Eating crustaceans without the crust
For some time now, animal rights activists and whole foods manufacturers have been engaged in what is known as the “lobster war” – debating on how to kill lobsters humanely for food. This is the exact same reason why whole foods producers have agreed to stop selling live lobsters and sell processed lobster meat instead. This makes lobster fans everywhere wonder: how could one kill and process lobsters in the most humane way possible?
Thankfully, technology has prepared some attractive answers on how to render your average crustacean crust less without having to resort to the dreaded kitchen knife. One of these is the CrustaStun, designed and built in the UK in response to tightening animal-welfare laws intended to protect lobsters from needless torture.
CrustaStun is basically an electric lobster-killing machine. It zaps the lobster with a jolt of electricity, killing the nervous system of the animal prior to cooking. The process may sound gruesome, but the device has already received a humane stamp of approval. CrustaStun comes in two forms: the “continuous flow” model with a conveyor belt for industrial applications, and a small, “personalized” model for home use, killing only one lobster at a time.
More on humane lobster-killing gadgets after the jump!
For some time now, animal rights activists and whole foods manufacturers have been engaged in what is known as the “lobster war” – debating on how to kill lobsters humanely for food. This is the exact same reason why whole foods producers have agreed to stop selling live lobsters and sell processed lobster meat instead. This makes lobster fans everywhere wonder: how could one kill and process lobsters in the most humane way possible?
Thankfully, technology has prepared some attractive answers on how to render your average crustacean crust less without having to resort to the dreaded kitchen knife. One of these is the CrustaStun, designed and built in the UK in response to tightening animal-welfare laws intended to protect lobsters from needless torture.
CrustaStun is basically an electric lobster-killing machine. It zaps the lobster with a jolt of electricity, killing the nervous system of the animal prior to cooking. The process may sound gruesome, but the device has already received a humane stamp of approval. CrustaStun comes in two forms: the “continuous flow” model with a conveyor belt for industrial applications, and a small, “personalized” model for home use, killing only one lobster at a time.
Other lobsters, however, would receive a different treatment prior their trip to the silver platter. If you’ve eaten Avoclasic guacamole or Hormel Natural Choice deli meats before, then you’ve already taken in food that’s been prepared through a process called hydrostatic pressure processing (HPP). HPP, developed by Avure Technologies, is a process which immerses food in water, and then squeezes the food to high enough pressure that pathogens, and bacteria will be neutralized. The food will otherwise remain unaffected, with all the microscopic creatures in it killed, giving it extended shelf life and reducing its need for artificial preservatives.
HPP is now used on live lobsters, with a machine called Avure-HPP. Live lobsters are locked inside a tube in the machine. Powerful pumps whir the water inside the tube, compressing the water pressure to several times the pressure found in the deepest trenches in the ocean. The lobsters die within seconds – just
imagine what the pressure on your ears is like when you go diving. But the pressure conveniently separates all of the lobsters’ flesh from their shell. For the first time in human history, people have finally devised way to extract the meat of a lobster without cooking it.
When the lobsters come out of the Avure-HPP machine, their muscles could be extracted from their shells raw and fully intact. The results the Avure-HPP machine made were so arresting that a company in Maine, Shucks Maine Lobster, now advertises eating heaps of lobster-leg flesh, called “lobster spaghetti” without the aid of a nutcracker. So, lobster pasta, anyone?
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