Maine

Fishmonger Offers Lobsters Some Herb Before the Butter

These lobsters are going to pot in more ways than one.

A Maine lobster pound is banking on using marijuana to try to make cooking the crustaceans a little more humane.

The owner and registered medical marijuana caregiver, Charlotte Gill, says she put a lobster in a box with a few inches of water before marijuana smoke was blown into the box. She says the animal was calmer for the next three weeks, and she released it into the ocean.

The result, she says, is not just a more humane way to kill the creature but the "best tasting lobster you've ever had."

Gill says when any animal is killed it releases stress hormones, which are transferred to the meat. But when a creature "has a kinder passage, the meat has a much better flavor."

Gill plans to use the new method at customers' requests, and then build a larger tank to sedate multiple lobsters at once.

Gill hopes that this method of killing animals for food becomes an industry standard for everything from chickens and cows to lobsters.

"If we are going to take a life it should be done in the most humane way, whether it is a human or lobster," she said.

The effect of marijuana on lobster meat is not a major field of scientific inquiry.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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