"Crayfish feel pain, steaming them alive is too cruel" In the future, when making spicy crayfish, you can only electrocute them one by one

This summer, have you tried the beer and crayfish combo recommended by Tadpole?

Today, we will not talk about "eating", but focus on "cooking", and talk about what crayfish go through before they can be served on our table. Stir-frying, steaming, boiling, there are many ways to cook crayfish, but no matter whether it is spicy or steamed, crayfish are basically washed and scrubbed in the kitchen and put into the pot alive (it seems that some foodie friends have not noticed this), of course, some will have their heads and shrimp threads cut off.
However, the cooking methods we have long been accustomed to have been overturned by a piece of legislation in the UK.
The British government is developing a plan to "ban the cooking of live lobsters" and is considering including shellfish and cephalopod mollusks under the protection of the Animal Welfare (Perception) Bill. The Animal Welfare (Perception) Bill submitted by the British government, picture source Guancha.com That is to say, whether it is hairy crabs or crayfish, they can no longer be cooked alive. For humanitarian considerations, they need to be electrocuted one by one before doing so. The controversy over animal humanitarianism has never stopped. Some time ago, a doctoral student from the mainland who went to Hong Kong to study was arrested in Hong Kong for slaughtering snails. Hong Kong's Sing Tao Daily said that he sprinkled salt on the snail, causing it to dehydrate and die, and was suspected of abuse, so he was arrested.

What do you think of these incidents? Do animals need such legislative protection?

Animal cruelty law

In the early 19th century, Britain introduced the "Anti-Cruelty Act" (also known as the "Martin Act") proposed by Richard Martin, which took the lead in protecting animal rights. Subsequently, countries such as France, Ireland, and Germany successively introduced bills against animal cruelty to promote the improvement of animal welfare. In 2002, Germany became the first country in the world to write animal rights into its constitution.

The original reason for the birth of animal welfare legislation in the UK was that people at that time believed that animals, like humans, have feelings, they can also feel pain, and they also need a good external environment to survive and develop.

The basic principles of animal welfare include that animals have the freedom to be free from hunger and thirst, the freedom to live comfortably, the freedom from pain, injury and disease, and the freedom to live without fear and sorrow.

In accordance with animal welfare regulations, in modern factory poultry slaughtering and processing, live poultry need to be stunned before being slaughtered, so that the animals remain unconscious and free from pain while being stabbed and bled to death.

There are two methods to stun animals: physical and chemical methods, such as electric shock, gunshot and CO₂ inhalation, among which electric shock is more commonly used. Image source: Guangdong TV

However, invertebrates such as lobsters are not covered in animal hospice care and the British government's latest Animal Welfare (Perception) Bill, which has caused dissatisfaction among animal welfare activists.
Therefore, in July this year, a number of British animal welfare organizations promoted the formulation of a plan to "ban the cooking of live lobsters" and considered including shellfish and cephalopod mollusks under the protection of the Animal Welfare (Perception) Act.

They believe that invertebrates such as lobsters also have a sense of pain and can feel pain, and that boiling or dissecting them alive is too cruel. Therefore, they recommend stunning crayfish with electric shock or freezing them at low temperatures before cooking.

However, the equipment used to stun lobsters is very expensive, costing around 2,500 pounds, or about 22,000 yuan in RMB! (Yes, it is a burden for the average family)
Is it enough to stun the lobsters with electricity? No, to truly avoid the inhumane cooking of these small animals, their nervous systems must be quickly disconnected during the time they are unconscious.

I'm afraid that with this set of operations, it will be a bit difficult for the British people to eat lobster as they please. After all, they have to consider the price!

Do crayfish feel pain?

So, do lobsters feel pain?

Whether invertebrates feel pain remains a mystery.

In general, invertebrate welfare is not protected by law and generally does not enjoy animal hospice care, but a few countries such as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway and New Zealand prohibit boiling lobsters alive and promote more humane cooking processes. Why do people tend to ignore invertebrates? The most intuitive reason is that they do not make shrill cries during live boiling and live dissection, which cannot arouse people's sympathy and empathy. (Imagine, if the crayfish screams non-stop after being put into the pot, can you still cook it directly?)

Of course, another reason is that people think that the nervous system of invertebrates is very primitive, the brain is not fully evolved, and the spine has not evolved. There is no central nervous system composed of the brain and spinal cord that can produce pain, so people tend to think that they do not feel pain. Image from Zhihu

From humans to fruit flies, we all have special receptors called "nociceptors" that can sense excessive temperatures, toxic chemicals, or mechanical injuries such as squeezing and tearing, and then produce a stress response.

In vertebrates, this reaction is accompanied by pain, but it is still unknown whether the stress response process in invertebrates is accompanied by pain.

In this regard, Irish zoologist Robert Elwood proposed a criterion, which is to see whether invertebrates will exhibit behavior similar to mammals' "wound care" when they are injured.

He found that when a certain part of a hermit crab is electrocuted, the crab will rub that part with its claws for a long time; edible crabs will also keep rubbing the wound after removing one of their claws; octopuses will also show a similar reaction to the pain of vertebrates after being injured. However, these reactions will not appear in insects, which are also invertebrates. It is still unclear whether invertebrates feel pain when they are injured. As for whether hairy crabs and crayfish should be electrocuted before being cooked, China has no relevant regulations on this aspect.

It is indeed difficult for us to electroshock ingredients, but whether we should be more kind before eating them depends on personal choice~

References:

[1] Lu Zhipin. Without a spine, can animals feel pain? [J]. Big Science (Science Mysteries), 2015(3):26-27.

[2] Zhou Yibo. Britain plans to ban the cooking of live lobsters because “lobsters will feel pain and boiling them alive is too cruel”, Guanchazhe.com.

[3] Nie Xinguo. Comparative study of animal welfare legislation in the UK and the US [J]. Legal System and Society, 2012(03):13-14.

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#Audit expert Wang Guoyi, food safety postdoctoral fellow Tadpole five-line score original work, reprinted with source editor/Xiao Xitu said