I love being at the top of the food chain

I love lobster, and there's been a lot of lobster talk lately. Sadly, it's not about how best to cook the delicious little suckers or make the best lobster roll. Whole Foods isn't going to sell them anymore because of "animal welfare" concerns (Whole Foods sold lobsters? How did I miss that?!). One theory is that Whole Foods wasn't making any money off lobsters, since it's expensive to keep fancy food alive long enough to sell it. Note, they're still going to sell all kinds of meat and fish, all stuff that's already dead when it gets to the stores.

This photo appeared in Sunday's New York Times (Illustration by Ji Lee, photograph by Daniel Root), with a great intellectual article about how hard it is to live cruelty-free in this day and age, and how weird it is that lobster seems to be suddenly at the front of the debate. For most of us, we generally don't kill our dinner with our bare hands. Dropping a live lobster into a huge pot of boiling lobster is a rare exception. But it's not like us lobster-killers are the only example of animal cruelty!

We all make our own choices on what to eat/not eat. Sometimes it's rational, sometimes not. I eat veal and fois gras, but not lamb - that's just sad and mean. As the article points out, city-dwellers keep Great Danes in their tiny one-bedroom apartments. Some people wear leather shoes but don't eat steak. Others eat tuna fish from a can but wouldn't touch sushi.

I'm glad to be at the top of the food chain, making these choices. And I LOVE lobster - it's a special, decadent treat. Until we find a way to treat all living things humanely AND eat them, maybe we can cool it on the lobster-eating-hating?

What do you eat/not eat because of cruelty concerns?

Cheers, Lara

Comments

I don't eat veal. In order to produce veal, young calves are taken from their mothers and chained by the neck in crates measuring just two feet wide. They cannot turn around, stretch their limbs, or even lie down comfortably. This severe confinement makes the calves' meat “tender” since the animals' muscles cannot develop. Researchers have reported that veal calves exhibit abnormal coping behaviors associated with frustration. These include head tossing, head shaking, kicking, scratching, and stereotypical chewing behavior. Confined calves also experience leg and joint disorders and an impaired ability to walk. Veal calves are fed an all-liquid milk substitute which is purposely deficient in iron and fiber. It is intended to produce borderline anemia and the pale-colored flesh fancied by "gourmets." At approximately twenty weeks of age, these weak animals are slaughtered and marketed as "white" veal (also known as “fancy,” “milk-fed,” “special-fed,” and “formula-fed” veal). And there you have it.

Poor Lobsters. Too tastey for their own good.

Lobster-the other red meat.

Anemia, one of the more common blood disorders, occurs when the number of healthy red blood cells decreases. WBR LeoP