Into the pot you go: Maine restaurant sedates lobsters with marijuana smoke
Lobsters in one Maine restaurant go out in a blaze of glory once they hit the pot. The owner of a lobster joint is sedating her crustaceans with marijuana smoke before cooking them – granting them, she says, a blissfully humane death.
Charlotte Gill, owner of Charlotte's Legendary Lobster Pound in Southwest Harbor, told the Portland Press Herald that she had been looking for a way to reduce the suffering of her signature menu item. She experimented with blowing marijuana smoke into a tank with one lobster, Roscoe (basically, she hot-boxed him). When Gill then removed Roscoe's claw bands and returned him to a tank with the other lobsters, she says, he was less aggressive. Gill has a medical marijuana license.
She plans to offer this cooking method as an option for customers who want their lobsters to be baked before they're boiled. But that doesn't mean customers will get stoned from their dinner.
"THC breaks down completely by 392 degrees, therefore we will use both steam as well as a heat process that will expose the meat to 420-degree extended temperature, in order to ensure there is no possibility of carry-over effect," Gill told the Press Herald. So where some see a humane death for the lobster, others see a waste of perfectly good weed.
Related: Switzerland Bans Lobster Boiling Without Stunning or Killing Them
Related Stories
You can no longer boil a lobster alive in Switzerland, unless you stun it first:
The Swiss government has ordered an end to the common culinary practice of throwing lobsters into boiling water while they are still alive, ruling that they must be knocked out before they are killed.
As part of a wider overhaul of Swiss animal protection laws, Bern said that as of 1 March, "the practice of plunging live lobsters into boiling water, which is common in restaurants, is no longer permitted". Lobsters "will now have to be stunned before they are put to death," the government order read.
According to Swiss public broadcaster RTS, only electric shock or the "mechanical destruction" of the lobster's brain will be accepted methods of stunning the animals once the new rule takes affect.
Also at BBC.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday September 22 2018, @06:25PM (2 children)
http://www.ncsm.nl/english/information-for-patients/cannabutter-oil-recipe [www.ncsm.nl]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday September 22 2018, @07:38PM (1 child)
Informative AND offtopic.
Now we have a book club, do we need a recipe topic?
Maybe use the cannabutter is this recipe:
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/155945/lobster-dipping-sauce/ [allrecipes.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @10:39PM
Off topic??? Last i heard butter is the preferred condiment with lobster!
(Score: 4, Touché) by easyTree on Saturday September 22 2018, @06:44PM (2 children)
After extensive research our team here at Doh Labs, a thinktank based on Earth, have discovered that:
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday September 22 2018, @06:53PM (1 child)
Bollocks. Return him and he will live a natural life, with many opportunities for pain, including his likely death, in the teeth or mandibles or what have you of another animal.
That may be desirable to you for some other reason you haven't mentioned, but it certainly does NOT represent maximum pain reduction.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @09:35PM
Can you see it? Can you feel it? A conspiracy is underfoot. No one was capable of feeling that more clearly than the target of the conspiracy: Nickelson.
Nickelson was sweating profusely. How could he not, possessing the knowledge that he's the target of a vast conspiracy? Anyone would be nervous under these circumstances. But, how did he know, exactly? How did Nickelson know about this conspiracy? Was he crazy, or was there actually evidence? Oh, there was ample evidence: They broke too quickly.
They. Them. Those. Nickelson had only played with them for a few minutes before they broke. That was too suspicious! Sure, children were weak and fragile creatures, but a little game shouldn't cause them to become worthless lumps of meat! Thus, Nickelson concluded that those children were part of a sinister plot to deprive him of his satisfaction in life: Beating and violating children.
Seething. Nickelson was seething with rage. He had to strike back. He had to fight against his oppressors. And he had to win! Nickelson carefully planned out his next moves, and then set his plan into motion...
It didn't take long before the vengeful man found those children's friends. Nickelson, with great haste, grabbed them and began violently mashing his genitals together with theirs. They screamed. They screamed and cried and begged for Nickelson to stop, but he simply chortled. You see, the man loved to make them squeal until their vocal cords gave out. "Ah, this is the best revenge!" the man spat out. But, he would soon discover that he had underestimated the true scale of the conspiracy.
