Consider the Lobster, by David Foster Wallace

1390 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: David Foster Wallace considers the lobster analysis

I really value health that I wouldn't mind spending a lot of money on it especially when it comes to food. I'm a health buff but I am not trying to be a Vegan but reading Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace makes me curious in some way. Suppose that animal does feel the pain and suffers like human being? Boiling lobster to be specific, when you're about to cook them, do they somehow suffer, feel the pain, or have this emotions? because they struggle a lot in a pot when cooking it and make unnecessary noises. Based on this research, it is proven that animals have emotions.

The major thing about Mr. Wallace’s article is his concern about suffering of Lobster which he briefly explain the facts, he’s article feature the Maine Lobster Festival in Maine which the festival will cook 25,000 pound of lobsters, the World Largest Lobster Cooker as they call it, lobster will be cook in a gruesome way which he is concerned. Mr. Wallace characterized the lobster that boiling them is really hard for him to watch. Example is in his article he said that “Lobster looks like they are suffering as they hang their claws in the pot”. But this explains why the violent reaction of lobsters to boiling water is a reflex to noxious stimuli. And to add, Based on review by the Scottish animal welfare group Advocate for Animals released reported, a scientific evidence that strongly suggests that there is a potential for lobsters to experience pain and suffering. This is primarily because lobsters and other decapod crustaceans have opioid receptors and respond to opioids analgesics such as morphine in a similar way to vertebrates, indicating that lobsters' reaction to injury changes when painkillers are applied. The similariti...

... middle of paper ...

...this research I love animals more than ever that I don’t care if science nor people believed it or not that they have emotions.

Works Cited

Schaefer, Edell Marie. "Book Reviews: Science & Technology." Library Journal 120.9

Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Dec. 2012.

Ferrie, Suzie. "The Ethics Of What We Eat." Nutrition & Dietetics 64.1 (2007): 67. Academic

SearchComplete. Web. 16 Dec. 2012.

Wallace, David Foster. "Consider the Lobster." : 2000s Archive : Gourmet.com. N.p., n.d.

Web.13 Dec. 2012.

.

(n.d.). Retrieved December 16, 2013, from http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/animal-odd-couples/excerpt-the-emotional-lives-of-animals/8005/

(n.d.). Retrieved December 13, 2013, from http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0304/feature4/

Show More
Related

  • Summary of the Chapter "Nutritionism Defined"

    548 Words  | 2 Pages

    Michael Pollan, an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism (Michael Pollan), writes in his book In Defense of Food, the dangers of nutritionism and how to escape the Western diet and subsequently most of the chronic diseases the diet imparts. In the chapter “Nutritionism Defined” Pollan defines the term nutritionism. Pollan’s main assertion being how the ideology of nutritionism defines food as the sum of its nutrients, and from this viewpoint Pollan goes on to write how nutritionism divides food into two categories, with each macronutrient divided against each other as either bad or good nutrients, in a bid for focus of our food fears and enthusiasms. Finally, Pollan concludes that with the relentless focus nutritionism places on nutrients and their interplay distinctions between foods become irrelevant and abandoned.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Consider The Lobster

    1246 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Taxonomically speaking, a lobster is a marine crustacean of the family Homaridae, characterized by five pairs of jointed legs, the first pair terminating in large pincerish claws used for subduing prey…. Moreover, a crustacean is an aquatic arthropod of the class Crustacea, which comprises of crabs, shrimp, barnacles, lobsters, and freshwater crayfish” (Wallace, 55). This is an example of Logos since the author uses scientific facts to convey the message he wants to communicate in an objective way. Wallace also uses logos as a persuasive device by presenting facts on the science of the lobster’s neurological system and its ability to feel pain. The Maine Lobster Promotion Council states “The nervous system of a lobster is very simple, and is in fact most similar to the nervous system of a grasshopper. It is decentralized with no brain. There is no cerebral cortex, which in humans is the area of the brain that gives the experience of pain”. Wallace counter-argues this statement by mentioning the fact that since lobsters have a simpler nervous system compared to humans, they are unable to produce their own natural opiates. “One can conclude that lobsters are maybe even more vulnerable to pain, since they lack mammalian nervous systems’ built-in analgesia, or, instead, that the absence of natural opioids implies an absence of the really intense

    Read More

  • Animal, Vegetable, Miserable By Professer Gary Steiner

    827 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Mr. Steiner’s article he says that people all around the world always have excuses to why they eat meat and somehow make them believe their lie by telling them the reasons constantly. So they ignore the torture and the pain the animals endure just for the enjoyment of a meal. They forget everything about the poor lives the animals had to go through while they have their hamburger in McDonalds. They tell themselves two excuses which is that animals don’t feel pain and that god made animals for our consumption according to Mr. Steiner. About the animals don’t feel pain, I believe that the evidence he provides is suffice and that I agree fully with. If the animal is constantly kept caged, how will it think it has a future when its present is pathetic? For the religion excuse, I believe that it can be true in a Christian view but in other religion that’s not the case. Religion plays a great role in the population of vegetarians. Places such as India have the biggest amount of vegetarianism and t...

