United States, Cannabis Lobsters
An American restaurant sedates lobsters with cannabis before cooking them in boiling water. "This way they suffer less," says the owner. But the final say is up to the customers...
Putting lobsters to sleep before cooking them, to make them suffer less and to make their prized flesh even tastier. The idea came to the owner of a well-known American restaurant, Charlotte's Legendary Lobster Pound , located in the state of Maine , where cannabis is legal. The news was reported by BBC online.
A courageous choice, that of Charlotte Gill , considering that the method most used by chefs around the world to cook crustaceans is to boil them when they are still alive. Despite the fact that several scientific studies have shown that even crabs and shrimp are absolutely capable of feeling pain. Yet, at the Legendary Lobster Pound they have no doubts: not only does eating sedated lobsters have no effect on the quality , in fact, the taste benefits, avoiding unnecessary suffering to the crustaceans. The final word, however, is up to the customer, who in any case, can decide on the sedation before cooking. The issue brings to mind the story of an Italian restaurateur from Campi Bisenzio (Florence) , convicted of animal cruelty for having preserved live lobsters and crabs on ice, with their claws tied. The fact is that already in 2013 a study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology had documented that the movements of crustaceans when immersed in boiling water are not at all automatic reflexes - as many chefs claim - but reactions due to pain .
