Ya gotta love it. A sort of vaguely snotty, high-end whole foods grocery chain called Whole Foods has, with a trumpet and a flourish, announced it will no longer sell one of our New England epicurean delights, Homarus americanus, the mighty American lobster. Which, by the bye, is closely related to spiders.
Now, Safeway Inc. recently announced plans to remove lobster tanks. Because they’re worried about the lobster’s innermost feelings? Nope. Because the market for grocery-store lobsters is kinda soft. Well, very soft, to be honest. This couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Whole Foods making a similar decision. Why, of course not. Whole Foods, instead, is taking another road. Verbally, anyway. They’ve joined the ranks of PETA (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals. Oops, nope, that’s the group a friend of mine supports. The other PETA stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Before we leave this acronym, who isn’t for treating animals ethically, anyway?) Whole Foods claims lobsters aren’t treated well between the boat and the dinner pot. Oh yeah?
There are few things the American consumer eats that they buy alive. Keeping anything alive takes an awful lot of work. The fact these critters are alive when you buy them immediately says it hasn’t been mistreated. Otherwise, they’d flat-out be dead, right? Then, of course, they go into that most mystical of conversations, which centers on the lobster’s ability to feel pain. Since nobody’s managed to teach a lobster to talk — their brains are, after all, extremely small — we’ll never know this answer definitively. But we can go to the tape. Check out the nervous system ofol’ Homarus.
Any high school sophomore biology student can probably show you the lobster has no pain receptors, in a nervous-system kind of way. They just aren’t there, bud. Then there’s this: One idiot from Whole Foods was quoted saying how lobster claws are banded “not just to protect people, but because it’s so stressful for them that they end up attacking each other.” Sorry, Charlie. This behavior has nothing to do with stress. It’s what lobsters do - attack each other. In addition to being something of an underwater bug, they’re cannibals. Of course, we’re tempted at this point to discuss how Americans are acclimated to finding their food nicely wrapped in cellophane (or whatever plastic is in use these days) and styrofoam. No, Virginia, hamburger ‘n’ pork chops don’t actually grow like that. So how about your fancy New Zealand lamb. Whole Foods? You don’t think those lambs don’t sort of figure things out when they’re being led to the slaughter? And while we’re at it, why do you carry New Zealand lamb instead of good old American homegrown?
Sheep farmers in Colorado need the income just as much as New England lobstermen do, turkeys. And count me among those who prefer to support local folks — Colorado being a whole lot more local than New freakin’ Zealand — than corporate foods or people from far away. (I have nothing against non-Americans. But when faced with a choice of, say, mayonnaise, relish or pickles, I’ll skip the Hellman’s and buy Cains, which is produced by a farmer’s co-op in western Massachusetts. Plus it tastes better. When buying sardines, I’ll go for the Maine-packed over the ones from Iceland or Norway. No antagonism, just loyalty to my brethren.) A final word. I garden a lot, vegetables and flowers. I don’t garden well, but I do it, even though I really don’t have the time to do it well.
Because of that, I have to weed a lot since I never stay on top of the buggers. I swear I feel a vibe sometimes when I’m ripping out weeds. Or radishes. Or carrots. Our place in the scheme of things is on top of the food chain. It is what it is. Ignore that reality at your peril. Want to eat dinner with a sense of ethics? Buy local. Grow your own. Eat fresh, wholesome food. Support fishermen and farmers. These things make sense. Making a hoo-hah over underwater spiders doesn’t. Molly Benjamin is a former commercial fisherman who writes about the business and outdoor activities. She can be contacted at 508-349-3607 or sports@capecodonline.com.
Reprinted with permission from the author.
