Monday, July 03, 2006

LOBSTER ANGST: SO WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

It's getting to the point where it soon won't be politically correct to eat air! This thought went through my mind after reading a piece by Frank Bruni, a restaurant critic for the New York Times. In his piece Bruni discusses whether or not lobsters and other main courses suffer so that we humans can eat.

Personally, I'm not into lobsters because to be candid - it's those beady black eyes staring at me from a dinner plate that get to me. I've also never prepared lobsters -or any live crustaceans for that matter - since the guilt is enough to make me feel like a murderer. I'm also not into eating snails, dead or alive, due to the manner in which they live out their lives but then worms don't "do it" for me, either, although I will admit to sucking on a bug lollypop while taping a segment of a gardening show. In my defence we were discussing the edibility of some bugs like grasshoppers et al.

It also bothers me that lobsters live out the last few days of their lives in a holding tank with their claws bound up. Like, what do they (the people who catch losbsters) think they're gonna do? Maim or kill each other in the tank? Uh duh!

Researcher Clive Backster did some experiments back in 1966 using a lie detector to ascertain whether plants feel pain. His conclusion was that they (the plants) did respond in a way to threats of their well-being. Came accross an interesting interview while surfing the Net worth reading. Form your own conclusions.
http://www.derrickjensen.org/backster.html

Soon it will get to the point where we'll end up worrying about lettuce leaves, tomatoes and other salad fixings and horror-of-horrors, what grass feel when they hear the lawnmower powering up, or the shrubs being trimmed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/weekinreview/25bruni.html?ex=1308888000&en=ec726af0f0befe8e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss





No comments: