't even have the proper biological equipment to form a scream. What you hear is air and steam escaping from the shells of their simmering suppers.
Most likely, yes, say animal welfare advocates. Lobsters belong to a family of animals known as decapod crustaceans that also includes crabs, prawns, and crayfish.
Lobsters don't have vocal cords, and even if in agony, they cannot vocalise. The high pitched sound made by an overheating lobster is caused by expanding air rushing out of small holes in lobsters' bodies, like a whistle being blown. A dead lobster will “scream” just as loudly as if it was living.
Horsley PhD. Scientists have found that it can take lobsters between 35 – 45 seconds to die when plunged into a pot of boiling water — and if they are dismembered their nervous system can still function for up to an hour.
Lobsters Can't Go Into Shock
Zoologists have found that, unlike humans and other animals, a lobster's nervous system does not shut down when exposed to extreme pain or suffering.
Head First into Boiling Water
Hold the lobster around the middle to avoid those claws and put it head first into the water. It will die quickly. Boiling water is also the best way to cook the lobster so you can leave it in there and carry on the cooking process.
Freeze the lobster for 30 to 60 minutes, then put it in the pot of boiling water head-first. While the boiling water, rather than the freezer, will kill it almost instantly, the cold will immobilize the lobster so it won't thrash about.
Freezing Live Lobsters: Just Don't Do It
Safety aside, freezing and thawing lobster prior to cooking it will lead to enzymes leaching into the meat, resulting in a mushy, unappetizing texture.
However, lots of chefs freeze their lobsters, then kill them before cooking – as an alternative method that kills the bacteria in the same way. And, in fact, many industry experts are actually welcoming the proposed legislation to ban boiling living lobsters – as it seems unnecessary.
Lobsters live in the ocean, not in a lake…so they are most comfortable in their native home: saltwater. Lobsters should never be placed in freshwater (or really, even saltwater that's not oxygenated). Fresh water will kill the lobster. But they can live up to 24 hours out of the water, if cared for properly.
While mammals and birds possess the prerequisite neural architecture for phenomenal consciousness, it is concluded that fish lack these essential characteristics and hence do not feel pain.
What about Australia? Switzerland is not the first place to ban boiling live lobsters; it's already illegal in New Zealand and in the Italian city of Reggio Emilia. In several Australian states, including New South Wales, fish and crustaceans are included in animal cruelty laws.
Boiling them alive has been described as “unnecessary torture” by a researcher in the journal Science, and lobsters who endure this cruel fate have been known to writhe wildly and scrape at the sides of the pot in a desperate attempt to escape from the scalding-hot water.
In fact, boiling lobsters alive has been outlawed in the United States since at least 1999.
Plunging them into boiling water, freezing them or 'drowning' them in fresh water are not humane.
An adult lobster can lay up to 100,000 eggs, depending on the size of the female. The female carries her fertilized eggs externally under her tail, attached to her swimmerets, for a period of 9 to 12 months.
Most lobsters that you see in a grocery store or at a restaurant are at least 5-7 years old and weigh about 1-2 pounds. But lobsters can be much bigger and much older. They could live to be over 100 years old!
Many people have heard that boiling crustaceans alive is a painful and inhumane way to kill a crab or lobster and this is backed up by many convincing studies as well as physical evidence such as animals dropping their limbs and writhing around before dying.
From an animal welfare perspective, Tensen says electrical stunning followed by a swift and precise chop through the lobster's 13 nerve centres (spanning the central length of its body, from the tail to between the eyes) is the way to go. The electrical shock stops all neural activity within half a second.
But thankfully chefs can take steps to minimize the risk. One of those ways? Boiling lobsters alive. Turns out, those unusual tanks of live lobsters in restaurants isn't just there so you can have a plate of fresh lobster.
After letting them freeze, the lobsters were then thawed in 28-degree sea water. The result was that only two came back to life out of thirty lobsters. Isn't that surprising?
Yes, apparently lobsters can live for a very long time. Scientists have found that lobsters don't show signs of aging, which could mean that a lobster may live forever if it's not killed or malnourished. The oldest captive lobster on record was 140 years of age.
Lobsters and other shellfish have harmful bacteria naturally present in their flesh. Once the lobster is dead, these bacteria can rapidly multiply and release toxins that may not be destroyed by cooking.