Move is part of a long-awaited Labour strategy including outlawing hen cages and ending puppy farming

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.

  • KiloGexEnglish
    72·
    7 months ago

    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.

    • Pyr@lemmy.caEnglish
      61·
      7 months ago

      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?

    • BytemeisterEnglish
      4·
      7 months ago

      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.

        • wheezy@lemmy.mlEnglish
          72·
          7 months ago

          Sure. But, like, is this law pointless? Because unless it bans it altogether (and the comment I replied to is correct about the pain) then it sounds like it’s pointless.

          People said freezing. But that just sounds like more psuedo science. Is it science based? Or is it just “people say”.

          • BytemeisterEnglish
            5·
            7 months ago

            Freezing just slows them down. A lot of lobsters are caught in the Atlantic around Maine, they can handle your fridge just fine, and your freezer for a painfully long amount of time.