20 ms·

Ike Jime, the Japanese Slaughter Method for Tastier Fish

212 points by vezycash 8y ago

jmnicolas 8y ago
I have no problem with the concept of killing an animal to eat it. However this method doesn't appear to be humane. Just cut the damn fish head and be done with it already.
- hprotagonist 8y ago
  It’s a fancier pithing process and step one is “scramble the brain”. I don’t see how it’s worse, and it’s probably better. draining the blood off rapidly and shorting out the spinal column really does improve matters, too. It’s not all that different in intent from kosher and halal slaughter: minimize pain and suffering, respect the animal, get tastier food while you’re at it.
  - Yetanfou 8y ago
    > It’s not all that different in intent from kosher and halal slaughter: minimize pain and suffering, respect the animal, get tastier food while you’re at it. Except that this is not the intent for kosher and halal, nor do these methods minimize pain and suffering. In both kosher and halal the animal has to fully conscious when its jugulars are cut, the difference lies mainly in whether the name of god is to be proclaimed over every slaughtered animal (halal) or only on the first and last one (kosher), whether slaughter can be performed by any believer (halal) or only by a specific priest (kosher, only Sachets (a type of rabbi) can perform kosher slaughter), whether the whole animal is considered to be edible (halal) or only its forequarters (kosher) and which animals can be consumed (rabbit, wild hens, shellfish, duck and goose can be halal but they can never be kosher). Kosher and halal were and are ways to identify tribes as being part of a religious group - a form of shared ritual - and probably also contain some vestiges of lore (trichine-infected pork can kill, Red Tide-infected shellfish likewise, a rule which makes sure the animal is fully conscious when slaughtered also gives a reasonable guarantee it is not diseased, etc). Whacking the animal over the head with a mallet or using a more modern equivalent like a bolt pistol (cattle, horses) or electric shock (pigs) before slitting its throat does tend to reduce suffering when done correctly so it can not be said that kosher and halal lead to 'minimize[d] pain and suffering'.
    - hopler 8y ago
      You are stretching. Obviously pistols and electric shocks aren't recommended by the Bible. The incompatibility between technological progress and ancient gospel is a different problem, which is why there is a rift between modern "progressive" sects of a religion and fundamentalist sects. For example, see magentzedek.org/animal for a modern kosher.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > which is why there is a rift between modern "progressive" sects of a religion and fundamentalist sects. Fundamentalism (with a capital-F), which is the inspiring example from which the more general concept of “fundemantalism” is derived, is actually one of the younger branches of Christianity. It's even one of the younger branches of Protestant Christianity. This is actually true fairly generally; fundamentalist sects tend to be products of reactions against modernism being perceived to influence the core religion rather than being the oldest branches of religion.
    - ars 8y ago
      You are incorrect. I can not speak for halal, but in Kosher slaughter minimizing pain IS a primary goal. You have completely skipped the stringent rules about the knife in your summary, so perhaps you are just not aware of it. The knife must be razor sharp - the slightest knick renders it unusable. The knife must be drawn in a single motion, any hesitation, or pressure, while cutting makes the animal not kosher. The location of the cut is precisely defined. All of the above are there to minimize pain, because the knife is so sharp the animal doesn't feel the pain, any pressure on the wound would also trigger pain. > or only on the first and last one (kosher) This isn't correct. Only one blessing is said, and not saying the blessing does not render the animal not-kosher. The blessing is about the shochet, not the animal. This is different in Halal were the blessing is the primary thing that makes the animal halal. > whether slaughter can be performed by any believer (halal) or only by a specific priest (kosher, only Sachets (a type of rabbi) can perform kosher slaughter) The shochet is not a priest. Being a shochet is 100% about knowing what to do, and 0% about any kind of special status. Anyone can be a shochet, including women. And you do not need to be a Rabbi, you just need to be trained. > bolt pistol A captive bolt pistol has an unacceptable high failure rate. You can NOT consider them more humane than Kosher slaughter.
  - artificial 8y ago
    All of these methods are not equal nor about tastier foods. Both of those are ideological lawfulness. My point is not denigration, Kosher and Halal for the most part stuns animals just like nonreligious slaughtering, however there still are traditional outlets that slit the neck of unstunned conscious animals.
