whole foods and lobster: smooth on the outside, slimy in the middle

i remember being floored by the animal-rights uprising and whole foods' subsequent acts of contrite concession last year regarding the sad plight of the supermarket lobster, my shock resulting primarily from the fact that the debate was taking place at all. if anyone did not know or has forgotten, advocates were up in arms not (publicly, at least) over the fact that the lobster was destined to die horribly in a vat of boiling liquid like a medieval heretic but rather that it was forced to come into routine physical contact with other lobsters in the days prior to its execution. yes, yes, yes, all living creatures should be granted the opportunity to live the best possible life, and lobsters are solitary creatures in the ocean, challenging most any other lobster they encounter in the watery atlantic wilderness to a duel, and your local supermarket's lobster tank is a lot like a veal pen, and the whole thing is endlessly troubling to our beautiful minds. but if you are willing to purchase a lobster and drop it flipping and thrashing into a roiling cauldron--even if you plan to give it a few shots of whiskey first, as my family always did*--there is really no way for me to take your pleas for mercy and humane conditions seriously. the best possible life means the most peaceful death, and head-first into the steaming pot ain't it. if the lobster must die, it seems to me that it ought to be killed right on the boat in the quickest and most painless manner possible. and life in a pvc tube, while perhaps affording a sense of security, isn't really living, and certainly isn't living well--even for a large aquatic arthropod. the innate hypocrisy permeating the entire discussion left a taste in my mouth not unlike that of turned shellfish, as does the senseless rule prohibiting the execution of a condemned prisoner when he or she has a fever. you are against putting others to death or you are not, and the drawing of arbitrary lines regarding when killing is cruel and when it isn't is a meaningless practice that serves only to soothe the draftsman. still, though, when whole foods agreed to stop selling live lobsters, i viewed it as a baby step in the right direction and smiled a weak, less than defeated smile. for about eighteen seconds.

banning the sale of live lobsters was never going to have any impact on the chain's pursuit and acquisition of live lobsters, since the walruses and carpenters who were shedding empathetic tears in the deli department were still dreaming buttery clambake dreams. because the customers are always right, whole foods found a way to get all of the lobsters' blood and sadness off of said customers' hands and put it back where it belongs: in the water--the 87,000 psi water, which kills a lobster via intense compression (probably in a less than instantaneous fashion) and blows the shell clean off its body, leaving the shiny, succulent, sterilized corpse to float to the surface.


yummy! and cruelty free! if it's true that lobsters can't feel pain, which would be the result of their not possessing anything that we might recognize as a brain. (this sensory deficit has been supported and contested a number of times by various entities, but i think it wise, or at least thoughtful, to err on the side of caution; it might do us well to remember that for many, many years, doctors believed newborns and infants weren't developed enough to feel pain, either, and surgery was routinely performed on very young children with minimal anesthesia.) of course, if lobsters do lack the sort of neural anatomy that would allow them to register being slowly and simultaneously crushed and blown up, are they really likely to suffer psychological trauma from being enclosed in a crowded, confined space? and if that isn't likely, why did whole foods bother to change anything about its practices at all?

well, because their customers are sensitive. and whole foods cares about its customers--especially their hands, with which they reach into their pockets and bags and withdraw their wallets. so when the chain decided to open a new store in maine, they asked the sensitive customers in that part of the country how they were feeling. and the customers said, "we feel like we want you to sell live lobsters, and it makes our hands tired when you tell us you aren't going to." and whole foods was disarmed by their openness and honesty, their willingness to make themselves vulnerable, and it relented: live lobsters will be sold in portland.

perhaps you, as i did at first, have leapt to the conclusion that the shot-callers at whole foods are a bunch of two-faced, money-grubbing ne'er-do-wells who will say anything to placate their sprout-loving, organic-hemp-draped base. but their commitment to compassion is as strong as ever: the lobsters will be housed in private rooms (the sort that were previously deemed insufficient), and each one sold will be killed via a 110-volt shock administered by an employee in the store, thus "spar[ing] them the agony of being boiled alive in a pot of water." the rest of the country is, apparently, not strong enough even for this method of lobster dispatch, which still forces the customer to be in the room while his or her meal is rendered lifeless. but up in the north country the natives are hewn from hardier stock, and if they want their lobsters to be electrocuted before their very eyes, well, by god, that's what they'll get, store policy or no.

listen, eat lobster, don't eat lobster, but choose a side and stand on it. i think there's something wrong with supporting an action one couldn't bear to participate in, and so i don't eat anything that i would have a problem killing with my own hands. my grandmother loved lobster but couldn't take hers apart by herself or eat while the lobster's head was "looking at her." this bothered me, so i taunted her with lobster-face puppet shows. i felt justified in forcing her to face her own contradictions. i think it's something everyone should do. maybe what whole foods ought to do is set up a tank like the tide pool exhibits at large aquariums, where children get to handle starfish and horseshoe crabs, and force customers to capture and stun their own crustaceans. it would be a fantastic back-to-nature experience for everyone, even the lobsters, and those who insist it's all right to eat shellfish because they're incapable of experiencing discomfort could prove that that opinion is more than just a security blanket. it wouldn't be the first time someone had made a sport of it. we claim to favor accountability in our politics and our business dealings, and members of our society have been known to praise, and occasionally engage in, acts motivated by sincerity and conscience. isn't it time, finally, for everyone--including and especially whole foods--to put their money where their salivating mouths are?






* my father and uncles also liked to place the liquored-up lobsters on the kitchen floor and encourage them to race and/or fight with one another or the family pets, as they had generally had more than a little to drink by then themselves. i do not miss the taste or smell of seafood, nor do i yearn for the summers of my childhood.