Chinese diners eat live fish

Yas786 · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:43

arknor said:
sticking a live lobster in a pan is perfectly accepable as shown by someones "how to cook lobster" thread though.

Om nom nom nom...could kill for a lobster right about now and yes i have thrown a few in a pot of boiling water...did it about 10 yrs ago when visiting some distant relatives who lived in Maine USA...spent a weekend lobster fishing then coming back to camp and cooking them...was good fun and something ill never forget...tasty lobster tails

geekyEd · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:43

Thats disgusting, absolutely foul I just cannot believe it.

And no it compares in no way to boiling a lobster alive, they die in seconds and are not eaten alive on someones plate.

slylittlefox · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:45

Janesy B said:
That's really disgusting and totally disrespectful.

What he said, sick *******

mrk · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:45

I say it's a bit wrong to eat it live, fish can feel pain so unless it was dead when cooked I would not eat it :S

KaHn · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:45

food chain > *

KaHn

Nitefly · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:45

BluZiff said:
And no it compares in no way to boiling a lobster alive, they die in seconds and are not eaten alive on someones plate.

Slightly off topic, but the youtube video of a forum member failing miserably to kill a crab was one of the funniest things I have ever seen, especially when they put it in the boiling water, which turned out to not be boiling at all, and you could see geoffry blowing bubbles

"Geeeeeeeeeeeeofrrrrrryyyyyyyyy!"

Ziggy · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:46

Asia is diseased. The only cure is napalm.

Nitefly · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:49

mrk said:
I say it's a bit wrong to eat it live, fish can feel pain

Again.... do they? They simply react negatively to stimuli harmful to their bodies... if you want to call that pain, fine. But it's incredibly unlikely it is anything remotely like or traumatic as mammalian pain.

KaHn · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:49

mrk said:
I say it's a bit wrong to eat it live, fish can feel pain so unless it was dead when cooked I would not eat it :S

They don't care if you're alive or dead when they try to eat you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MSx1NEV4ug

KaHn

Calabi · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:50

I'm sure in the olden days we wouldnt have baulked at doing something like that. Live eating happens plenty in nature.

But then there is something disturbing about eating a live fish at a civilised dinner table when it is not neccesary to do so.

Reminds me of an episode of Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, with the live pig that wanted to be eaten. Makes me ill just thinking about it.

peterattheboro · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:54

This thread disgusts me.

The snake vid more-so

I'm going to the kitty thread to cheer myself up.

mrk · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:55

KaHn said:
They don't care if you're alive or dead when they try to eat you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MSx1NEV4ug

KaHn

Yeah but like it has been said above, fish are hardly intelligent beings - they may eat you alive but they don't exactly have tools of the trade for a quick kill now do they

Well maybe Claus in FG does but not real fish.

markweatherill · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:55

Yes. A fish can 'feel' 'pain' but does it have the brain to do anything other than react instinctively? That is, the pain reflex is obvious but is it anything more than that...?
We could ask some fish to comment, but they don't 'do' abstract thought and aren't self aware, for example.

Diesel · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:57

Disgusting, but not surprising in that part of the world.

Nitefly · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:58

markweatherill said:
Yes. A fish can 'feel' 'pain' but does it have the brain to do anything other than react instinctively? That is, the pain reflex is obvious but is it anything more than that...?
We could ask some fish to comment, but they don't 'do' abstract thought and aren't self aware, for example.

I made a similar comment twice already. In a nutshell, it seems very unlikely that it is more than that due to the relatively simple complexity of a fishes neurology.

Regardless, we can all agree that it is humane to minimise the 'pain' that fish are subjected to, thus the behaviour shown in the OP is dubious.

scorza · 18 Nov 2009 at 12:58

I heard about this practice happening in Japan a while ago - the ironic thing is that this type of food is taboo because the Japs are trying to shed off their image as a cruel race. Sounds like the Chinese are just as bad, as the Koreans - in a popular Korean film a live squid is eaten by the actor (at a sushi restaurant of course).

I hate the way westerners are so keen to put other people's cultures on a pedestal above our own. I remember a Rick Stein documentary about Japanese food, he was in the kitchen and the chef was spending about 5 minutes carving a carrot into the shape of a rose and said something like "if I was served this in an English restaurant I'd think it was pretentious nonsense, but in Japan it's just right, shows attention to detail and respect for the food". No Rick, it's still pretentious nonsense, but it's multi-cultural pretentious nonsense so you can't criticise it :mad:

Nexus · 18 Nov 2009 at 13:03

I think Stephen Fry was spot on with his comments.

The other one which is a real problem is Shark Fin soup, which is causing the mass killing of so many of the fish, and has led to a world of immigrants who come to an area where they are who then will kill and fight over them, due to how much they can get for the fins.

It's a total waste as well, as all they take from the dead animal is the fin, which goes into a terrible soup which is mainly made of chicken stock! There was a great BBC documentary that looked at it.

Nitefly · 18 Nov 2009 at 13:04

Nexus said:
The other one which is a real problem is Shark Fin soup, which is causing the mass killing of so many of the fish, and has led to a world of immigrants who come to an area where they are who then will kill and fight over them, due to how much they can get for the fins.

It's a total waste as well, as all they take from the dead animal is the fin, which goes into a terrible soup which is mainly made of chicken stock! There was a great BBC documentary that looked at it.

Not to mention they cut off the fin then dump off the shark to die. Shark fins really are quite terrible.

Gadge · 18 Nov 2009 at 13:06

Thats just plain nasty. Some people have no morals at all.

Ziggy · 18 Nov 2009 at 13:07

Nexus said:
all they take from the dead animal is the fin

Actually they're usually cut from live sharks that are then thrown back to die slowly.

All for a dish that is eaten solely because it's tradition, oh and the fantastic thing that is Chinese medicine.