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  A brain spike is seen as more humane than decapitation for larger animals like cattle, I imagine the same applies for fish. And given that this method provably results in less trauma byproducts than traditional methods, there is strong evidence that this is a more humane method.
  - strainer 8y ago
    I think the modern western practice owes more to what is most convenient in industrial setting than most considerate to the last moment of consciousness or spirit. fwiw I would personally go with hypoxia over deep brain trauma, of course also hoping it matters little whatever else may or may not be in store.
- Tor3 8y ago
  The method is better than just cutting its head - it starts with quickly destroying the brain.
- gotocake 8y ago
  Cutting off the head of a fish or eel is not as quick a death as you might hope. Destroying the brain is.
  - mfoy_ 8y ago
    You might find this mobidly interesting... http://www.strangehistory.net/2011/02/06/lavoisier-blinks/ http://www.strangehistory.net/2011/02/06/lavoisier-blinks/
    - gotocake 8y ago
      Oh wow. That really is dark and fascinating, thanks!
    - reitoei 8y ago
      I know what this is, and I'm not clicking it.
      - mfoy_ 8y ago
        There's no graphic images. It's not a "shock" or "gotcha" link. The TL;DR is that the head can stay "alive" for some time after decapitation. The nominal example (see the URL) being Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier who was guillotined during the French Revolution and committed to blinking for as long as he possibly could after being decapitated. There are also more modern examples "thanks" to ISIS.
        reitoei 8y ago
        Oh I didn't think you were trying to trick me or anything. I read about Lavoiser and the guillotine when I was a child and it stuck with me. The Russian experiment with the reanimated dogs heads... I'll let you google that one yourself.
    - apo 8y ago
      Debunked here: As for the story of the postmortem experiment with Lagrange, no mention is made of it in any of the reputable biographies of Lavoisier. ... https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ed081p629 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ed081p629
- rtkwe 8y ago
  The very first step in this is destroy the brain that's wat faster than just cutting off the head and letting it slowly die of hypoxia. After the pithing everything is just dealing with autonomic systems to prevent muscles from working and building up lactic acid. After the first step there's nothing there to feel pain.
batbomb 8y ago
This is probably a better overview for the HN crowd: http://www.cookingissues.com/category/ike-jime/ http://www.cookingissues.com/category/ike-jime/
- Casseres 8y ago
  Interesting website. My cooking skills are very basic, but now I'm interested in getting a Searzall. http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=6031.html http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=6031.html
  - gotocake 8y ago
    My friend bought something similar when he got a sous vide circulator, and let me tell you... it really works. You get the perfectly cooked steak, plus that Maillard reaction we all know and love. It’s also killer for anything you want to melt cheese over, to get that lovely brown crust. Ever had a Hot Brown? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Brown https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Brown It’s the tastiest massive coronary you’ll ever have.
    - wenc 8y ago
      Just another data point: I have an Anova Immersion circulator and have made some good steaks with it, but in my experience, reverse searing works even better [1]. Reverse sear entails pre-cooking the steak in your oven at a lower temperature and then searing. The steak from the oven is less wet compared to sous vides so it sears better. The crust tastes better than a sous vides steak. [1] https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2018/10/reverse-seared-steak-recipe.html https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2018/10/reverse-seared-s...
      - nathancahill 8y ago
        Very popular technique with the kamado/bge crowd. Can confirm it sears much better than the sous vide.
    - vict00ms 8y ago
truculent 8y ago
Vox's Future Perfect podcast did a good episode on this, too: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/11/14/18091698/future-perfect-podcast-killing-fish-ikejime-animal-welfare https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/11/14/18091698/futur...
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wodenokoto 8y ago
> After all, key to good sushi and sashimi is in ageing the fish, allowing the enzymes to break down and moisture to evaporate, resulting in a concentrated flavour. Can someone elaborate / explain? I always thought that the main quality in sushi and sashimi fish is its freshness. The fresher the better, to the point where shops might even keep the fish alive in aquariums.
