Ponderous Intellect
Posts: 3,847 
Location: Victoria, BC
Location: Victoria, BC
May 29th, 2006, 10:19 AM
I've always suspected this so was not surprised to find out the truth behind sea bugs ...
I've always suspected this so was not surprised to find out the truth behind sea bugs ...
Quote:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...y/14031886.htm
Why lobsters aren't food
BY DAVE BARRY
I am pleased to report that the scientific community has finally stopped wasting time on the origins of the universe and started dealing with the important question, which is: Are lobsters really just big insects?
I have always maintained that they are. I personally see no significant difference between a lobster and, say, a giant Madagascar hissing cockroach, which is a type of cockroach that grows to approximately the size of William Howard Taft (1857-1930). If a group of diners were sitting in a nice restaurant, and the waiter were to bring them each a freshly killed, steaming-hot Madagascar hissing cockroach, they would not put on silly bibs and eat it with butter. No, they would run, retching, directly from the restaurant to the All-Nite Drive-Thru Lawsuit Center. And yet these very same people will pay $24.95 apiece to eat a lobster, despite the fact that it displays all three of the classic biological characteristics of an insect, namely:
1. It has way more legs than necessary.
2. There is no way you would ever pet it.
3. It does not respond to simple commands such as, ``Here, boy!''
I do not eat lobsters, although I once had a close call. I was visiting my good friends Tom and Pat Schroth, who live in Maine (state motto: ``Cold, But Damp''). Being generous and hospitable people, Tom and Pat went out and purchased, as a special treat for me, the largest lobster in the history of the Atlantic Ocean, a lobster that probably had been responsible for sinking many commercial vessels before it was finally apprehended by nuclear submarines. This lobster was big enough to feed a coastal Maine village for a year, and there it was, sprawling all over my plate, with scary insectoid legs and eyeballs shooting out in all directions, while Tom and Pat, my gracious hosts, smiled happily at me, waiting for me to put this thing in my mouth.
Remember when you were a child, and your mom wouldn't let you leave the dinner table until you ate all your Brussels sprouts, and so you took your fork and mashed them into smaller and smaller pieces in hopes of eventually reducing them to individual Brussels-sprout molecules that would be absorbed into the atmosphere and disappear? That was similar to the approach I took with the giant lobster.
''Mmmm-MMMM!'' I said, hacking away at the thing on my plate and, when nobody was looking, concealing the pieces under my dinner roll, in the salad, in my napkin, anywhere I could find.
Tom and Pat, I love you dearly, and if you should ever have an electrical problem that turns out to be caused by a seven-pound wad of old lobster pieces stuffed into the dining-room wall socket, I am truly sorry.
Anyway, my point is that lobsters have long been suspected, by me at least, of being closet insects, which is why I was very pleased recently when my alert journalism colleague Steve Doig referred me to an Associated Press article concerning a discovery by scientists at the University of Wisconsin.
The article, headlined ''Gene Links Spiders and Flies to Lobsters,'' states that not only do lobsters, flies, spiders, millipedes, etc., contain the exact same gene, but they also are all descended from a single common ancestor: Howard Stern.
No, seriously, the article states that the ancestor ''probably was a wormlike creature.'' Yum! Fetch the melted butter!
And that is not all. According to articles sent in by alert readers (this was on the front page of The New York Times), scientists in Denmark recently discovered that some lobsters have a weird little pervert organism living on their lips. Yes. I didn't even know that lobsters had lips, but it turns out that they do, and these lips are the stomping ground of a tiny creature called Symbion pandora (literally, ``a couple of Greek words''). The zoology community, which does not get out a lot, is extremely excited about Symbion pandora, because it reproduces differently from all other life forms.
According to various articles, when Symbion pandora is ready to have a baby, its digestive system ''collapses and is reconstituted into a larva,'' which the parent then gives birth to by ''extruding'' it from its ''posterior.'' In other words -- correct me if I am wrong here -- this thing basically reproduces by pooping.
So to summarize: If you're looking for a hearty entree that 1) is related to spiders, 2) is descended from a worm and 3) has mutant baby-poopers walking around on its lips, then you definitely want a lobster. I myself plan to continue avoiding them, just as I avoid oysters, which are clearly -- scientists should look into this next -- members of the phlegm family. Have you ever seen oysters reproduce? Neither have I, but I would not be surprised to learn that the process involves giant undersea nostrils.
And don't get me started on clams. Recently, I sat across from a person who was deliberately eating clams. She'd open up a shell, and there, in plain view, would be this stark naked clam, brazenly showing its organs, like a high-school biology experiment. My feeling is that if a restaurant is going to serve those things, it should put little loincloths on them.
