Blog #4

Consider the Lobster was an intriguing article, and one I could relate to at that. The article was full of new information. It was interesting to learn that lobster was once considered poor peoples food? Who knew?? While lobster doesn't specifically please my palette, I have always been one to struggle with the idea of animals suffering for my hunger satisfaction. In this sense, I could relate to the authors feelings and questioning how cooking lobsters alive, in whatever approach it was done, was acceptable? In many instances, I have been shocked to learn how terribly animals reared for human consumption are treated. Part of me wants to wish away all eating of animal produce so those situations never arise. The other part of me realizes that will never happen but is still left to wonder: while, yes, those animals are being raised to feed humans, why does their life leading up to it have to be shitty too? Can't there at least be some good in their lives? Realistically, I get it. We're carnivores, and it all is truly quite delicious. But I'm with the author on questioning human approaches and am too left confused with what is right and wrong. At what point do humans draw the line between reasonable and cruelty, and really, who are we to decide that anyways?

The author of the article enlightened me as to what a true research genre is. The article does not just simply answer the prompt given to him by summarizing information he got online. Instead, he went to the festival himself to see it firsthand and interview real festival goers and He took a different angle by using one of his opinions about the festival, whether the cooking of lobster is humane, and finding a ton of information about that and presenting it to readers. Instead of just recapitulating the festival, he took something he felt was important about it and researched it and wrote about that. Which I personally find it ironic how it's about the humanity of eating animals, lobsters specifically, when it's in a magazine for food lovers who probably don't want to be reminded of the gory details of their eating habits.