I am a 13th generation Mainer with family in the lobster business, both in fishing and processing, and I have worked on the waters sailing on schooners on the Maine coast as a young lad.
Maine is a state that lives off the land, fishing and forestry are huge industries that provide thousands of jobs and sustain the state the other 10 months when tourism is dormant.
The lobster industry is the most sustainable fishery in the world, as others are going extinct the lobster fishery is thriving. We come from the land and we care for the animals and the environment.
Current technology used in processing lobster is orders of magnitude more humane than described in Consider the Lobster [0] and other food processing facilities pale in comparison (i'm looking at you whaling industry, fishing industry, livestock industry, etc.
We now have the technology to kill lobster instantaneously while simultaneously killing all bacteria and creating raw lobster meat that can be shipped globally.
Personally I like the intimacy of being close to killing the animals we eat, it's authentic, I think it gives acknowledgment to the animal's life at a level that is not even close to supermarket bought meats. What other animal do people kill in their own kitchen in SF or NYC? I think we need more of the intimacy with our food that lobster provides. The question is would you like to have animal butchering behind closed doors (because we know where that path leads) or do we want an intimacy with our food, our farmers and our fishermen?
"Personally I like the intimacy of being close to killing the animals we eat, it's authentic"
This is such an bizarre statement. Something like "I like the intimacy of being close to [a horrendous thing]".
I mean I agree that it's better done outwith closed doors, but really it seems the reason that everyone is OK with it is because lobsters aren't as cute (or at least as conducive to being empathized with) as calves, chicks and lambs. Which doesn't seem like a logical way to choose what we kill.
Maine is a state that lives off the land, fishing and forestry are huge industries that provide thousands of jobs and sustain the state the other 10 months when tourism is dormant.
The lobster industry is the most sustainable fishery in the world, as others are going extinct the lobster fishery is thriving. We come from the land and we care for the animals and the environment.
Current technology used in processing lobster is orders of magnitude more humane than described in Consider the Lobster [0] and other food processing facilities pale in comparison (i'm looking at you whaling industry, fishing industry, livestock industry, etc.
We now have the technology to kill lobster instantaneously while simultaneously killing all bacteria and creating raw lobster meat that can be shipped globally.
Personally I like the intimacy of being close to killing the animals we eat, it's authentic, I think it gives acknowledgment to the animal's life at a level that is not even close to supermarket bought meats. What other animal do people kill in their own kitchen in SF or NYC? I think we need more of the intimacy with our food that lobster provides. The question is would you like to have animal butchering behind closed doors (because we know where that path leads) or do we want an intimacy with our food, our farmers and our fishermen?
[0] http://www.wired.com/2010/11/st_crush_lobsters/