Consider the Lobster

Warning: this is definitely a venting post. Sometimes posts like these just have to happen.

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I just listened to an excerpt of Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, and I gotta tell you...I am feeling really depressed right now.

I have always felt horrible about the ways that animals are treated in the meat/fur/leather/everything-else business world, but I always just try to ignore it. How else can I live with myself while the horrible torture of poor innocent animals is going on? What else can I do? I am just one puny opinion in the world of mass consumption of animal products.

And I am not admitting that I am a vegetarian, either. My morals tell me I should be, but my desire for some of my favorite foods tells me I can't be. In the end I think I have realized that I am not so much against eating animals...I just think that only a small amount of animals should be used in the most humane way possible. I hate that there is a mass killing of cattle, pigs and chicken, just so a million people can eat half of their hamburgers or burrito or chicken sandwich, and throw the other half away.

More bothersome than this, however, is how the animals are treated before they are killed. I would have no problem if animals were being born into a good, healthy, carefree life, and then being allowed to roam free and eat good food (it makes me sick that some animal factories feed animals the remains of their fellow slaughtered animals), and then being put to sleep in a quick, stress-free, painless way.

But this isn't how it is done, because it just doesn't make sense to invest a lot of time and energy into making animals stress-free, if they are just going to die. No, instead of this morally right and humane way to treat our fellow creatures on this planet, chickens have their beaks chopped off and are forced to live their entire lives in tiny wire cages that give them terrible sores on their feet. Tiny baby cows are forced to remain in little pens where they can't walk or barely turn around, so that they do not toughen their muscles. After all, who wants to eat a tough piece of veal?

But I really cheer on people who do try to do something about it. I must admit, I am a huge fan of Whale Wars and PETA, (although I don't condone their sometimes terrorist actions). So why not do something myself? I want to. Honestly. But I am just at a loss of what I can do. If I had money, I would give it to an organization who is doing some good out in the world. But I don't. Is there somewhere that I can volunteer at? Anything I can do?

After reading this article, I feel both horribly depressed and frantically stirred to action. How could you not feel this way after reading this:

"As an à la carte entrée, lobster can be baked, broiled, steamed, grilled, sautéed, stir-fried, or microwaved. The most common method, though, is boiling. If you’re someone who enjoys having lobster at home, this is probably the way you do it, since boiling is so easy...

A detail so obvious that most recipes don’t even bother to mention it is that each lobster is supposed to be alive when you put it in the kettle. This is part of lobster’s modern appeal: It’s the freshest food there is...

The intimacy of the whole thing is maximized at home, which of course is where most lobster gets prepared and eaten (although note already the semiconscious euphemism “prepared,” which in the case of lobsters really means killing them right there in our kitchens). The basic scenario is that we come in from the store and make our little preparations like getting the kettle filled and boiling, and then we lift the lobsters out of the bag or whatever retail container they came home in …whereupon some uncomfortable things start to happen. However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water. If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides or even to hook its claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof. And worse is when the lobster’s fully immersed. Even if you cover the kettle and turn away, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off. Or the creature’s claws scraping the sides of the kettle as it thrashes around. The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water (with the obvious exception of screaming). A blunter way to say this is that the lobster acts as if it’s in terrible pain, causing some cooks to leave the kitchen altogether and to take one of those little lightweight plastic oven timers with them into another room and wait until the whole process is over."

The interesting thing about all of this is that the author is not an animal rights activist at all. He is just a regular guy--like you or me. His writing just goes to show, though, that these animal rights issues are something that everyone should consider, and take a stand on. If everyone decided that animals must be treated better, can you imagine the changes that certain inhumane animal factories and producers would have to make?

Well, like I said, this was a venting post. But I think it was also a call to action...even if it was only directed at myself. In the end though, maybe this post will do some good. Maybe it is my little way of doing something. Anyway, I'll leave you with the words of David Foster Wallace, as he ends his article on lobsters for Gourmet magazine. A little somthing to think about:

"Given this article’s venue and my own lack of culinary sophistication, I’m curious about whether the reader can identify with any of these reactions and acknowledgments and discomforts. I am also concerned not to come off as shrill or preachy when what I really am is confused. Given the (possible) moral status and (very possible) physical suffering of the animals involved, what ethical convictions do gourmets evolve that allow them not just to eat but to savor and enjoy flesh-based viands (since of course refined enjoyment, rather than just ingestion, is the whole point of gastronomy)? And for those gourmets who’ll have no truck with convictions or rationales and who regard stuff like the previous paragraph as just so much pointless navel-gazing, what makes it feel okay, inside, to dismiss the whole issue out of hand? That is, is their refusal to think about any of this the product of actual thought, or is it just that they don’t want to think about it? Do they ever think about their reluctance to think about it? After all, isn’t being extra aware and attentive and thoughtful about one’s food and its overall context part of what distinguishes a real gourmet? Or is all the gourmet’s extra attention and sensibility just supposed to be aesthetic, gustatory?"

P.S. If you want to watch a really good show about animal rights issues, watch the 30 Days episode on Animal Rights. Here is a link to that episode on Hulu. Watch out though--it is a tear jerker.