Do Lobsters Feel Pain?

[adegiulio]

you eat from the tail as the lobster is still quivering.

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Is that supposed to be regarded as some highly sought after quality in sashimi, or for that matter, any food? Is knowing your food is still writhing in front of you supposed to make it more tasty, wholesome, or just better?

Maybe we should hack off a chicken leg and watch it shriek as we fry it limb. Good eats.

I love meat, but stories of half fried, half alive carp, and lobster that still quivers while you eat it make me sweat with rage. Is it too much to ask that the animals that nourish us at least meet death with as little pain as possible?

I'm sure someone will defend the practice by saying the lobster was dead already, and the quivering was just post-mortum muscle spasms. Whatever...

[JWangSDC]

you eat from the tail as the lobster is still quivering.

←

Is that supposed to be regarded as some highly sought after quality in sashimi, or for that matter, any food? Is knowing your food is still writhing in front of you supposed to make it more tasty, wholesome, or just better?

Maybe we should hack off a chicken leg and watch it shriek as we fry it limb. Good eats.

I love meat, but stories of half fried, half alive carp, and lobster that still quivers while you eat it make me sweat with rage. Is it too much to ask that the animals that nourish us at least meet death with as little pain as possible?

I'm sure someone will defend the practice by saying the lobster was dead already, and the quivering was just post-mortum muscle spasms. Whatever...

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While people may show off to their friends saying their food was alive...in the instance of lobster and other shellfish, it is actually worth something.

The idea is that seafood goes bad extremely quickly, especially shellfish so being able to eat it right after it died does mean something.

[adegiulio]

you eat from the tail as the lobster is still quivering.

←

Is that supposed to be regarded as some highly sought after quality in sashimi, or for that matter, any food? Is knowing your food is still writhing in front of you supposed to make it more tasty, wholesome, or just better?

Maybe we should hack off a chicken leg and watch it shriek as we fry it limb. Good eats.

I love meat, but stories of half fried, half alive carp, and lobster that still quivers while you eat it make me sweat with rage. Is it too much to ask that the animals that nourish us at least meet death with as little pain as possible?

I'm sure someone will defend the practice by saying the lobster was dead already, and the quivering was just post-mortum muscle spasms. Whatever...

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While people may show off to their friends saying their food was alive...in the instance of lobster and other shellfish, it is actually worth something.

The idea is that seafood goes bad extremely quickly, especially shellfish so being able to eat it right after it died does mean something.

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I appreciate your response, and I am fully aware of the freshness curve involved with lobster and other shellfish. But, "freshly killed" and "still living" are miles apart in terms of pain and suffering, but still a fine line when referring to palatability.

[dagordon]

I appreciate your response, and I am fully aware of the freshness curve involved with lobster and other shellfish. But, "freshly killed" and "still living" are miles apart in terms of pain and suffering, but still a fine line when referring to palatability.

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Being alive or dead is, of course, a matter of degree, and the degree to which the quivering lobster that OG serves is alive is vanishingly small.

And given that it's controversial whether even a quite alive lobster can feel pain, I for one am not losing any sleep over this dish.

[raji]

I think this debate is a can of worms... because then the question is the definition of consciousness, and some people don't consider lobster and shellfish to be all that conscious vs. cows, pigs and chickens do. But lobsters have eyes too, so they must have a conscious. But them some shellfish are big puddles of mud. So, a can of worms, or shellfish, as it were...

[adegiulio]

Being alive or dead is, of course, a matter of degree, and the degree to which the quivering lobster that OG serves is alive is vanishingly small.

And given that it's controversial whether even a quite alive lobster can feel pain, I for one am not losing any sleep over this dish.

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I find it amusing that your use of that short phrase "of course" implies that your assertion is unmistakably true. In my mind, life and death are completely discrete events, with no overlap or degree. If you are dead, you are absolutely incapable of feeling pain or suffering. The same cannot be said if you are alive.

