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.
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.
“A bobby at every table and a camera in every pot.”
- Liz Truss or something, idk UK politics
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 mean… its not really banning Halal slaughter.
Its adding a step to it.
Around 88% of animals slaughtered in the UK for Halal are stunned first. All animals slaughtered under the Shechita (for Kosher) are non-stunned.
Just gotta get that 88% up higher toward 100%, of stunning them (ie, obliterating their frontal lobe, I think?)… and also put that step into play for Kosher slaughter as well.
boiled potatoes are barbaric, agree. roasting and frying is the way to go
dumb
Culinary school recommended a quick kitchen knife through the brain immediately before boiling
Is the recommendation the same for other crustaceans?
Instead of boiling them alive, yes.
Lobsters are the one you are going to see alive most, though, as their meat breaks down very quickly after they die. That isn’t true of most other crustaceans, at least not to the same degree
I’ve seen crabs boiled alive, and shellfish like clams and oysters are steamed alive.
With the crabs you can snip them between the eyes for a quick death but I’m not sure what to do for a clam
I could be wrong, but I don’t believe that crabs flesh contains the enzymes that break it down the way lobsters do. I do believe you can buy fresh, dead crab at some markets.
But you should definitely kill any living ones before boiling
proof that their flesh is only held together by their immense psychic powers :)
The usual way of dispatching a lobster is a knife straight in the centre of the brain and cutting forward. Not sure why anyone would want a lobster to be alive when its actually cooked.
I thought lobsters don’t have a brain and instead have a decentralised nervous system?
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
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.
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.
After watching Seaspriacy on Netflix, I stopped eating seafood, with exception to dried seaweed.
what about fish?
Scratched fish off my list.
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.
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.
Yes agreed so lets just starve then, only proper thing to do
Just learn to photosynthesize like that guy obviously does
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.
Isn’t it time you checked in on Carol?
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.
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.
even Hitler banned it
That’s kinda interesting.
What reasoning did that govt. have?
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
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.
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.
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.
Honestly not missing much. I don’t get all the fuss, plenty of other seafood that imo tastes loads better.
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.
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.
So, how WOULD you kill it without pain?
Give them a shot of morphine first
Lol I could see this becoming a delicacy- lobster that gets you high when you eat it
Ikr. They stopped the lobsters from being slowly boiled alive but not their own citizens lol
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.
It’s about as massive a thing as plastic straws and that annyoing little tab in all caps now.
Watching carnists try to discuss animal welfare while their own cognitive dissonance is constantly triggering is creepy as fuck.
this is nonsensical gibberish.
I assure you I can precisely define every word I just used, and even provide corroborating third party definitions. Perhaps you are struggling under the very cognitive dissonance I mentioned. Perhaps like most people you are living in denial.
what is the term for being condescending, while also being wrong?
You dare not make a claim that can actually be challenged lest you be proven wrong. Go ahead. Ask me to define something.
merry christmas, jerkface
I like this
LET’S GOOO
Coming from Halifax, I always gave them a quick knife through head before tossing them in the pot.
Some folks said that you can also kill them relatively humanely by sticking them in the freezer.
I would say freezing to death is not humane, slow and low (freezing) would suck way more than a quick off switch. Boiling them is just a dick move imo
Pretty sure that a slowing metabolism in cold water is pretty usual for lobsters.
We should not humanize animals with very different live cycles. Farming figs is cruel by some measure since the fig wasps live cycle would constitute abhorrent torture by our standards.
I was speculating mostly. Wouldn’t freezing them mean that they are still alive when you boil them and they would suffer even more? I know some creatures are resilient like that so I’m not sure.
Regardless, I wasn’t trying to humanize them rather looking at what would be the quickest way to dispatch an animal that would be not only efficient but less cruel?
I would expect the metabolism to adjust too slowly, but do not know. You are throwing them into boiling water after all.
This doesn’t kill the crab
