I prefer my dinners dead

But many people prefer their foodstuffs writhing, as I discovered

READ ON IF YOU DARE. This is a true confession of MASS MURDER.

I was sitting innocently at a banquet table at the Fai Seafood Hotpot restaurant in Jaffe Road, Hong Kong, when the waiter walked into the room and plonked down a large platter.

Your columnist was about to toast his host, who was celebrating his release from jail, when I saw out of the corner of my eye that all the items on the dish were writhing. Eww!

We’d been served a large plate of live prawns on skewers. Each one was waving its tiny arms at me as if to say, “Don’t eat me.” And since each had vast numbers of limbs, there was an awful lot of heart-breaking waving gone on.

My appetite vanished. Honestly. Is it too much for a guy to ask that his food be at least dead by the time it is on his plate?

*
Pretending to have an urgent call to make, I stepped away from the table to phone my friend Sara, an animal lover, and ask her advice.

“Rescue them,” she hissed. “Grab them and run towards the nearest body of water.”

I explained that they would have difficulty swimming away. “What about the skewers?” I asked.

She said: “Remove the skewers unless they are running through important major organs.”

I told her that the skewers ran all the way from their tails to their heads: “Do heads count as important major organs?”

She thought for a moment before replying: “Yes, in all species except supermodels and Fox TV viewers.”

Sara said the skewers were a problem that might make saving them impossible. The prawns would need to be anaesthetized before having them extracted at the same time as their tiny severed nerves were sewn together by micro-surgeons. After that, they would need lengthy programs of rehabilitation and occupational therapy.

*
Does the Society for the Protection of Animals provide such a service? I suspect the answer, shockingly, is no.

Would my family health insurance cover this? It was arguable at best.

Would ambulances respond to a call to aid a distressed seafood appetizer? This also could not be guaranteed.

*
I got off the phone and returned to the table. After sitting in horrified indecision for another minute, I realized that there was only one thing to do. I grabbed the whole lot and dumped them into a large dish of hot soup. Death followed swiftly.
*
My squeamishness is not shared by most people. The other diners at the table, including a 16-year-old girl, did not blink at the horror story unfolding before us.

A quick trawl of the internet showed lots of happy tales of people eating live seafood. The picture halfway up this column is quoted from the blog of Elise Law, a charming university student. Read it here. 

Even more remarkable was the blog of Vivienne Cameron, 18, whose blog features pictures of incredibly cute puppy dogs and images of prawns being cooked alive (the image right is hers). 

Vivienne, what a remarkable range of interests you have.

*
The following morning I confessed my actions to Sara.

“You murderer,” she said, and forwarded me a recent news report about a Danish TV reporter who was successfully prosecuted for killing 11 fish.

Thank God I live in Asia. Seafood diners have never been successfully prosecuted on this side of the world. 
*
In contrast, Westerners take their affection for sea food to extremes. In the US, there is a campaign to stop a Seattle tradition in which fishmongers throw dead fish and lobsters to each other across a fish market. US animal rights campaigners are up in arms, complaining that being hurled across the room is not good for the dignity of the deceased seafood items.

Normally I side with animal lovers, but I’m not enthusiastic about this cause. In my opinion, once items of food are on my plate, the bulk of their dignity has already departed.

Now, if the Americans could be persuaded to send a few micro-surgeons with experience in rehabilitating injured crustaceans over to Asia, those we could make use of.

 

Technorati Tags: fish cruelty,live prawns,seattle,fish throwing,skewers

Comments

[Sham]

Isnt it funny how people pay a small fortune to go to a restaurant, where not only do you have to cook your own dinner, you also have to kill it? Do they serve chicken and lamb at Fai Hotpot, i wonder?

[Lisa]

Sham, yes but you have to wait a while for it to arrive as lamb and chicken must be freshly slaughtered. Little old ladies are specifically hired to chase down the animals and smack them repeatedly with slippers till the food drops dead... it's said to make them more tender.

[Sham]

Lisa, why get little old ladies to do all that chasing? They should just leave it to the customers. It would bring the whole dining experience to another level. Btw, i heard stilettoes make the meat even more tender.

[Vegan]

I like stories like this. Meat eaters are complete hypocrites. they are very happy to eat dead stuff,they just need other people to do the killing. I think if Nury or most other people were forced to kill what they ate, they would all become vegetarians immediately. Nury I think you are halfway there.

[Lisa]

We have a herd of wild cows wandering around our area. They once decided to make a trip past the park where all the little kiddies were playing. The parents and helpers had the children lined up along the benches to watch the cows go by. I decided it was a good education opportunity for my 21-month old son.
"Look boy, baby cow... yummy!"

[calvin]

it is more civilize than compare with bug somebody eat live worm or raw sea urchin。

[TS]

Thank you vegan, calling people hypocrites is a good way to convince people to listen to your arguments.

If a law was passed that forced people to kill the animals they eat, they would only be vegetarians for the time it would take the supermarkets to set up a system where you can kill something when you order your meat.

Don't call me cynical, I'm a realist.

[Ryan]

I live near the giant prawn at the top, and at least I have never been offered a raw prawn. (Although I have never checked, I must ensure I always do that from now on)

[Ryan]

Wait, a live prawn that's meant to say, I rather enjoy raw prawns.

[Giant Prawn]

I am the giant prawn on top of the restaurant in the picture and I have had my eye on you for some time, Ryan. I think you would be delicious skewered from top to bottom, dipped in chilli sauce and then boiled. mm-MM!

[sej]

Vegan, I beg to differ.

