this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2025
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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.

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[–] Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 174 points 1 week ago (9 children)

Honestly that seems pretty reasonable. Boiling things alive is pretty barbaric.

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[–] Drahngis@feddit.dk 148 points 1 week ago (48 children)

It frightens me that we can't 100% agree that boiling a living thing that feels pain, is bad.

Humans are the worst.

[–] kami@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago (35 children)

Have you ever seen felines hunting? They are fucking psychos by your standards.

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[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago

Yeah. I kinda like meat, but seriously. At least make it quick and/or painless, not torture.

[–] dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

which animal can 100% agree woth you on that? maybe crabs but even then maybe not

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[–] citizensongbird@lemmy.world 65 points 1 week ago (6 children)

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.

[–] exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 45 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago (8 children)

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.

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[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 week ago

This doesn't kill the crab

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (4 children)

From what I've been told lobsters will release a toxin if not killed properly. Boiling alive is/was the easiest way to do it and thus widely adopted especially at consumer level.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Quickly in the sense that bacterial growth on them becomes toxic within a far shorter time than other things we eat. Bacteria isn't growing in the 10 seconds it takes to kill them and then dump into the pot. Just don't leave them laying around for a long time.

[–] shane@feddit.nl 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Apparently it's not easy to kill lobsters. They don't have a single brain that you can drive a nail through like mammals, AFAIK.

One of the researchers who showed that lobsters feel pain recommended freezing them as the best available method, but maybe it's better to just stop eating them?

Edit: the article says that electrical stunning works.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Electrical stunning isn't an option for home chefs. I have heard of chilling but not sure if that is also being banned in the UK or not, given that they would still be alive. And yeah, no idea how reliable someone is going to be in actually killing it and not just rendering it unable to move but still feeling everything.

Even if a perfect knife cut works, how precise do you need to be? The best method would be the one which is pretty easy to do successfully. Also what about other crustaceans?

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[–] citizensongbird@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

Nah, they don't release a toxin, at least not in the sense of "self-defense" that is usually meant with that phrase. After death they rot very quickly, so they do become toxic, I guess that's similar enough. My dad cooked lobsters often and he always stuck a paring knife in a very specific spot in the head right before boiling, I assume this information is about to become much more widespread to comply with these new laws.

[–] hobovision@mander.xyz 8 points 1 week ago

Put them on ice to slow/sleep them, then slice through the center on the head with a sharp knife.

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[–] allriledup@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

whoa, you mean sentient animals feel pain?? WHAT!?

Nah, the screaming in horror is just air escaping /s

[–] Floodedwomb@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Lobsters don't have vocal cords. Its physically impossible for them to scream.

[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Ok but that isn't really the point they were making

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[–] tuff_wizard@aussie.zone 3 points 1 week ago

Nigel Farage would know “authoritarian control freakery” when he sees it. I think it’s unsettling for him to see it coming from someone else.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (9 children)

Does this include if you chill them first, or is that no longer a recommended choice?

Also, is this specifically lobster or other crustaceans

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[–] qbus@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

Boiling lobsters is barbaric. You should steam them

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