- gotocake 8y ago
  Fish used in sushi is almost inevitably frozen, or you’d have a mouthful of extremely rubbery, almost crunchy fish. Remember also that the original sushi was fish fermented in salted rice for a while. As the availability and taste for fresher fish grew, along with modern refrigeration it was discovered that you get a better texture with fish that had been frozen immediately after slaughter. This, it is important to note, is only really the case with large, slow-growing pelagic fish like tuna.
  - logfromblammo 8y ago
    Freezing also kills some potentially zoonotic parasites that may be present in fish. Unless you're buying it straight off the docks, or pulling it out of the water yourself, any unfrozen fish you see has likely been thawed on site, after delivery. "Fresh" fish means that it was frozen on the boat, and just thawed today. I sometimes make nigiri sushi by sawing slices off of a frozen fish filet with a kitchen-use-only coping saw. Then I put it in the fridge for the next day. Comes out fine. If I wanted, I could freeze the rice with it, and have sushi later in the week.
  - munificent 8y ago
    I have had sushi that was completely fresh — literally a tuna I caught myself, carried off the boat, cut up and ate. The taste and texture was fantastic. You are right that almost all fish you eat has been frozen. This is partially for practical reasons: fishing boats are often at sea for weeks at a time. Also for safety reasons: most fish have a significant risk of parasites which are killed by deep freezing. Tuna is one of the few fish safe enough to eat fresh and raw (and even then there is some amount of risk).
Odenwaelder 8y ago
When hearing about cooking things the one or the other way, I always wonder if the difference in taste is significant. If you'd do a double-blind study, would you see (taste?) a significant difference?
- laxd 8y ago
  I suspect that it's often the cumulative effect of several, on their own maybe imperceptible, differences that separates a good dish from a great one.
- athenot 8y ago
  Yes, if you developped the taste for it. If you repeatedly savor something, you will become very familiar with it's taste and notice subtle variations. But you need to savor it slowly and be intent about it, not just consume it rapidly while thinking about other things. The fun part is that it doesn't have to be fancy. Wine is probably the most extreme example as there's a heavy push to equate fancy (expensive) with tasty but very often the 2 don't correlate. While my favorite wines are from the Burgundy area and can reach insane prices, I will thoroughly enjoy a $4 Vinho Verde. I've mostly eliminated soda from my diet but recently went back to enjoying the Mexican Coca Cola made with cane sugar. It comes in small bottles. I sip it slowly and enjoy it over the course of an entire meal—still my favorite pairing if I'm going to grill my own hamburgers—and of course with water on the side. It's a very different experience than guzzling an enormous amount of fountain soda with a straw.
  - greedo 8y ago
    There have been numerous double blind tests of wine that show an astonishing lack of difference based on price. The adjectives you use are also common in audiophiles who seem to value very expensive speaker cables etc.
    - athenot 8y ago
      Funny you should mention audio because I enjoy really good audio but on equipment that's often cheaper than run-of-the-mill equipment (and certainly way cheaper than the audiophile hype). Again it comes down to listening and savoring the differences, not the price tag. And a cheap extension cord is more than sufficient when it comes to speaker cables. ;)
justicezyx 8y ago
I am slightly cringed by Japanese this Korean that, while all these stuff almost universally has been practiced on ancient China for much longer history. That's actually no surprise at all, considering the sheer size differences between these nations.
- mfoy_ 8y ago
  Feel free to provide some sources to back up your claim.
  - justicezyx 8y ago
    Well, I do all those things everyday. I am not sure what kind of proof you want...
    - mfoy_ 8y ago
      That's unclear and unhelpful.
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic quarrels. That's not the kind of discussion we're looking for here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
theabsurdman 8y ago
fish are intelligent creatures. debating the best way to kill a sentient being so that it produces the best "taste" seems the epitome of our selfish consumer-minded culture. we need to leave animals alone, and think of something other than our own pleasures.
- jimmy1 8y ago
  You are so right, let's leave nature to it's own devices, sheesh people! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NU0Mv_bKtU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NU0Mv_bKtU
theabsurdman 8y ago
do fish feel pain? https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/fish-feel-pain-180967764/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/fish-feel-pain...
- mfoy_ 8y ago
  Interesting experiments referenced. I think I my personal assumption was that fish could maybe feel pain, and insects probably couldn't. But now one of those is answered.
