Why are crustaceans typically boiled to death?

Immersion into boiling water has the virtue of being simple. There is some question as to how humane it really is. The current “best practice” (other than avoiding eating them entirely) is to chill crustaceans to below 4 degrees Centigrade, and then (pardon me for the graphic nature) knife them through the nerve cluster/brain. read more

I haven’t cooked lobsters, but for similar shaped crustaceans, you could stab them from the walking legs into their brain, after that, grasp head and tail with, twist and part them apart ensuring death. I don’t like to boil crustaceans, it is too cruel. read more

Rigor mortis is the stiffening of muscles after death, because of chemical changes within muscles after cellular respiration ceases. So no — neither crustaceans nor anything else undergoes rigor mortis before death. read more

First of all your water should be boiling already. It should take less than eight minutes for the lobster to heat up to 70-ish Celsius, and at that temperature there is no way that bacteria that normally live on/in lobsters could grow, even if they aren't killed until it hits 100. read more