killing live shrimp

Why don't we all consider being Vegetarian????

I haven't touch any meat for years,just feel great!!

Ugh, I was going to ask how to kill lobster before grilling them, but this whole thread has put me off yet again! Veggie recipes, I'm back for awhile! Grilled Tofu anyone? (Actually, marinated it's pretty good!)

Lobster is super easy (and I don't eat meat, only seafood/shellfish)... boil the water, and drop in head first. Nothing beats this simple way to cook and serve lobster.


You really don't want to know how the chefs at restaurants grill lobsters... it isn't nice.

Yes, I think I remember my mom doing it with water at a rolling boil. It's essentially immediate if the water is hot enough. And then you can take them out and grill them? With the live shrimp, I actually do put them in the fridge to get them really cold, essentially knock them out. Some days I'm less squeamish than others. From my own training in biology, I think it's clear that pain is one of the most primitive and life-preserving of neurological responses. Even microbes recoil from unpleasant stimuli. The additional component of suffering comes from the ability to think about things -- to anticipate and to have fears. My mom tells me stories of growing up on a farm, when they slaughtered a steer, they would have to tie the mother in a back pasture because she would go beserk if she heard the cries of her own grown calf being slaughtered. While I'm personally not a vegetarian, I nevertheless think we all have an obligation to think in terms of reducing pain and suffering when we slaughter any animal. That indifference to suffering is something that I, like many westerners, find apalling about China culture (e.g. think of the fish in the markets cut in half with their hearts still beating). Of course, in a sense this is very hypocritical since what goes on in Western slaughterhouses is equally appalling, just more out of public view.

For lobsters, I buy them live, keep them on ice in the sink. They move around a bit, and they like the cold as they live in cold water.


Boil the water fully (you can make it salt water if you want), and head (claw) first in.


Bring the water to a boil again, and then boil:

For 1 pound: 5 minutes

1 1/8 pounds: 6 minutes

1 1/4 pounds: 8 minutes

1 1/2 to 2 pounds: 8 to 10 minutes

more than 2 pounds : 12 minutes


Personally, I think boiled lobster tastes the best...


If you insist upon killing the lobster before you cook it:


place the tip of a sharp knife on top of the lobster's head where the lines in the shell form a T. Bring the knife down with a quick cutting motion. I could not do this, and I have a good friend who is a chef, not squemish at all, and he says he hates doing this more than anything.

I used to buy fresh lobsters at the seafood markets and they would half them by putting them backwards through a band saw. I don't think the lobsters liked it very much.


The generally accepted humane way to kill all seadfood is to chill them in slushy ice then spike them through the brain. Only problem with larger lobsters is that you really need an industrial strength saw to cut through them properly. But yabbies etc are fine to do at home. You just line them up with a cleaver along their spine then punch down - the little critters are halved before they know it!