My point in all of this is not to say we should all sit out in a field and eat lettuce. My point is that it wouldn't hurt the dish substantially enough to ensure that the animal is dead before we process it for consumption. Whether or not a living lobster can feel a lot of pain is irrelevant, since a dead lobster can clearly feel none.

As a quick aside, I doubt lobsters can't feel pain. Animals, as far as I know, rely on pain to alert them to personal trauma. I don't think a species could last as long as the lobster has if none of them were able to feel pain. I'm no scientist, but it just doesn't make sense if they couldn't...

[dagordon]

I find it amusing that your use of that short phrase "of course" implies that your assertion is unmistakably true. In my mind, life and death are completely discrete events, with no overlap or degree. If you are dead, you are absolutely incapable of feeling pain or suffering. The same cannot be said if you are alive.

The "of course" was not intended to suggest that my position is undeniable, just that its denial does not survive serious reflection. This really isn't a terribly appropriate place to have this debate, and there is a lot of literature on this both in the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of language. But if you think about what happens when someone dies, at precisely what point does the person go from being alive to being dead? It seems exceedingly implausible that there is a particular instant of time at which a person goes from being alive to being dead.

My point in all of this is not to say we should all sit out in a field and eat lettuce. My point is that it wouldn't hurt the dish substantially enough to ensure that the animal is dead before we process it for consumption. Whether or not a living lobster can feel a lot of pain is irrelevant, since a dead lobster can clearly feel none.

Well for all I know the lobster that the OG serves technically qualifies as "dead" for you, as it may well be that it is "absolutely incapable of feeling pain or suffering." I just don't know, and neither do you. No one does at this point, and it's unclear that we ever will. But it is quite relevant to this discussion whether a living lobster can feel pain, as if it can't, then you are in no position objecting to a person's eating live lobster.

As a quick aside, I doubt lobsters can't feel pain. Animals, as far as I know, rely on pain to alert them to personal trauma. I don't think a species could last as long as the lobster has if none of them were able to feel pain. I'm no scientist, but it just doesn't make sense if they couldn't...

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No offense intended, but the debate over which creatures other than ourselves can feel pain is too complex to be resolved by these sorts of reflections. Again, there is a lot of literature on this, and a thread about where to find a particular variety of sashimi is hardly the place for a lesson in evolutionary biology.

[sucio sanchez]

No offense intended, but the debate over which creatures other than ourselves can feel pain is too complex to be resolved by these sorts of reflections. Again, there is a lot of literature on this, and a thread about where to find a particular variety of sashimi is hardly the place for a lesson in evolutionary biology.

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[adegiulio]

Your point is well taken that this isn't the forum to discuss most of these matters. However, you make no mention of the heart of my point, that being, if it doesn't hurt the dish perceptibly to have a fully killed lobster, then why not just serve fully killed lobster. It is in that sense that the discussion of whether or not lobsters feel pain becomes irrelevant. If we know a dead lobster feels nothing, why not just go with the dead lobster (or carp or frog)?

And sucio, I'm sorry, I didn't realize your question was presented to only those who agree with you.

[raji]

In certain Asian cultures serving living sushi (ikimono) is desired both for freshness and some kind of transferral of life force, I guess, but it's really what looks like it still living are really post-mortal muscle contractions. This is definitely true of how lobster sashimi is served by a proper Japanese sushi chef, who will often take into account minimizing the suffering of any animal they off in accordance with their buddhist, shinto and taoist beliefs. They probably inflict less pain than boiling them to death, no?

[jsmith]

I'm sure someone will defend the practice by saying the lobster was dead already, and the quivering was just post-mortum muscle spasms. Whatever...

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I don't know about that particular dish, but I've killed crab before and they kept twitching for a long time afterward. I'm 100% sure it was dead as the legs were still moving after they had been removed from the crab.

Why do you dismiss the post-mortum muscle spasms so quickly?

