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A Nova Scotia Community College culinary instructor in Cape Breton is teaching his students to cook and kill lobsters more humanely.
Adam White, who works at the NSCC Sydney Waterfront Campus, was a chef for 15 years and has been a culinary instructor for 20 years.
He said he decided to teach his students a method based on studies out of England, which in December announced a measure to be implemented by 2030 that will ban the practice of boiling lobsters alive.
“One way or the other, we’re going to be boiling or killing these animals to consume them,” said White, adding it’s important to do that humanely.
The English boil ban will complement the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act passed in that country in 2022 that recognizes all decapod crustaceans, such as lobsters, and cephalopod mollusks, such as scallops, can feel pain like other animals.
Adam White is a culinary instructor at NSCC. He teaches his students to cook lobsters humanely. (Submitted by Adam White)
Chefs used to cook lobsters by boiling them alive in heavily salted water for about 11 to 14 minutes, White said.
“Then chefs [realized], ‘Well, that’s a really hot bath to put any animal into. We should probably take care of them as quick as we can beforehand.’ So then we started shifting to piercing with the knife to make it a little bit more humane,” he said.
“But with all the research we’ve been reading recently, we found out that maybe that’s still not as good as we could be doing.”
White is now teaching his students to freeze lobsters for about 20 to 30 minutes, which slows their metabolism and central nervous system, meaning they experience less pain when they’re killed quickly by plunging a knife between their eyes.
Boiling lobsters alive is against the law in a number of countries, including Switzerland, Norway and New Zealand.
The announcement of England’s ban came following a paid review by the London School of Economics, which wrote a report about how crustaceans and mollusks feel pain, citing research by retired Queen’s University Belfast professor Robert Elwood.
Elwood, who has a background in animal behaviour, has studied pain in lobsters and crabs for 10 years, and does most of his experiments on crabs.
Robert Elwood is holding a restrained crab in Singapore. (Submitted by Robert Elwood)
He was skeptical when he started his experiments, but the results surprised him.
Elwood noticed physical stress responses that were consistent with pain, and not simply reflex reactions.
He cited the example of a person whose reflex upon touching a hot stove is to move their hand away. However, pain may not kick in until after the person moves their hand.
“Putting them into boiling water, depending upon the size of the animal, it could take one to three minutes [to die] maybe for a lobster. That’s a long time you’re suffering badly,” said Elwood.
“If you accept a high probability that they experience pain, then why use a method that would cause such extreme pain when other methods are available and could be used?”
In an email statement to CBC News, Nova Scotia’s Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture says there is no work or discussion taking place to change existing practices in the province.
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