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Update from Trevor Corson:

I have a habit of visiting Finland, and just discovered that the so-called "Swedish" fish candy actually appear to have originated not in Sweden, but in Finland. Yet another cultural revelation that should make my Finnish friends both angry and proud.

Seyo: I have not found much in the way of health & environmental stats on yellowtail, but they are nearly all farmed in a way similar to the way salmon are farmed, and salmon farming raises a whole host of health & environmental problems, so generally I avoid the usual yellowtail at the sushi bar for that reason.

-Trevor
TrevorCorson.com

This whole debate over whether or not lobsters feel pain drives me crazy -- and I wrote THE BOOK on lobsters! ("The Secret Life of Lobsters" by Trevor Corson.) The headlines always make it seem as though settling this debate one way or another is going to impact lobster eaters. If we're being honest with ourselves, it shouldn't make one iota of difference.

Let's be clear: if we're not vegetarians, we're responsible for the daily slaughter of all sorts of sentient creatures that most certainly do feel pain. If you're going to eat meat, and you have a conscience, the issue is finding meat from animals that have been treated and killed in as humane a manner as possible.

Lobsters are no different. I've followed the scientific arguments about lobster pain closely for several years and I'm unconvinced that we know much one way or the other. So I decided I would just assume that being boiled alive is likely to hurt. In which case, we should kill lobsters quickly and humanely before putting them in the pot. It's that simple. Here's how to do it: http://tinyurl.com/97fpr

The squeamish reactions to killing a live lobster that many of us have are, I think, a direct indicator of how far removed we've become from our food. The lobster is pretty much the last animal that most of us still encounter alive before we eat it. And it's clearly a shock to come face to face with what we're doing.

But it's also an opportunity -- a profound one -- to reconnect with the web of life that we both exploit and depend on. If you eat meat and you get through the experience of killing a live lobster, trying slaughtering a goat next -- which I have done -- and see how that makes you feel. It might turn you into a vegetarian, but if you continue as a carnivore, you'll certainly never eat meat thoughtlessly again.

Trevor Corson here.

Ed, I have to disagree with you. Part of the point I was trying to make in my article is that the stoicism of our sushi chefs isn't "hundreds of years of cultural breeding" at all. In Japan, the reputation of sushi chefs going back to their (relatively recent) beginnings in the 1800s is one of boisterous camaraderie with their customers, and that's certainly what I experienced in Japan. Their stoicism here in the U.S. has more to do with simple cultural arrogance, and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask them to change, and treat us as equals to their customers back home.

In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that we're perpetuating an unhelpful stereotype by arguing that sushi chefs are entitled to their stoicism.

Annien brings up a legitimate concern -- the language barrier. In my experience, chefs with a positive attitude are perfectly capable of making the effort to transcend the language barrier, even with limited English skills.