    Read More

  • Mary Maxfield And Michael Pollan's Escape From The Western Diet

    1065 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are many different beliefs about the proper way to eat healthy. People are often mislead and live unhealthy lifestyles as a result. Both Mary Maxfield and Michael Pollan explain their own beliefs on what a healthy diet is and how to live a healthy lifestyle. In the essay, “Escape from the Western diet” Michael Pollan writes about the flaws of the western diet and how we can correct these problems to become healthier. In the essay, “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating”, Mary Maxfield criticizes Michael Pollan’s essay about eating healthy, and explains her own theory on how to be healthy. She believes that Pollan is contradicting himself and that what he is stating is false. Mary Maxfield ponders the

    Read More

  • Government + Food Industry = ?

    1478 Words  | 3 Pages

    Nestle, Marion. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

    Read More

  • Consider The Lobster Summary

    553 Words  | 2 Pages

    Now, for a second it seems like a waste of time to write an article about consideration when the consideration doesn’t even change your opinion, but it’s not a waste of time, because when I read this essay I didn’t believe it was for the purpose of convincing people not to eat lobsters, or to inform you on the differences between humans’ and lobsters’ emotional and physical components, I believe the essay was written for us to consider our day to day lives

    Read More

  • Escape From The Western Diet Essay

    1160 Words  | 3 Pages

    When we think of our national health we wonder why Americans end up obese, heart disease filled, and diabetic. Michael Pollan’s “ Escape from the Western Diet” suggest that everything we eat has been processed some food to the point where most of could not tell what went into what we ate. Pollan thinks that if America thought more about our “Western diets” of constantly modified foods and begin to shift away from it to a more home grown of mostly plant based diet it could create a more pleasing eating culture. He calls for us to “Eat food, Not too much, Mostly plants.” However, Mary Maxfield’s “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating”, argues differently she has the point of view that people simply eat in the wrong amounts. She recommends for others to “Trust yourself. Trust your body. Meet your needs.” The skewed perception of eating will cause you all kinds of health issues, while not eating at all and going skinny will mean that you will remain healthy rather than be anorexic. Then, as Maxfield points out, “We hear go out and Cram your face with Twinkies!”(Maxfield 446) when all that was said was eating as much as you need.

    Read More

  • Food As Thought: Resisting The Moralization Of Eating By Mary Maxfield

    795 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Food as thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating,” is an article written by Mary Maxfield in response or reaction to Michael Pollan’s “Escape from the Western Diet”. Michael Pollan tried to enlighten the readers about what they should eat or not in order to stay healthy by offering and proposing a simple theory: “the elimination of processed foods” (443).

    Read More

  • 'Consider The Lobster' By David Foster Wallace

    589 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Consider the Lobster” is an essay written by David Foster Wallace, and published in a Gourmet Magazine. This essay was developed with the purpose of raising the awareness of the society, with respect to the mistreatments suffered by the lobsters. He started by describing the Maine Lobster Festival, which seems to be the major event related to lobster. It happens annually and it serves as a mean to sustain the economy of that region; which besides of the lobsters relies on the tourism to maintain its economy. Just to have an idea of the magnitude of this event, in 2003 the audience surpassed the mark of 80,000 and were cooked more than 25,000 pounds of fresh lobster, according to Wallace.

    Read More

  • The Western Diet

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wardlaw, G.M. and Smith. Contemporary Nutrition: Issues and Insights. 5th Edition. Boston: McGraw-Hill, pp 85, 2004.

    Read More

  • Diabetes

    3252 Words  | 7 Pages

    Sizer, Frances, and Eleanor Whitney. Nutrition Concepts and Controversies. Eighth edition. Australia: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2000.

    Read More

  • Consider The Lobster Sparknotes

    644 Words  | 2 Pages

    Consider the lobster is a philosophical commentary on the ethics of preparing and eating lobster using surprising juxtapositions of ideas that lead to fresh insight.

    Read More

  • Lobsters Research Paper

    287 Words  | 1 Pages

    In response to your second question, I believe that animals still experience pain. Although lobsters do not produce endorphins to help them handle intense pain, it does not mean that their pain receptors are absent all together. For example, some point out how pain is subjective. They claim that lobsters do not experience the same pain we humans do, and they go on to say that the creatures might not even mind the pain. However, this begs the question: why do they try to climb out of the pot of boiling water? If they truly did not mind the pain, wouldn’t they just relax in the boiling water as they are burned alive? Therefore, I think pain is the correct term in this case. So much so that we even realize, deep down, that we are hurting them.

    Read More

  • Hooked On A Myth Analysis

    286 Words  | 1 Pages

    In “Hooked on a Myth”, Victoria Braiyhwaite states that fish feel pain. Even though many think otherwise. I totally agree. In spite of the fact that fish might be seen as dumb , that does not imply that they can't feel pain. I've never been fishing but i can only imagine how much pain they go through and we don't realize because they show empty expressions. In any case, if no one shows their emotions you won't realize what they're going through.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Eating Healthy

    1177 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan explores the relationship between nutrition and the Western diet, claiming that the answer to healthy eating is simply to “eat food”.

    Read More

More about Consider the Lobster, by David Foster Wallace

Open Document