15 facts that lobsters around the world want you to know

What you don't know about lobsters will surprise you! This year, think twice before ordering a dish with lobster. These seabed dwellers lead a complex life: they forage for food, carefully care for their eggs, and use their sensitive legs and antennae to explore the depths of the sea. We should show them compassion, and not shorten their lives by ripping them out of their habitat and boiling them alive.

Here are 15 reasons not to eat lobsters:

1. Lobsters have an excellent memory. They recognize each other and remember their old encounters.

2. They could live for over 100 years.

3. Lobsters do not have a central nervous system. Instead, he has groupings of nerve tissue spread throughout his body, which makes his sense of touch especially sensitive.

4. They taste food with their paws.

5. They go on vacation, traveling more than 100 miles each year.

6. Lobsters have elaborate courtship rituals. Females initiate relationships by seeking out males with the best burrows in the ocean.

7. Females can carry live sperm for two years, until they decide it's time to fertilize their eggs.

8. Female lobsters carry their eggs under their bellies for nine months.

9. Lobsters must shed their shells in order to grow and the number of annual molts decreases with age.

10. They chew their food in their stomach.

11. Lobsters can be right-handed, left-handed, or ambidextrous.

12. They cannot go into shock.

13. This means that lobsters can feel everything, including when they are dismembered alive.

14. Lobsters don't want to die.

15. Vegan lobster rolls made from hearts of palm are both delicious and sustainable – try this recipe to help save a lobster and the planet.

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There are plenty of tasty vegan seafood on the market, and many lobster dishes can be recreated using simple ingredients like hearts of palm or mushrooms.

Fish and crustaceans are sentient, intelligent and social beings, just like land animals. Yet they are still slaughtered by the billions without stunning. The only way to end this slaughter and protect ocean life is to stop consuming marine animals.

To learn more about the catastrophic impacts of fishing on the environment and marine animals, watch the film Seaspiracy on Netflix, and order our free "Guide to the budding vegan" to benefit from information, advice and recipes to adopt a diet respectful of all animals: