So evidently OUR Whole Foods *will* sell live lobster!

[mainegreen]

Just read it today in the local paper. Not surprising as that would not fly here in Portland, Maine. So much for their morals. It really is about the money!

God, I love the trouble that sea bug causes!

:rofl:

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. What's the immoral part of this?

Whole Foods is about natural foods - what's more natural than fresh lobster from the ocean?

[flvegan]

2. You asked about immoral, yet went with an opinion on natural.

Well played!

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. I should have said "What is it against Whole Foods morality?"

Is that better?

I don't know a whole lot about Whole Foods, but I've always had the impression it's more about natural (that is, non-chemicalized) or organic foods than it is high-level vegetarian (I don't know what that level is called). But I could be wrong. I meant to ask what is it about lobsters that seems to violate Whole Foods morality, not morality in general, since that's an entirely different question with a wide variety of answers.

I apologize for accidentally saying something that required a snotty and unforgiving answer.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sir_captain]

6. Dude, no need to be so condescending.

If you want to educate, you'll do a lot better without the holier than thou attitude. Who wants to pay attention to someone's legitimate points if they're acting like a bully?

Just saying.

[flvegan]

8. How was I condescending, again?

Please...do enlighten me.

[sir_captain]

10. Not trying to enlighten you

Just calling em like I see em.

The OP asked an innocent question, tried to explain himself, and you jumped down his throat. That, to me, is bullying, and at the very least wasn't very nice.

Anyway, I'm going to guess that this conversation isn't going to go anywhere so I'll catch you later.

[flvegan]

12. Invest in binoculars.

Helps to see better.

[sir_captain]

14. Hee hee hee

that was worth one last chuckle. I'm surprised you didn't go with the more timeless insult four-eyes!

Cheers. :hi:

[Name removed]

7. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gormy Cuss]

15. The issue is that holding live lobsters in small tanks in the store is cruel.

Whole Foods nationally made the decision to end the practice after considering refinements like lobster "condos" which would allow them to behave more like they do on the ocean floor. Lobsters spend long periods of time holed up in tiny spaces between rocks and rarely socialize. The typical supermarket tank has a bunch of them dumped into a bright open space with no place for refuge.

It's interesting that they chose to break policy in a lobstering area. I suspect that they ran the numbers and figured out that they'd lose a good chunk of money to nearby supermarkets with lobster tanks. Lobster is relatively cheap in Maine and the holding time in the tank should be much shorter than in areas far from where the lobster were hauled in. Mainegreen is local and can probably find out the why of the decision. Whole Foods is brand new to the area and is located across the parking lot from a Wild Oats. Both are less than a mile from a large, competitive local market.

[Rabrrrrrr]

19. Thank you for providing an answer -

that information helps a lot. I didn't realize that Whole Foods had a nation-wide policy (or at least suggestion) of not selling live lobsters.

Does Whole Foods normally sell meat at all? Or just fish?

I imagine that, knowing now what you told me, Whole Foods in Maine realized that they could lose a lot of money if they don't have lobsters.

[Gormy Cuss]

22. They sell meat, fish, all sorts of animal products.

They sell foods with less adulteration than traditional supermarkets but they're not just organic food and they're far from vegetarian, let alone vegan. They do a better job of carrying vegan and vegetarian products and labeling them as such than the Safeway and Piggly Wiggly type stores. WF also is somewhat responsive to customer demands for good animal welfare practices and other consumer concerns. Recently they reformulated their house brand sodas to replace the high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar, for example.

[Blue-Jay]

5. I don't see a problem, as long as they're not selling half a lobster.

[graywarrior]

9. That's because they have assclowns from Shaw's running the place

AND, they are trying to work with local food producers.

[Deja Q]

11. And then those who buy won't be so whole anymore...

Ouch.

:yoiks:

[MonkeyFunk]

13. Cool...

the ones I've been to don't sell lobster. It'd be cool if they did.

Edit: Also, Whole Foods isn't a vegetarian store - they have a helluva meat counter. How does it violate their morals to sell lobster?

[LeftyMom]

16. Well (mind, I don't care for WF)

They make a big deal of their animal welfare standards. By their own admission when they dropped live lobster last year, there was no way for the sale of live lobster to meet those standards. Now that they want to sell in Maine, they've changed their minds, but only in that store. Has lobster biology changed? Has the welfare policy? Or are they just whoring for a buck?

A lot of vegetarians and AR people will be disappointed. They make a big deal of the CEO being "vegan" (in quotes because he's got a hell of a goat cheese habit for a vegan, I hear.) They sell a shit ton of vegan food. In a lot of places if you want vegan cheese or dairy free chocolate or something, they're your only option. I'm not surprised, nor would I expect less of them, but I don't shop there anyhow, we have a better priced vegan-friendly food co-op with a union work force (WF is union busting) and I'd rather spend my money there.

[sir_captain]

17. It does seem awfully hypocritical of them

hard to imagine any reason for it other than the bottom line.

Are there any stores that you know of that do treat lobsters (and crabs too, I guess) more humanely?

[LeftyMom]

18. I wouldn't think there are.

The problem is, there's really no way to transport and store them live humanely. WF tried weird shit like "lobster condos" (tanks with a ton of hidey holes) and stuff before they had given up on selling them. The problem is you have to quit feeding them so they aren't poisoned by their excrement and crowd them to transport them, and being solitary by nature (and very averse to light) they don't handle either well.

That's why (until now) WF was only selling frozen lobster.

[sir_captain]

20. Hmm...

I never thought about the transportation issue. Interesting. I guess short of a giant aquarium on wheels, there really wouldn't be any way to do it.

Thanks for the info.

[LeftyMom]

21. No problem.

In another thread about lobster last night, I suggested somebody check out an article originally in Gourmet called "Consider the Lobster." I learned a lot about the issue from them (and am amazed Gourmet printed it.) Here's a PDF (on a PETA website, but all this link goes to is the Gourmet article.) http://www.lobsterlib.com/feat/davidwallace/page/lobsterarticle.pdf

[sir_captain]

23. Thanks for the link

I'll take a break from the oh-so-uplifting reading I'm doing on pain management in terminal patients and check it out.

It is pretty hard to believe that gourmet magazine would print something involving the ethical concerns concerning food supply. Maybe they have a quota. ;-)

[LeftyMom]

24. I'm sure an editor got fired over that one.

Usually Gourmet's all over that "crueler, nastier, more obscure" foodie tendency. I'm sure they were back to Mongolian Foetal Kittens or something the next month.

[sir_captain]

25. I think one of the most unsettling things I have ever seen

was when I was presented with an enormous jar full of duck tongues while attending a funeral in China.

[LeftyMom]

26. Duck tongues?

I never really thought to wonder if ducks even had tongues.

[sir_captain]

27. Neither had I, til that moment

they didn't much look like tongues, really. It was really the quantity of them and the thought of how they must have been removed that was off-putting.

[LeftyMom]

28. They have some really scary animal husbandry practices in China.

:(

[sir_captain]

29. A lot of scary things

let's just say I saw a ton of little boys running around and literally almost no little girls. I don't even want to think about how that's accomplished.

[LeftyMom]

30. Parts of India are getting to be like that, too.

That's one thing about China though- they really aren't speciesist. They treat humans just as horribly as they treat animals.

[sir_captain]

31. Yep, it's true

Really pretty much a fascist regime over there. You are very much aware that you are in a police state while on their soil. The one english language tv station is some of the most hilarious and obvious propaganda I have ever seen.

[LeftyMom]

32. I did a research project a few years back about the prison system there

You can tell a lot about a society in how they treat their criminals. In China they're slave labor and transplant organs on the hoof. When they execute prisoners they bill the next of kin for the bullet.

China is probably the most capitalistic society on earth in many ways. Human beings are a resource. Not their labor, but their bodies themselves. Female babies go on the export market, women are kidnapped and sold as wives (a booming business these days) and prisoners are killed and sold for spare parts. The elites treat everybody else like livestock, to be worked, sold or butchered.

[sir_captain]

33. Don't forget bodyworks

Almost all of the original bodies used in the bodyworks exhibition in NYC were chinese political prisoners. Really grotesque.

And I'd agree about China's capitalism as well. It's one of the major reasons (along with the minor bits of totalitarianism) why I'd say the government is really a fascist regime rather than a "communist" one.

Not that we treat our prison populations very well either, of course.

[LeftyMom]

34. I didn't know that about Bodyworks.

That's some sick stuff.

You're right though, we're not much better to prisoners here. Nor are the reasons people get locked up here much better.

[sir_captain]

37. I spent some time

working in the Riker's Island hospital ward at Bellevue Hospital, and despite it probably being the best staffed example of its kind in the country--damn, what a scary place.

[jberryhill]

35. It's a well written article...

As I mentioned in a PM, it's refreshing to see someone treat morality as a thought process rather than as a set of conclusions.

As far as transporting and storing goes - selling lobster in Maine is a whole 'nother issue than elsewhere.

They are still intended to be boiled alive, so there's the rub.

On the other hand, not knowing Whole Food's code, I wonder if there is something in there about promoting local food producers, and that's why the moral calculation - and not necessarily a financial one - adds a dimension to a store in Maine that may be different than elsewhere.

And, of course I raised the point about my cooking lobsters for the first time ever because I thought a discussion of the issue would be enlightening - and it was.

I am only disappointed that having specifically asked to be condemned, that flvegan didn't come over to rip me apart in a thread where it was specifically invited.

[LeftyMom]

36. I think he finally went to bed.

It's midnight eastern, so he really shouldn't be at it tonight either.

He should call his girlfriend, though. Silly boy. :eyes:

[flvegan]

38. Pay attention

Not doing the "rip me apart" thing as requested, though.

If you're going to invite me to a party like that, then send a proper invitation.

Oh, btw...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=6100600&mesg_id=6100707

Again...pay attention.

Thanks.

[peacefreak]

39. Buy lobster in a grocery store?

Any self-respecting Coaster would either go to the fish market or wharf to pick up their bugs.