  - InitialLastName 8y ago
    > insects probably couldn't I saw something (can't find source right now) that insects don't feel pain. The key observation was that insects with injured legs don't favor that leg at all. The evolutionary explanation is that pain is a survival mechanism to avoid further damaging an already-damaged body part; if the organism doesn't live long enough for its body parts to heal, it doesn't benefit from feeling pain.
    - lightbyte 8y ago
      I asked myself this a while back when I was feeding my tarantulas their weekly crickets and from my brief searches it seems like there isn't a general consensus on if inverts do or do not feel pain, but most people lean towards no. One big indicator for this was the fact that various insects have been observed to not react or notice at all when they are being eaten. I've anecdotal observed this myself sometimes where crickets do not seem to realize they are currently being eaten by a giant tarantula.
- pvaldes 8y ago
  > do fish feel pain? Yes, of course they feel pain.
  - mfoy_ 8y ago
    > of course That's not how science works.
rthomas6 8y ago
It's important to note that this method of slaughter is also considered more humane, and for the same reason why the fish tastes better when prepared this way. Because the fish's body is not flooded with stress chemicals like it is when the brain is not destroyed first and its blood remains inside. In other words the usual fish slaughter method leaves the fish alive as it slowly suffocates to death and then is killed. This results in muscles filled with lactic acid and other bad things.
- komali2 8y ago
  >body is not flooded with stress chemicals like it is when the brain is not destroyed first and its blood remains inside. I've heard both sides of this but have never actually seen any evidence. Some cultures, portions of China for example, believe the opposite - the more stressful death leads to more delicious meat. I'm for the least stressful death for ethical reasons, but I'd be curious if there's any resources you've found that demonstrate for example your lactic acid point?
  - darkerside 8y ago
    From another article linked in the comments: > Compared to red meat and poultry, fish muscle is delicate. It needs all the structure it can get. So unlike red meat, where we like a little protein breakdown to enhance tenderness, anything that breaks down the structure of fish muscle is bad. Stress causes fish muscle tissue to break down.
  - eyko 8y ago
    This might help: http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=5661.html http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=5661.html (shared elsewhere in the comments here).
  - refurb 8y ago
    Both arguments seem quite hokey and not really rooted in science. When muscle gets cut off from it's blood supply, it produces lactic acid through anaerobic respiration. That's regardless if the nervous system is sending out "stress signals". It's pretty hard to kill an animal and not produce stress (the physiological kind) response in it's tissue. The nervous system is also more than just the brain. For example your spinal cord can receive and send signals to your limbs that don't even pass through the brain.
komali2 8y ago
Given that it's on the Michelin website, it may interest you to know that Japan is tied for 1st for number of restaurants with 3 Michelin stars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Michelin_3-star_restaurants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Michelin_3-star_restau... It has a stunning 25 restaurants. For a population of 126 million. The runner up, USA, has 15 restaurants with twice the population. As a frequent traveler Japan, I can say from personal experience, it is hard to find a bad meal in Japan.
- keiferski 8y ago
  One of the things that surprised me the most about Tokyo was the variety of “pretty good” cheap food. The “fast casual” equivalent was far better quality than whatever it would be in the US.
  - komali2 8y ago
    Right! Especially meals that would be considered "a dinner out" in the USA, e.g. incredible ramen can be had fast for lunch, and relatively cheap.
    - JoshuaRLi 8y ago
      Don't forget about gyudon :)
- factsaresacred 8y ago
  Yes, it's incredible. Almost as many in Tokyo alone as in the entire USA. You'll notice too that Japan (along with other Asian locations) received their first Michelin star in only 2008. European restaurants have stars dating from the 1960s, so this is really just the beginning for the East. When they finally get around to surveying Bangkok I've little doubt we'll see our first street-food Michelin star.
  - curuinor 8y ago
    Done already https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/singapore/articles/singapore-street-food-stalls-get-michelin-star/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/singapo...
