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Undo revision 200063 by Special:Contributions/TK (User talk:TK) The ethical issues around cooking lobsters have aroused much debate - it needs to stay in.
==Lobster choice of environment==
==Lobster choice of environment==
Lobsters prefer to be sheltered and somewhat dark, and they choose homes the way people choose jeans, but there are often dominance struggles in which one lobster will oust another from a particular holes. Young lobsters tend to choose tighter-fitting holes, and older lobsters choose a more relaxed fit, and will leave the younger lobsters alone unless they feel the neighbourhood is getting crowded, in which case they will unceremoniously turf the youngsters out. However, if a neighborhood gets really crowded, the older lobsters will leave to seek out a less populated area and leave the young lobsters to fight over the small, crowded homes.<ref> The Secret Life of Lobsters, by Trevor Corson, pub. Harper Perennial 2005, ISBN 0060555580</ref>
Lobsters prefer to be sheltered and somewhat dark, and they choose homes the way people choose jeans, but there are often dominance struggles in which one lobster will oust another from a particular holes. Young lobsters tend to choose tighter-fitting holes, and older lobsters choose a more relaxed fit, and will leave the younger lobsters alone unless they feel the neighbourhood is getting crowded, in which case they will unceremoniously turf the youngsters out. However, if a neighbourhood gets really crowded, the older lobsters will leave to seek out a less populated area and leave the young lobsters to fight over the small, crowded homes.<ref> The Secret Life of Lobsters, by Trevor Corson, pub. Harper Perennial 2005, ISBN 0060555580</ref>
==Lobster fishing==
==Lobster fishing==
<ref>http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7092/abs/441421a.html</ref>
<ref>http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7092/abs/441421a.html</ref>
==Ethical issues over cooking lobsters==
Lobster meat is a healthy food, if it is served without melted butter. It is nearly fat free, and has fewer calories and less cholesterol than animal or poultry meat. It contains vitamins A, B12, and E, calcium, zinc and phosphorous, and is high in desirable omega-3 fatty acids, although it is relatively high in sodium. The lobster’s combined liver and pancreas, called the tomalley and easily recognized from its greenish color, is not usually eaten, because it filters toxins so that lobster meat is not affected by other kind of shellfish blight and does not transmit diseases.
Dead lobster meat generates toxins quickly, and it is not safe to eat, but Animal welfare groups have long campaigned against the boiling of live lobsters. Although lobster nervous systems have been well studied, there is no clear answer to the question of whether lobsters feel pain. Lobsters have stress receptors but no identifiable pain receptors. They do not act pained at the loss of a limb or when wounds are inflicted. When a lobster is dropped into a steaming pot, its movements are no different to escape responses in any threatening situation. The nervous system does not seem to be more sophisticated than that of an insect.
When various methods of boiling lobster were tested, putting it straight into boiling water resulted in the shortest time of killing it. Chilling the lobster in the freezer first reduced the time of activity to no more than twenty seconds. For non-vegetarians, this is humane compared to the deaths of many other animals.<ref> The Secret Life of Lobsters, by Trevor Corson, pub. Harper Perennial 2005, ISBN 0060555580</ref>
==Lobsters in the Surrealist movement==
Following the example of the French poet Gérard de Nerval, who owned a pet lobster which he took for walks through Paris, and described them as "peaceful, serious creatures, who know the secrets of the sea, and don't bark", lobsters became popular in the [[Surrealism|Surrealist]] movement of the early 20th century – apparently more for the inherent absurdity of their shape than any other reason. The [[Dadaism|Dadaist]] poet Hugo Ball read his poem Karawane in 1916 on stage at the Cabaret Voltaire, wrapped in brightly colored cardboard, wearing a tall, striped wizard's hat and cardboard lobster claws on his hands. The wealthy and eccentric English poet and art collector Edward James commissioned [[Salvador Dali]]’s four 1936 Lobster Telephones. However, although Dali thought of surrealist objects as “absolutely useless from the practical and rational point of view”, they functioned perfectly as telephones. <ref>http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070329055918.joodx8y0&show_article=1&cat=0</ref>
==References==
==References==