Posted on 06/16/2006 5:36:29 AM PDT by cbkaty
AUSTIN, Texas — Customers craving fresh crustaceans will have to look beyond Whole Foods Market Inc. after the natural-foods grocery chain decided Thursday to stop selling live lobsters and crabs on the grounds that it's inhumane.
The Austin-based grocer spent seven months studying the sale of live lobsters from ship to supermarket aisle, trying to determine whether the creatures suffer along the way.
In some stores, they experimented with "lobster condos," filling tanks with stacks of large pipes the critters can crawl inside. And they moved the tanks behind seafood counters and away from children's tapping fingers.
Ultimately, Whole Foods management decided to immediately stop selling live lobsters and soft-shell crabs, saying they could not ensure the creatures are treated with respect and compassion.
"We place as much emphasis on the importance of humane treatment and quality of life for all animals as we do on the expectations for quality and flavor," John Mackey, Whole Foods' co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement.
Animal rights activities were thrilled with the decision, not just because of the way lobsters are harvested, shipped and stored but because of the fate that awaits many of them _ being dropped alive into a pot of boiling water.
"The ways that lobsters are treated would warrant felony cruelty to animals charges if they were dogs or cats," said Bruce Friedrich, a spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
In making its decision, Whole Foods pointed to a November report from the European Food Safety Authority Animal Health and Welfare panel that it said concluded all decapod crustaceans, including lobsters and crabs, appear to have some degree of awareness, feel pain and can learn.
But other scientists and seafood industry officials said Thursday that lobsters have such primitive insect-like nervous systems they don't even have brains and can't experience pain the way animals and humans do.
For example, lobsters can shed a claw that's stuck between two rocks and move on like nothing happened, said Diane Cowan, a marine biologist who studies lobster behavior in Maine.
"They certainly have a nervous system and respond to external stimuli, but whether you can call it pain I don't know," Cowan said.
About 183 million pounds of lobster are caught each year in the United States and Canada, and about 25 percent of that is sold live, according to the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine.
"People who want lobster will have lobster," said Bill Adler, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen's Association. "If this particular chain does not want to serve it, people will go elsewhere."
From now on, Whole Foods will only sell frozen raw and cooked lobster products at its more than 180 stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, said Margaret Wittenberg, vice president of quality standards. And the chain will only deal with suppliers meeting their standards for humane treatment, handling and processing.
Whole Foods leaders will reconsider the decision if they see evidence that it's possible to ensure lobsters and crabs are treated humanely throughout the supply chain, she said.
Whole Foods Market Inc., http://www.wholefoods.com
Massachusetts Lobstermen's Association, http://www.lobstermen.com
Lobster Institute, http://www.lobsterinstitute.org
A lobster treated as a human (aka Humanely)
amazing
Broccoli has feelings too.
Maybe we should salute them before chowing down...would that be enough respect?
Do these folks realize how insane they are?
Yes, I do, and more because Whole Foods may not realize it now but they've made a deal with the devil.
I would suggest people just find a new place that does sell them.
Idiots like this don't stay in business long.
What moronic BS.
Pity the parsnip. Artificially germinated, forced to sprout in a furrow, nurtured (if you can call it that) in a bed of manure, raised with indifference, virtually ignored until it reaches market weight. Then it's thoughtlessly deracinated, mechanically decapitated, mercilessly skinned, and, in a final act of stultifying callousness, boiled alive.
Fruit and veg of other species fare no better. Corn is stripped from its parental cob. Parsley is hacked to death. Spinach is chopped and creamed, potatoes routinely whipped, pumpkins eviscerated, grain thrashed and flailed. Who's there to coddle and console a carrot? Provide foster-care for an orphaned banana? Instead, there's jubilation when cherries are doused in alcohol and set afire.
Think about this: by "harvesting" a string bean, we're kidnapping the plant's children. What does it do to our humanity, when, three times a day, we kill vegetables just to feed our voracious animal appetites?
Cruelty to vegetables is a serious concern, hidden from view because farming and gardening appear to be so natural, and questioning "nature's way" isn't politically correct.
Whole Foods appears to be a leftist organization.....they attempt to dress up the employees, but one can tell...the nose rings and pierced tongues could be a dead giveaway.... The nipple rings show through their shirts...
I'd suggest they are pulling a "Dixie Chick" on many of their customers....
excerpt - John Mackey started out with a small health-food store that he opened with his then-girlfriend, Renee Lawson Hardy, in a three-story building on 8th and Rio Grande in Austin in 1978. There was the store on the first floor, a health-food restaurant on the second, a bed on the third. "We didn't even have a shower," says Mackey. "Renee and I would take showers in the Hobart dishwasher in the restaurant, you know, using the spray hose."
The morning news talk show on KLBJ, our local AM station with Mark, Ed & SGT Sam ( Suzanna Huff is a sub today) has this as their main topic today. The majority of callers agree that they will take their business elsewhere. Good for them.
People across this country are fed up with the PC crowd, the one worlders, the PETA maggots and all of the rest of the leftist loonies that are out there. I just wish to hell they would translate that disgust into votes that takes these jerks out of official office and vote with their wallets and runs the leftist business owners out of business.
But it's heartening to see that there does appear to be a mass awakening to the problems we face.
Whole Foods is a haven for the old '60s hippie culture, originating in the liberal hellhole of Texas, Austin. I'm shocked that they ever imprisoned lobsters in the first place. Instead of spending money in Whole Foods and buying Progressive auto insurance, you could just as well send your money directly to the Democrat Party.
Before they are EATEN.
Speaking of PC, read this thread.
Yep I read it, and nope I haven't been. I say and do what I want, people can like it or stuff it as far as I'm concerned.
That just about reflects my thoughts as well. I have a habit of telling it like it is, even if it offends a few people.
I refuse to shop at any establishment in whose parking lot you can see a Porche SUV parked next to a VW microbus... and both have a Kusinich bumper sticker.
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