Have you heard a "screaming" noise when a lobster is dropped into a boiling pot? It's not what you think.
Many people think that the high-pitched screeching noise that occurs when boiling a lobster is due to it being in pain; however, this is not possible because lobsters have no vocal chords. Instead, the aquatic services company Pacific Edge claims the sound you hear is the sound of expanding air bubbles coming out of the shell as it cooks.
...Not everyone agrees that lobsters suffer from being boiled, citing their “primitive” nervous system. Robert Bayer, executive director of The Lobster Institute in Maine, told Business Insider, “Do you have the same concern when you kill a fly or a mosquito? Cooking a lobster is like cooking a big bug.”
That said, Switzerland has banned placing a live lobster into a boiling pot. The alternatives...will be weird.
Beginning on March 1, restaurant chefs will have to use electrical shock that leads to the “mechanical destruction” of the lobster’s brain before they are allowed to boil them.
One possible device on the table? The “Crustastun,” a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals-approved device that uses an electrical current to humanely stun crustaceans. It takes half a second to first stun the animal’s nerve system, which makes them unable to feel pain, and then 10 seconds for the stun current to kill it.
So...they will be unable to feel the pain that they may not feel in the first place. But animal rights activists will feel better. I guess it really IS all about the feels.