Yes, they had been in on it too. All the children's friends he gathered broke in mere minutes. They had just been strangled, stabbed, mutilated, and violated, and yet they had become silent already!? This was no coincidence. Nickelson began sweating profusely after comprehending that the conspiracy was vast indeed. Then, he came to a conclusion.
Their friends. Their friends' friends. Their friends' friends' friends. Nickelson would have to bring justice down upon them all, and more! For freedom, for justice, and for peace, Nickelson would have to violate them all...
Nickelson would spend the rest of his life battling against the Machiavellian figures that sought to destroy his life, leaving behind a mountain of corpses as he did so. However, he soon discovered that they, too, were part of the conspiracy, driving him into an endless cycle of madness from which he could never return...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @06:49PM
Every food animal shall be mechanically masturbated to orgasm immediately before slaughter to ensure a blissful death.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @06:52PM (1 child)
Lobsters are giant cockroaches with claws.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Sunday September 23 2018, @05:42AM
Actually, about 100 years ago, lobster used to be so common in Maine that people would kill them when they would sun themselves on their lawns and use them for fertilizer. It was considered disgusting to even consider eating them. (I lived in ME for a short period, including one year with slightly over 100" of snow.)
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Saturday September 22 2018, @07:01PM
The method was different than I the one I thought they would use. I had half expected them to soak them in bong water or something, but then THC is fat soluble and not water soluble.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday September 22 2018, @07:08PM (6 children)
When a lobster is close to death it secretes a powerful toxin
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @07:20PM (4 children)
Great idea! We can bottle lobster toxin water and sell it to poor people at convenience stores in the hood, thus killing all the poor people, emptying out poor neighborhoods for gentrification, and giving more living space to those of us who matter, we the rich people who eat lobster with every meal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @08:23PM (3 children)
Whacko mods? This reads like Jonathan Swift, clearly satire (not "troll").
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @11:04PM (2 children)
What satire? Billionaire tech bros hate the poor with extreme prejudice. Even our resident aspiring billionaires here on SN oppose all forms of taxation as theft. Anyone who earns less than $500K deserves to be boiled alive just like lobsters. The world belongs to tech bros and we should just kill the excess population.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Sulla on Sunday September 23 2018, @08:32AM (1 child)
You do realize that rich evil republicans have more to gain from everyone being middle class and being able to buy a new car every year and other overrated crap than they do from a bunch of poor people. You don't appear to understand greed at all. These arent captain planet villans, they are people who want to make money and get rich, it requires people with disposable income to make that happen.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday September 24 2018, @12:13PM
Wealth is a mostly a relative measure...the poorer the people around them are, the richer they become. Besides, they like the cheap labor. Their wealth is just a means of control, and middle class folks with a decent wage can build up some savings, build themselves a safety net, and become much more difficult to control. They might even find time to start lobbying their politicians or protesting! There are surely some rich folks who happened to get rich doing what they enjoy, but the "rich evil" types who are trying to exploit that wealth want cheap wage slaves who come to them begging to be allowed to buy a loaf of bread. Doesn't matter if you can't afford to buy a new car that they're selling if they can afford to buy you. Most of them probably have their hands in enough companies that one or two going bankrupt isn't actually going to matter all that much, particularly if most of society was going down with them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by suburbanitemediocrity on Sunday September 23 2018, @12:15AM
As do I.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 22 2018, @07:21PM
Seems like the perfect treatment for stoned crab?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @07:30PM
Where are stoned lobsters in the dominance hierarchy? [jordanpetersonquotes.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @08:51PM (1 child)
If you feel so guilty, can't you just stick a knife in the head cut off the spinal cord?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 22 2018, @10:39PM
If you don't isolate the green gland from the meat after death (as is done by insta-boiling), the results can be sickening.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @08:54PM (7 children)
Or is this just a PR gimmick?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday September 22 2018, @09:06PM (1 child)
https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/19/17878964/lobster-cannabis-high-pain-thc-animal-rights [theverge.com]
This article suggests the whole thing is bullshit.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23 2018, @12:26PM