[slkinsey]

This question has been fairly extensively discussed in these forums before, most notably in this thread.

Scientists who have specifically studied this question, those with an understanding of neurology and those with an understanding of pain psychology tend to agree that lobsters do not experience anything like what we would consider "pain."

People who would like to anthropomorphize ignore this evidence and insist that they must.

[slkinsey]

But lobsters have eyes too, so they must have a conscious.

Lobsters barely have a nervous system, and certainly not anything approaching complex enough to call "consciousness."

Scallops have eyes too.

Edited April 4, 2008 by slkinsey (log)

[sucio sanchez]

correct me if I am wrong, but I believe oysters are the only food we eat that are still alive when we eat them, raw of course.

[slkinsey]

I've had raw clams as well, which are alive when we eat them.

[johnnyd]

This question has been fairly extensively discussed in these forums before, most notably in this thread.

Beat me to it, Sam. I was sure we wrapped this one up some time ago - thanks for finding it.

People who would like to anthropomorphize ignore this evidence and insist that they must.

Word.

I find reminding them how much habitat is destroyed by municipal, state and federal pavement projects funded by their tax dollars ends the conversation pretty quickly.

[adegiulio]

People who would like to anthropomorphize ignore this evidence and insist that they must.

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Err, this has nothing to do with anthropomorphism. Nobody is talking about a lobster laughing when I tickle it, or crying when I smack it. Pain is obviously not just a human characteristic, so to imply that those of us who would prefer animals to suffer as little as possible are anthropomorphizing is just way off base.

Just as there are crackpots that say lobsters don't feel pain, there are those that say they do. But, as I've said over and over, it doesn't matter if they feel a little, or a lot or more than us, or less than us. A humanely dispatched lobster feels no pain, and it is in this state that we should eat them.

[slkinsey]

Um... those guys you're calling "crackpots that say lobsters don't feel pain" are what most of us would call "scientists" and "experts in their fields." I haven't seen anything written specifically about malacostracan crustaceans by someone who has researched them, has an understanding of their neurophysiology and an understanding of how pain works on both a neurological and psychological level that says that these animals experience anything we could call "pain." Rather, all these people say that they don't.

Now, there are people -- and these are the ones I'd call the "crackpots" -- who are not informed as to malacostracan crustacean neurophysiology and how pain works on a neurological and psychological level, and who use various nonscientific ways to argue that lobsters "surely must experience pain." But they simply don't have any basis for making that assertion other than the underlying belief that, "since it would hurt me to be thrown in boiling water or have my arms torn off while still alive, it must be true for lobsters as well."

The evidence is that lobsters don't feel pain. Period. If it makes you feel better to kill them in a certain way, that's okay with me. But there is no evidence that killing lobsters by throwing them into a pot of boiling water, or indeed by simply tearing them apart, is any less "humane" than other ways.

[adegiulio]

In certain Asian cultures serving living sushi (ikimono) is desired both for freshness and some kind of transferral of life force, I guess, but it's really what looks like it still living are really post-mortal muscle contractions. This is definitely true of how lobster sashimi is served by a proper Japanese sushi chef, who will often take into account minimizing the suffering of any animal they off in accordance with their buddhist, shinto and taoist beliefs. They probably inflict less pain than boiling them to death, no?

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If indeed these lobsters are killed humanely and with minimal suffering, in accordance with their religious beliefs, then I welcome this clarification.

On the flip side, eating live sushi as a cultural tenet still doesn't work for me. Cultures don't exist in a vacuum, and some reprehensible behaviors done in the name of culture should be stopped all the same. As it's still fresh in the news, the Canadian Seal Hunt began a few days ago. While seals used to be part of the survival code for historical Canadians, their bloody deaths at the end of a hooked club is done for nothing more than profit. The profiteering fishermen who still take part in this barbaric ritual claim they have the right to practice their culture unabated. Again, I"m not against killing animals in a humane way, but a club repeatedly hitting a baby seal on the skull hardly seems humane. I guess I am just crazy...

