Treat Yourself to a Live Maine Lobster

By Sherry Shantel

It's hard for us to imagine why Maine's earliest residents didn't eat the lobsters they harvested. Although they've been harvested from the Maine coastal waters for generations, it wasn't until recently that people started respecting them as the fine fare they are. In fact, early Colonists used them as fertilizer. They were only food for the poor, slaves, indentured servants, and children. Since that time, though, our eating tastes have changed. In the 1840s the demand for live Maine lobsters was so great that the first commercial lobster fishery came into being, supplying the finest restaurants in America's biggest cities.

People today thoroughly enjoy the extravagant taste of fresh live Maine lobsters. With many foods, the adage that if it tastes good it can't be good for you holds true. Lobster meat is an exception to the rule. It is a very healthy food with fewer calories, less fat, and relatively about the same amount of cholesterol as a skinless chicken breast.

The label on a certain brand of canned lobster provides us with a nutrition fact sheet for a three ounce piece of lobster. This serving of lobster contains 98 calories with only 5 of them being fat calories and a whopping 300 mg. of potassium. The following list shows you the percentages of the daily requirements of certain vitamins and minerals which are listed on the can label:

1. Vitamin A - 2% 2. Calcium - 6% 3. Riboflavin - 4% 4. Iron - 2% 5. Vitamin E - 6% 6. Niacin - 4% 7. Vitamin B6 - 4% 8. Vitamin B12 - 45% 9. Magnesium - 8% 10. Selenium - 50% 11. Manganese - 2% 12. Phosphorus - 15% 13. Zinc - 15% 14. Copper - 80%

Just think of enjoying a food that is as high in nutrients as lobster is. By taking a look at the labels on different canned goods you have in your kitchen, you'll be able to see just how high these percentages really are.

Live Maine lobsters are harvested by independent boat captains with possibly an assistant or two. Most harvesting is done during day trips that go out no farther than 10-12 miles from shore. An individual harvesting operation can maintain as many as 800 traps by following a daily schedule of setting new traps and hauling in filled ones. Harvesters mark their traps with buoys containing their own state-registered designs.

Maine has a twelve-month harvesting season for live lobsters. The majority of the harvest occurs between mid-June and mid-December when the lobster population is most active, but harvesters continue to work catching fewer lobsters during the other months of the year as well.

Although all live Maine lobsters are of superior quality, new shell lobsters are the finest of the lot. When the adult lobsters molt once a year, they rid themselves of their old outgrown shells which are replaced with softer, larger ones that harden over time. It's at the point when the shells are softest that connoisseurs are most anxious to pay the highest prices for them. New shell lobsters have delicate, succulent meat unparalleled by the meat at any other time of year, and the soft shells can be cracked easily with the bare hands.

Any chance you have to indulge in the succulence of a live Maine lobster, you should grab it. Not only will the taste wow you, but you'll be eating something that is extremely healthy for you. What a winning combination!

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