I believe that Mother Nature gave us eyes because she did not want us to eat this type of food. Mother Nature clearly intended for us to get our food from the ''patty'' group, which includes hamburgers, fish sticks and McNuggets -- foods that have had all of their organs safely removed someplace far away, such as Nebraska. That is where I stand on this issue, and if any qualified member of the lobster, clam or phlegm-in-a-shell industry wishes to present a rebuttal, I hereby extend this offer: Get your own column.
BY DAVE BARRY
I am pleased to report that the scientific community has finally stopped wasting time on the origins of the universe and started dealing with the important question, which is: Are lobsters really just big insects?
I have always maintained that they are. I personally see no significant difference between a lobster and, say, a giant Madagascar hissing cockroach, which is a type of cockroach that grows to approximately the size of William Howard Taft (1857-1930). If a group of diners were sitting in a nice restaurant, and the waiter were to bring them each a freshly killed, steaming-hot Madagascar hissing cockroach, they would not put on silly bibs and eat it with butter. No, they would run, retching, directly from the restaurant to the All-Nite Drive-Thru Lawsuit Center. And yet these very same people will pay $24.95 apiece to eat a lobster, despite the fact that it displays all three of the classic biological characteristics of an insect, namely:
1. It has way more legs than necessary.
2. There is no way you would ever pet it.
3. It does not respond to simple commands such as, ``Here, boy!''
I do not eat lobsters, although I once had a close call. I was visiting my good friends Tom and Pat Schroth, who live in Maine (state motto: ``Cold, But Damp''). Being generous and hospitable people, Tom and Pat went out and purchased, as a special treat for me, the largest lobster in the history of the Atlantic Ocean, a lobster that probably had been responsible for sinking many commercial vessels before it was finally apprehended by nuclear submarines. This lobster was big enough to feed a coastal Maine village for a year, and there it was, sprawling all over my plate, with scary insectoid legs and eyeballs shooting out in all directions, while Tom and Pat, my gracious hosts, smiled happily at me, waiting for me to put this thing in my mouth.
Remember when you were a child, and your mom wouldn't let you leave the dinner table until you ate all your Brussels sprouts, and so you took your fork and mashed them into smaller and smaller pieces in hopes of eventually reducing them to individual Brussels-sprout molecules that would be absorbed into the atmosphere and disappear? That was similar to the approach I took with the giant lobster.
''Mmmm-MMMM!'' I said, hacking away at the thing on my plate and, when nobody was looking, concealing the pieces under my dinner roll, in the salad, in my napkin, anywhere I could find.
Tom and Pat, I love you dearly, and if you should ever have an electrical problem that turns out to be caused by a seven-pound wad of old lobster pieces stuffed into the dining-room wall socket, I am truly sorry.
Anyway, my point is that lobsters have long been suspected, by me at least, of being closet insects, which is why I was very pleased recently when my alert journalism colleague Steve Doig referred me to an Associated Press article concerning a discovery by scientists at the University of Wisconsin.
The article, headlined ''Gene Links Spiders and Flies to Lobsters,'' states that not only do lobsters, flies, spiders, millipedes, etc., contain the exact same gene, but they also are all descended from a single common ancestor: Howard Stern.
No, seriously, the article states that the ancestor ''probably was a wormlike creature.'' Yum! Fetch the melted butter!
And that is not all. According to articles sent in by alert readers (this was on the front page of The New York Times), scientists in Denmark recently discovered that some lobsters have a weird little pervert organism living on their lips. Yes. I didn't even know that lobsters had lips, but it turns out that they do, and these lips are the stomping ground of a tiny creature called Symbion pandora (literally, ``a couple of Greek words''). The zoology community, which does not get out a lot, is extremely excited about Symbion pandora, because it reproduces differently from all other life forms.
According to various articles, when Symbion pandora is ready to have a baby, its digestive system ''collapses and is reconstituted into a larva,'' which the parent then gives birth to by ''extruding'' it from its ''posterior.'' In other words -- correct me if I am wrong here -- this thing basically reproduces by pooping.
So to summarize: If you're looking for a hearty entree that 1) is related to spiders, 2) is descended from a worm and 3) has mutant baby-poopers walking around on its lips, then you definitely want a lobster. I myself plan to continue avoiding them, just as I avoid oysters, which are clearly -- scientists should look into this next -- members of the phlegm family. Have you ever seen oysters reproduce? Neither have I, but I would not be surprised to learn that the process involves giant undersea nostrils.
And don't get me started on clams. Recently, I sat across from a person who was deliberately eating clams. She'd open up a shell, and there, in plain view, would be this stark naked clam, brazenly showing its organs, like a high-school biology experiment. My feeling is that if a restaurant is going to serve those things, it should put little loincloths on them.