[adegiulio]

Sam, your use of the esoteric terms "malacostracan crustacean neurophysiology" makes me think you have a research background in the field. Or, is it just Google?

[adegiulio]

I'm no expert in the field, but a quick query on Google "do lobsters feel pain" brings back quite a lot of responses on both sides of the issue. Scientists with PhDs from highly reputable universities cannot agree. I think it is far from consensus to say that they do not feel pain. Cherry picking sources and assigning more weight to people who agree with you doesn't make the point correct. I'm just sayin'.

Do fish feel pain? Is it ok for us to slice pieces of sashimi from a still living fish? Or is all that writhing just anthropomorphic?

[Daniel]

I don't know if they can feel physical pain, but I know they can hurt on the inside.. There is nothing more sad then a depressed lobster..

Edited April 4, 2008 by Daniel (log)

[slkinsey]

I have a degree in psychology, which involved a fair amountof "brain and behavior" studies as well as looking at other sensory mechanisms (I was mostly interested in perceptual and cognitive psychology). So, for example, if you want to take a look at why certain musical structures are perceived in a certain way, the first place you have to start out is how hearing works, and that starts with an understanding of the physiology and neurophysiology of the ear. One of the things that becomes clear from the very beginning is that not all nervous and sensory cells are the same. So, for example, the nerve cells of a giant squid are not the same as the nerve cells of a human being. Some animals (sharks come to mind) have sensory mechanisms (including specialized sensory cells, etc.) that allow them to perceive, experience and process things that human beings cannot. And guess what? That road goes both ways. So, if a lobster does not have any of the specialized sensory cells that create the signals that are then processed by our complex brains (which lobsters also don't have) into the subjective experience we call "pain" -- then lobsters can't feel pain. Heck, lobsters don't even particularly exhibit avoidance behavior in the wild then their limbs are being torn off.

Most everyone knows the word "crustacean." But this also includes a lot of animals that we're not considering this discussion -- like barnacles, for example. "Malacostracan crustacean" is just the name for the crustaceans we are talking about -- namely lobster, crabs and shrimp. For that, I referenced a dictionary.

[slkinsey]

I'm no expert in the field, but a quick query on Google "do lobsters feel pain" brings back quite a lot of responses on both sides of the issue. Scientists with PhDs from highly reputable universities cannot agree. I think it is far from consensus to say that they do not feel pain. Cherry picking sources and assigning more weight to people who agree with you doesn't make the point correct. I'm just sayin'.

The allegation that one is "cherry picking sources" implies that the cherry-picker has rejected equally compelling data in pursuit of a willful misrepresentation. It's another thing to examine reports and data, see what they're based upon, and then decide how much weight to give them. I would argue that, rather than "cherry picking" data which agrees with my preconceived opinion, I have examined the available quality data and allowed the best data to decide my opinion for me. If the best date and the most scientific studies said that lobsters experiencethe same kind of pain you and I experience, then that would be my position today.

I don't care to do an exhaustive internet search on the subject now, because I already did that back in 2005. What I found back in 2005 was that I was unable to find much on the "pro-pain" side that wasn't either conjecture, politically-driven misrepresentation, or inappropriate extension of arguments about vastly different organisms (usually fish) onto lobsters. That said, if you have any claims or articles from your google search that you find particularly compelling and would like to stand behind, I would be happy to review them.

Do fish feel pain? Is it ok for us to slice pieces of sashimi from a still living fish? Or is all that writhing just anthropomorphic?

Fish have an exponentially more complex neurological and sensory system compared to lobsters.

[cathrynapple]

A better question may be "do animals suffer?" instead of "do animals feel pain?"

To be more humane, many people put their lobsters to sleep in the freezer before cooking them live.

I don't think most people. want to cause unnecessary suffering. There seem to be a few who take pride in being willing to be unnecessarily barbaric, though.