Firstly, it's simply a matter of what you get used to. It may seem difficult and off-putting at first, but you quickly adjust. It is I think normal human bahviour. I see nothing wrong with killing an animal for food - and have actually done it on several occasions. I do agree though, that killing an animal for sport or enjoyment is not appropriate, and that when killing an animal for food, it should be done in such a way to minimise suffering. It is commonly someone's belief we are somehow above the natural world which gives this false illusion we should be vegetarians.

Secondly, many animals we regard as herbivores do also in fact eat meat. In fact, it could be argued that ruminant animals, cows, sheep, goats, are in fact carnivores, and *not* herbivores, for the fact their second stomach, the rumen, is actually just a big compost heap (vat), where microbes much away at the grass the animal has consumed. In the next stomachs, the animal then digests these microbes, not the grass, which simply passes out the other end. So is a cow really a herbivore or a carnivore. You tell me.

Thirdly, if we are vegetarian, think of how many animals we are still killing. Even organic food production involves killing of various pests. We may try to seperate ourselves from it by saying we're using natural means, ie., using one species of insect against another, but this to me is hypocritical. What is the difference between us using a spray to kill an insect vs another insect to kill an insect.

Lastly, the Australian Aboriginals are reknown for eating live animals, well, two small ones in particular. They eat these grubs dug out from the tree roots. Some are cooked, some eaten fresh. They also eat the rear end of Honey Ants, not the whole ant mind, just the rear end. I'm not sure if true or not, what I've heard is the ant is generally still alive afterwards and scampers off as if nothing has happened.

Ultimately, desperation wins.

[poet.P]

Sir, you're my man! I found your column in The Standard and now your everyday gossip has been party of my morning alarm clock. You wake me up with your crazy yet logical rants. You're just amazing man keep it up!

[Vince A]

Well said sej, but I'm afraid unconvincing to us vegans.

Vegetables become scrumptious and juicy through weeks and weeks of absorbing all sorts of animal excrement. Why would you want to eat anything else?

Yummy with Miracle Whip.

[godiva]

circle of life....

[emk]

this is all making me hungry for sushi....

[Cookie]

When everybody in my country was infected
with fear spread by the news of dead animals(for a long time that is) served at restaurants(without the customer's knowledge,of course!),
i threw a tantrum that i wanted to have lunch at a reknowned restaurant,not having eaten out for weeks at a stretch,to which my brother remarked to
my mother's obvious refusal rather wisely:
"we eat dead animals anyway!?"

[Cookie]

my sister's teacher and her friends were
tired of waiting for their ordered food
for four hours.my sister's teacher became
restless and called the waiter to inquire,
to which she got a very sincere reply:
the waiters were trying to capture the hens that had escaped from their coops.
The teacher later remarked:"atleast we know we were served fresh food!"

[Veggie Girl]

This is really a matter between natural instincts (powerful animals eating powerful ones) and modern mores.

sej belongs to the group of classic thinkers, who believe that creatures are designed to eat each other. Historically and scientifically he cannot be faulted. However, he is unusual in one regard. He has thought about the issues and takes responsibily for the action of killing animals. He would kill his own dinner if he had too.
In this regard, he is more honest than 99 per cent of other meat eaters, who are more like Nury, who are squeamish people who will only eat animals if someone else has killed them off-stage.

Vegetarians in general (educated ones anyway) accept that meat-eating can be seen as part of nature. They just believe that if one can live without causing suffering to other sentient beings, one might as well chose to do so. In this sense, their belief is purely a spiritual or philosophical one, not an argument against nature.

[fardel]

Sure
Did you ever hear the scream of the lettuce, when you tear its leaves apart?
And what about the noise it makes under your teeth?
Vegetable cells are alive until they are digested, animal cells die witht the animal.
, which means that the lettuce is alive until digested .
Of course a live lettuce is crunchier that a live fish ( unless you think about crushing the head first , it will try to run away when you try to chew it.
but the fish is tastier.

[Vince A]

Veggie Girl, the vegetables had been talking about you.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5595619/Plants-talk-to-warn-each-other-of-threats.html

[Angela]

think I'll skip lunch today...my wardrobe needs it anyway :)

[sej]

Angela, based on your photo, I think you could do with a feed!

[Angela]

My skip lunch resolution lasted 3 minutes exactly, the length of time it took me to walk to the neighborhood foodstall selling crispy fried cereal prawns..yummy

I once seated next to a Buddhist colleague on a company dinner. When drunken prawns was served, he refused, saying it is against his religious belief to eat because the prawns were still alive when the chef unceremoniously tossed them into the boiling pot. I never felt so lucky as I felt then, I ate his share :)

I have no qualms about fishing, hunting for my own meal. I would hook a live earthworm to catch fish which I would throw into the grill, dear or alive, for a yummy barbeque.

Food is food. One day we will all become food for the worms. I don't think there are vegan worms. better eat them now before they eat you later.

[Karuna]

Angela, did you know Lord Buddha died of stomach indigestion after eating badly cooked pork.

Talking about earthworms, couple of weeks ago, found a extremely long earth worm. It was the first time both my boys had seen one. We spend most part of the afternoon with this worm. Then their mamma came and kicked us all back into home.

[Chamin]

As many of the comments explain, there is no meal that doesn't kill a single live cell.

We all try to adjust our choices of food, with respect to killing, according to cultures and values. Many Sri Lankans do not eat beef out of respect for the milk they drank when they were infants, but eat other types of meat.

Rather than calling people "hypocrites", we should appreciate the values of others; I appreciate those of you vegetarians, and those of you who would kill for food but not for fun, too.

As for the live prawns, at least such restaurants should tell us in advance, so that we don't have to throw up seeing what happens on the adjoining table.

[Shaik Anwar Ahamath]

Now that it has been proved (Daily Telegraph) that vegetables have lives too, I have news of another type of vegan emerging - Solinos. This means no solids shall enter their mouths.