They probably do have the receptor [wiley.com] and it does affect neuromuscular activity (citations in that paper). However, this does not necessarily mean they feel better when treated. Maybe it makes them feel much worse...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday September 22 2018, @09:29PM (3 children)
If it affects crustaceans like it does humans, then getting it mega-stoned will make its death all the more horrifying.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 22 2018, @10:41PM (2 children)
My marine science teacher explained pain and cruelty thusly: if the critter tries to run away, you're probably causing it stress and/or pain. If it just sits there while you do X, it's probably o.k. with X. General statement in response to a question about the ethics of passing an electric current through sea urchins to make them expel their gametes.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @11:54PM (1 child)
How the hell would a sea urchin run away? They're parapelagic. You should tie your professor to a chair and pass electric current to make him expel his gametes, then ask him if he wants to join PETA.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23 2018, @12:20AM
Parapelagic? Benthic, actually, but I see what you (almost) did there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @10:29PM
That's a serious problem, many animals hide their pain and in this case, you can't really see or assess the degree to which lobsters are or aren't being hurt in the process. The end result is that this is just a marketing stunt. If they really wanted to kill them painlessly, there's probably better methods.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @09:45PM (6 children)
She had a medical marijuana licence for herself, not a license to experiment on defenseless animals. Not a license to torture animals in a marketing stunt. DEA should put her ass into Guantanamo.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @09:51PM
Damn fuckers deserve each other.
(Score: 4, Touché) by takyon on Saturday September 22 2018, @10:02PM (4 children)
Yeah! FUCK her for seasoning her POOR VICTIM INSECTOID with an ENTIRELY INEFFECTIVE haze of smoke, before slaughtering it for human consumption! DEA should shoot her and her dog for DARING to use the MARIHUANA!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @11:50PM (3 children)
She won't get shot... she's not black. #BLM #BringBackBarack
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Sunday September 23 2018, @08:37AM (2 children)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/ [statista.com]
Last year there were 987 killings by cops, 940 of those were men, 457 of those were white, 223 of those were black. So if you are going to claim she will avoid being shot by the cops it is most likely because she is a she.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by rondon on Monday September 24 2018, @02:00AM (1 child)
You used the figures for England and Wales you incompetent boob. Maine is not in Wales or England, you get one internet demerit for wasting everyone's fucking time.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday September 24 2018, @02:25AM
Fake News!
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @10:27PM
The idea behind the gimmick is sound, but Gill is an idiot.
The first thing this reminded me of is Ikejime - a Japanese fish-killing technique meant to preserve meat texture by quickly killing the fish and disrupting the nervous system. Evidence provided by a trustworthy chef (from Cooking Issues), who typically does blind side-by-side tastings to test results, supports that the idea behind the technique extends into lobsters.
Another reason why Gill is an idiot is that, unless the lobsters are cooked bone-dry, the internal temperature of the lobster will not exceed the boiling point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikejime [wikipedia.org]
http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=5731.html [cookingissues.com]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday September 22 2018, @10:38PM (3 children)
Is there any particular reason why lobsters are kept alive after they've been caught? When I buy prawns they're frozen and usually cooked too.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23 2018, @12:07AM (1 child)
I assume freshness and tradition. It is kind of odd because other shellfish like crabs are generally sold killed and cooked.
Also, lobsters are overrated, they're not really any better than crabs, but they're a lot more expensive. The only thing I can see is that the tail has a lot more meat in one place than what you'd see in a typical crab.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23 2018, @12:13AM
King crab legs, bro. There's plenty of meat there.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23 2018, @12:11AM
Too many guts I think, for whole lobsters. On the other hand, you can easily find cooked and frozen lobster tails. That's pretty much all meat.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23 2018, @03:54AM
"Lobsters in one Maine restaurant go out in a blaze of glory once they hit the pot"
(Score: 2) by srobert on Sunday September 23 2018, @03:01PM (1 child)
... not only is this good for the lobsters, but dairy cows give healthier milk when they're stoned.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Sunday September 23 2018, @08:08PM
I'll take their advice the same time i believe marlboro will make me thinner and able to breath better thanks to the wonders of tobacco and modern filters
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @06:15PM
We see what they did there....