Let Them Eat Lobster and Be Healthy!

by Fine Lobster on February 25, 2010

The facts, health benefits and nutrition of lobster.

Lobster has gotten a bad reputation as an unhealthy yet delightful indulgence. The truth is that the way lobster is prepared is what can make it unhealthy. Alone and prepared by boiling, steaming or grilling it, lobster is an excellent source of many minerals, vitamins and low-fat protein.

Did you know that in a standard serving size of one lobster (approximately 150 g, 6 ounces or just more than ½ a cup), one consumes only 135 calories, 1 g of fat, and 28 g of protein (not to mention vitamin A, iron, zinc, vitamin B-12 and calcium)?

Lobster is so low in fat let’s compare it to an equal portion of chicken breast to get the idea. What comes to mind when contemplating eating chicken? It is a meat Americans generally consider a healthy, low fat source of protein–but let’s be honest, it is rather unexciting. In one standard serving size of ½ a breast of deboned, skinless chicken (approximately 142 g) there are 156 calories, 1 g of fat, and 32 g of protein (and nearly equal portions of vitamin A, iron and calcium). If one is counting calories there is a healthy and more exciting option–lobster! Also, an equal amount of lobster has half the fat and calories of not only pork, but turkey and salmon. For an astonishing comparison, see our nutritional facts to see what is in a choice top sirloin or New York strip steak. From now on, I’ll order the lobster, please.

The easiest way to enjoy a guilt-free lobster feast is to prepare it in a way that doesn’t add unnecessary fats. In other words, dunking every morsel in melted butter or sauteing it in cream might be delicious but these are also not very health-conscious preparations. Find a recipe that draws out the flavors of lobster with ingredients that can add to the taste without adding cholesterol, such as a Fine Lobster-favorite marinated lobster, avocado and corn salad.

Lobster is an excellent source of high-quality, amino acid-complete protein with about 89% of its calories coming from protein (this is exceptionally good, by the way). It is also considered low on the glycemic scale and therefore doesn’t have an effect on blood-sugar levels (making it a friendly protein for those with diabetes). Further, lobster is full of the ‘good’ kinds of fats (Omega-3 fatty acids) that can reduce cholesterol levels, reduce risk of heart disease and promote brain functions. [click to continue…]

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Lobster Telephone

by Fine Maine Lobster on February 18, 2010

Some have suggested that our continuing series of “Lobsters You May Have Heard Of” borders on the surreal; and we agree that there is something at least slightly surreal about presenting a list of obscure lobsters while insisting that you “may” have heard of them.  In that spirit, of course, we present to you this week’s lobster profile.

Borne of Salvador Dali’s strangely comical notion that he never once received a telephone in a restaurant when he had ordered a live lobster (“I do not understand why, when I ask for a grilled lobster in a restaurant, I am never served a cooked telephone;”), the small sculpture known as Lobster Telephone typifies Dali’s unpredictable nature as an artist.  Known widely for his surrealist paintings, and less so for his writing, Dali also produced an impressive number of sculptures, with Lobster Telephone (1936) arguably the strangest, and most identifiable, among them.  

In his 1942 autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Dali noted that lobsters and telephones are never confused for one another.  Perhaps in an effort to remedy such an unfortunate slight against telephones (or maybe against lobsters), Dali sought, six years earlier, to combine the two disparate creatures for the purpose, presumably, of pointed surrealism.

But Dali’s notion that the two could somehow be confused, the lobster and the telephone, presumably gives rise to the idea that if the two can be somehow confused in one’s mind, then certainly they could be combined in one’s art.

Of course, only in certain minds, Dali’s for example, would lobsters and telephones so easily relate.  Indeed, Lobster Telephone comes to you from the mind of a man who once thought it necessary to kick “a legless blind man sitting in his little cart,” so there may be no explaining Dali’s thoughts (a life’s work alone it would seem).  But from the moment that Dali replaced the handset in that cradle with a lobster, people must have wondered, as the kids say today, WTF? [click to continue…]

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Lobster Forensics

February 11, 2010

By guest bloggers Rachel Hulin and David Hirschman who love lobster, think that lobsters rock, and are newly engaged! Congrats!

How to buy, steam, and suck out every last ounce of meat from your favorite crustacean.
Our love of lobster has leaked over into our professional lives; David wrote a piece for New York Magazine a few [...]

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