# Whole Foods to curtail crab cruelty **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 17, 2006, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-foods-to-curtail-crab-cruelty/357156 "2006-05-17T20:29:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-foods-to-curtail-crab-cruelty/357156/21 "2006-05-18T14:41:54Z")
[QUOTE=UncleBeer] Sure do. But do you realize slaughter is more cruel than force feeding? [/QUOTE] No! Slaughter is deliberately quick and painless. Force feeding is obviously painful and something endured multiple times during the goose’s life. Whether you care what livestock endures is something else, but the concept of painless slaughter is the crux of general society’s rationalization of cruelty-free meat-eating. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-foods-to-curtail-crab-cruelty/357156/22 "2006-05-18T14:59:55Z")
Fur Og’s sake, they’re crabs. Their brains are scarcely more than a small collection of nerve ganglia. And anyone who has seen crabs live and feed in nature knows that they don’t have much sense of personal space anyway. (Or maybe I’m just, er, crabby because I was at a gathering last weekend where, because of a small number of culinary aberrants, I was forced to endure a couple of bites of vegan “cheese”…you know, the kind that doesn’t actually melt and probably isn’t even digestable. I’ve little sympathy for people who chastise me for eating something other than processed soya.) [QUOTE=UncleBeer] Unlike the Chicago city council’s vote to ban _pâté de foie gras_ from the menus of every restaurant in the city on the presumption that it’s cruel to force-feed the damn gooses. [/QUOTE] “Fuck 'em. You can’t care about every damn thing.” – Ford Prefect, _So Long And Thanks For All The Fish_. Anything that pays geese back for their foul-tempered, obnoxious behavior is okay with me. I still have a scar… Stranger ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-foods-to-curtail-crab-cruelty/357156/23 "2006-05-18T15:05:34Z")
[QUOTE=pizzabrat] . . . the concept of painless slaughter is the crux of general society’s rationalization of cruelty-free meat-eating. [/QUOTE] A society many members of which would disagree with your blanket assertion. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-foods-to-curtail-crab-cruelty/357156/24 "2006-05-18T15:10:37Z")
You know, it is likely that near every vegetable on sale there has a host of mites, nematodes and similar “not usually visable to the naked eye” animals dying a slow painful death. Aren’t they alive? Don’t they have feelings? In fact, when you steam that Broccoli, you are possible killing more animals than when you slaughter that goose. Won’t anyone think of the nematodes? > **[Google Search](http://images.google.com/search?q=nematode&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images&tbm=isch)** ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-foods-to-curtail-crab-cruelty/357156/25 "2006-05-18T15:14:51Z")
Stranger, thanks for that SLATFATF quote. I think I’ll put it, in modified form, as the Thought for the Day in my classroom. Truer words were never spok…written. Crabs are nothing but overgrown sea-bugs, and exist only to be served with drawn butter. I also suspect the the Chicago City Council are a bunch of gourmand-hating Velveeta-eaters. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-foods-to-curtail-crab-cruelty/357156/26 "2006-05-18T15:16:07Z")
OK…who forgot to close the italics tag? ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-foods-to-curtail-crab-cruelty/357156/27 "2006-05-18T15:22:23Z")
[QUOTE=UncleBeer] A society many members of which would disagree with your blanket assertion. [/QUOTE] Some might, but the fact that we have laws barring animal cruelty that co-exist with our livestock industry allows me to conclude that we, in general, accept the notion of cruelty to animals yet consider standard methods of slaughter to be outside of our of definition of cruelty. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-foods-to-curtail-crab-cruelty/357156/28 "2006-05-18T15:27:06Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] You know, it is likely that near every vegetable on sale there has a host of mites, nematodes and similar “not usually visable to the naked eye” animals dying a slow painful death. Aren’t they alive? Don’t they have feelings? In fact, when you steam that Broccoli, you are possible killing more animals than when you slaughter that goose. Won’t anyone think of the nematodes? > **[Google Search](http://images.google.com/search?q=nematode&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images&tbm=isch)** [/QUOTE] Don’t be silly. A goose has far more mites on it than a broccoli. You may think the goal of reducing animal suffering to be pointless, but it is not an impossible or irrational goal. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-foods-to-curtail-crab-cruelty/357156/29 "2006-05-18T16:01:15Z")
[QUOTE=pizzabrat] Some might, but the fact that we have laws barring animal cruelty that co-exist with our livestock industry allows me to conclude that we, in general, accept the notion of cruelty to animals yet consider standard methods of slaughter to be outside of our of definition of cruelty. [/QUOTE] And in most places, Chicago being the obvious exception, those standards say that force-feeding geese is acceptable. _attempt to close italics tag here_ ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-foods-to-curtail-crab-cruelty/357156/30 "2006-05-18T16:24:36Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] Won’t anyone think of the nematodes? > **[Google Search](http://images.google.com/search?q=nematode&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images&tbm=isch)** [/QUOTE] Thank you. A friend was considering a position working with nematodes (apparently, they are “genetically tractable”) and I keep forgeting to look up the word. RE Live Cows In The Store I’d prefer this. If I could afford it, I’d drive out to Amish country and point the cow I want slaughtered. Of course, I’d have to bring a kosher butcher with me to kill the animal. But, seeing living livestock and the conditions they live in is the best way to be sure they were treated humanely. RE Slaughter To be kosher, an animal must be killed with a special knife, free of the smallest nicks, and used for no other cutting, drawn across a specific spot in the neck in a single motion. As a clumsy man who cut down a discarded window to make shelves, I am very sure that a truly sharp edge causes massive blood loss and no pain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whole-foods-to-curtail-crab-cruelty/357156.md?page=1)