X-Message-Number: 23622
From: "Basie" <>
Subject: Frozen Lobsters Return to Life  (New process)
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 15:04:21 -0500

Some Frozen Lobsters Return to Life
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By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON - Call it cryonics for crustaceans. A Connecticut company says its
frozen lobsters sometimes come back to life when thawed.



Trufresh began freezing lobsters with a technique it used for years on
salmon after an offhand suggestion by some workers. It found that some
lobsters revived after their subzero sojourns.


Now, Trufresh is looking for partners to begin selling the lobsters
commercially. The company was scheduled to attend the International Boston
Seafood Show, which began Sunday, armed with video showing two undead
lobsters squirming around after being frozen stiff in a minus-40 degree
chemical brine for several minutes.


Company chairman Barnet L. Liberman acknowledged that its lobster testing is
limited and only about 12 of roughly 200 healthy, hard shell lobsters
survived the freezing. In addition, the company hasn't researched how long a
frozen lobster can survive - overnight is the longest period so far.


Liberman emphasized the company's goal isn't to provide customers with
lobsters that always come back to life. He just wants to supply tasty
lobsters.


But frozen lobster can't be much fresher than "still alive" and Trufresh
hasn't hesitated to tout their lobsters' restorative qualities. For
instance, the company plans to ship the lobsters with rubber bands on the
claws, as a consumer protection measure.


"I wouldn't remove the rubber bands," Liberman said. "It's not worth the
risk."


Bonnie Spinazzola of the Offshore Lobstermen's Association in Candia, N.H,
had her doubts about Lazarus-like lobsters entering the existing frozen
lobster market.


"I've never heard of it and I don't know if I believe it," she said. "It
might be a robo-lobster."


Trufresh is based in Suffield, Conn., but has salmon operations in Lubec,
Maine, a community on the Bay of Fundy that's the easternmost town in the
United States. A few years ago, some workers with lobstering experience
suggested freezing lobsters the same way they froze their salmon, which are
far too dead (and filleted) to ever be revived.


First, the lobster's metabolism is slowed in below-freezing sea water and
then it's immersed in the minus-40 degree brine. Liberman said the lobster
freezes so quickly that damage to muscle tissue cells from the formation of
ice crystals is minimized.


The lobsters are then thawed in 28-degree sea water. A marketing video from
the company shows the lobsters freely wriggling around after about two and a
half hours.


The first time they tried it, Trufresh froze about 30 lobsters and two came
back to life, Liberman said. But the company wasn't in the lobster business
and never pursued it.


Now, Trufresh is trying to expand its product line as it launches a retail
business on the Internet. If it can find partners to catch the lobster and
process it, Liberman said Trufresh can be selling them within months.


Robert Bayer of the University of Maine's Lobster Institute said he was
intrigued about the Trufresh process, but dubious. Seafood freezing methods
similar to Trufresh's have existed for years, but there have been no reports
of undead lobsters, he said.


"I'm guess I am skeptical about a lobster being brought back to life," Bayer
said. "But I'm willing to be shown."

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