Imagine trading places with a crustacean that’s going to be dunked in a boulder of boiling water. Not a pretty sight, is it? But while food safety principles encourages you to be hardcore about killing pathogens in food with extreme temperatures, you may want to think this one through. Especially when it comes to your seafood.
An expert told the AFP that lobster submerged in boiling water may still suffer for a few seconds before succumbing to death. Another series of experiments on crabs, meanwhile, showed that crabs had learned to avoid dark hiding places where they often receive electric shocks, giving truth to the argument that crustaceans are likely to feel pain.
The study, which was published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, also stated that crabs have learned to avoid the laboratory tank shelter where they usually took refuge and received electric shock.
“Results were showing that this is more than just a reflex. But the results are consistent with the presence of pain. Perhaps we should err on the side of caution,” study leader Bob Elwood of Queen’s University Belfast told the AFP.
Also, apparently, the delectable prawn, crab and lobster you order off the menu had been treated extremely before they land on your plate. And the cruelty starts at the rearing stage and when they were caught.
PETA.org said in a report that crustaceans can also feel stress from crowding, confinement and low oxygen levels in tanks. Invertebrate zoologist Jaren Horsley told PETA: “The lobster doesn’t have an autonomic nervous system that puts it into a state of shock when it is harmed. It probably feels itself being cut.
“I think the lobster is in a great deal of pain from being cut open… and feels all the pain until its nervous system is totally destroyed,” he said. PETA of course encourages people to switch to a vegetarian diet to avoid partaking in cruel animal cooking habits. If you can’t help eating seafood meat, learn how to choose the lesser evil of cooking seafood by enrolling in a Learn2Serve Texas Seafood HACCP Certification class.