I believe that Mother Nature gave us eyes because she did not want us to eat this type of food. Mother Nature clearly intended for us to get our food from the ''patty'' group, which includes hamburgers, fish sticks and McNuggets -- foods that have had all of their organs safely removed someplace far away, such as Nebraska. That is where I stand on this issue, and if any qualified member of the lobster, clam or phlegm-in-a-shell industry wishes to present a rebuttal, I hereby extend this offer: Get your own column.
House Member
Posts: 3,652
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
May 29th, 2006, 10:30 AM
Yeah... Ever taken a close look at a lobster? First person to eat one of those must have been *REALLY* hungry. And as for the snot-in-a-shell called oysters... well, that's as explicit as I want to be about that.
Yeah... Ever taken a close look at a lobster? First person to eat one of those must have been *REALLY* hungry. And as for the snot-in-a-shell called oysters... well, that's as explicit as I want to be about that.
Executive Member
Posts: 9,534
June 12th, 2006, 12:35 PM
Funny how some people can
take a bloody, quivering, slice of cow muscle and brown and partially cook it on the barbeque(I do it all the time) and rave about how good it is, but go all to pieces over a lovely bit of cooked lobster. Takes all kinds.
:P 
Funny how some people can
take a bloody, quivering, slice of cow muscle and brown and partially cook it on the barbeque(I do it all the time) and rave about how good it is, but go all to pieces over a lovely bit of cooked lobster. Takes all kinds.
:P 
Knows Too Much
Posts: 2,488
Location: PEI...for now
Location: PEI...for now
June 12th, 2006, 01:36 PM
Actually I believe there has been some family searching done with the lobster. There have been fossils of "sea scorpions" which are distantly related to land scorpions, Spiders, Horshoe crabs...and yes crabs and lobsters.
So you're not eating an insect per-se, but an ancient Arachnid...Yum.
Actually I believe there has been some family searching done with the lobster. There have been fossils of "sea scorpions" which are distantly related to land scorpions, Spiders, Horshoe crabs...and yes crabs and lobsters.
So you're not eating an insect per-se, but an ancient Arachnid...Yum.
Ponderous Intellect
Posts: 3,847
Location: Victoria, BC
Location: Victoria, BC
June 12th, 2006, 01:40 PM
Blowfish??? Have you actually eaten fugu?? eewwwww ... on so many levels!!
Interesting factoid tho ...
Juan ...
... I was vegetarian for nearly 10 years till the smell of cooking hickory smoked bacon did me in. Now I'm heading back that way. Seared animal flesh is quite gross when you think about it. blech Except for bacon, which has so many chemicals it's not even really meat anymore!
I maintain ... Lobsters are too ugly to be eaten. Sea bugs. My final answer on that one!
Quoting
Halibut is awesome .... mmmmmm!
Lobsters yum!
Soft shell crabs yum!
Halibut yum!
New England clam chowder yum!
Blackfish yum!
Salmon yum!
Blowfish yum!
Can you tell I like seafood?
Soft shell crabs yum!
Halibut yum!
New England clam chowder yum!
Blackfish yum!
Salmon yum!
Blowfish yum!
Can you tell I like seafood?
Blowfish??? Have you actually eaten fugu?? eewwwww ... on so many levels!!
Interesting factoid tho ...
Quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pufferfish
Dolphins have been observed using pufferfish as a sort of toy in the wild. They tease the pufferfish with their teeth, causing the small fish to become alarmed and then inflate. After a while the fish calms down and deflates, thus starting the cycle over again. It is speculated that dolphins may also enjoy the mild numbing effect from small amounts of the pufferfish toxin.
Juan ...
... I was vegetarian for nearly 10 years till the smell of cooking hickory smoked bacon did me in. Now I'm heading back that way. Seared animal flesh is quite gross when you think about it. blech Except for bacon, which has so many chemicals it's not even really meat anymore! I maintain ... Lobsters are too ugly to be eaten. Sea bugs. My final answer on that one!
Executive Member
Posts: 9,534
June 12th, 2006, 02:01 PM
Cosmo
I was mostly kidding. I'm not all that fond of Lobster, but I do love a good steak. In fact, they could throw all the lobster away as long as I could have a good steak once in a while. Lobster , scallops, Prawns, oysters, are all packed full of cholestrol...who needs 'em?
Cosmo
I was mostly kidding. I'm not all that fond of Lobster, but I do love a good steak. In fact, they could throw all the lobster away as long as I could have a good steak once in a while. Lobster , scallops, Prawns, oysters, are all packed full of cholestrol...who needs 'em?
Council Member
Posts: 1,473
Location: Great Satan
Location: Great Satan
June 12th, 2006, 02:22 PM
Quote:
Applies to Michael Moore as well I believe....
According to various articles, when Symbion pandora is ready to have a baby, its digestive system ''collapses and is reconstituted into a larva,'' which the parent then gives birth to by ''extruding'' it from its ''posterior.'' In other words -- correct me if I am wrong here -- this thing basically reproduces by pooping.