Tornhoof 8y ago
If you're interested in japanese cuisine and techniques, there is an excellent series of books from the japanese culinary academy. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/JCA/the-japanese-culinary-academys-complete-japanese-cuisine https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/JCA/the-japanese-c... The third book is about cutting fish and includes ike jima steps for different kinds of fish
twic 8y ago
I remember catching mackerel on a line while on a sailing trip once. None of us really knew how to do fishing, so we beat them to death with a bilge pump handle. It took ages. I don't think that was ike jime.
amsvie 8y ago
For those who want to see what the whole process looks like in reality, there is youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WLSdKunI2Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WLSdKunI2Y
- kinow 8y ago
  Thanks! Was about to open another tab to search for that!
rafaelvasco 8y ago
I can't help but feel bad about it, like we really shouldn't be killing anything to eat or to any purpose at all. Yes i'm much more sensibilized than most but we all should be.
- rayiner 8y ago
  The benefits of being an apex predator.
  - dunefox 8y ago
    Just wait until Xenomorphs arrive.
- chillacy 8y ago
  If I had to guess, technology in the future will enable us to get there (maybe artificial meat or something). Then future generations will look back at us and judge us hard.
munificent 8y ago
I fish on occasion, though at my skill level it's probably better described as "being disappointed next to water". I'm usually going for perch or bluegill. People typically throw them in a cooler of ice while still alive, or put them on a stringer, a line run through their mouth and out the gill so that can sort of still somewhat swim around and live until the fisherman is ready to go home. Both of those seem pretty unpleasant to me. I tried putting them in a cooler on ice the first time and they flopped around for hours. They were still moving when I went to clean them later. If you watch videos of people cleaning fish, you'll see they are often still moving even while the fish is being filleted. When I was a kid, I once saw someone cut the fillets off a fish and toss the "carcass" back in the water where it proceeded to try to swim away. The last time I went fishing, I tried the first step of ike jime where you spike the brain. I used a little pocket knife and poked it between the eyes. It took a few tries to find the right spot, but once I did, I do think it was more humane. The gills flare and the fish stiffens for a second and then immediately after it has clearly shuffled off its mortal coil. I don't know if it improves the taste, but it seems kinder to me than letting it beat itself senseless in a pile of ice or flail around in the water with a line running through its throat. For anyone who thinks this comment is brutal or unpleasant, I would really recommend spending some time fishing or hunting if you eat meat. It's important to have a real tactile understanding of what it means to take an animal from the wild and turn it into food. It's up to you to decide if you think that people should or shouldn't do it, but, either way, I think it is a real learning experience to understand what that choice entails. Also, I think we tend to live lives increasingly removed from the physical, tactile, natural world. Fishing is a good way to reconnect with nature and with your own nature as an animal, a predator that eats other animals.
- sizzle 8y ago
  Reading this is making me want to go meatless, so thank you for not softening any details. I don't think I could handle directly killing an animal and preparing the meat unless I was in survival mode. Going to the local grocery store and picking up some neatly wrapped cuts of meat truly removes me from the suffering aspect of animals, let alone the atrocities taking place behind closed doors in mass production slaughterhouses. How does everyone deal with the cognitive dissonance of how your meat is prepared?
apo 8y ago
I'm all for making it quick, but the article doesn't inspire confidence that this process is quick. By the time this procedure is carried out, the fish has been hooked, drawn up and out of the water, dropped on the ground, and wrestled into position. That must take at least 2 minutes. If adrenaline and other transmitters were going to be released, that process should do it, regardless of what happens afterward.
pontifier 8y ago
I'm not sure I ever made the connection between Michelin stars and the tire company by the same name until I saw their mascot at the top of the page. Reading the history it makes sense: To sell more tires give people a good reason to travel. Are there other examples of this sort of unexpected symbiosis?

212 points by vezycash 8y ago

I have no problem with the concept of killing an animal to eat it. However this method doesn't appear to be humane. Just cut the damn fish head and be done with it already.

hprotagonist 8y ago
It’s a fancier pithing process and step one is “scramble the brain”. I don’t see how it’s worse, and it’s probably better. draining the blood off rapidly and shorting out the spinal column really does improve matters, too. It’s not all that different in intent from kosher and halal slaughter: minimize pain and suffering, respect the animal, get tastier food while you’re at it.
- Yetanfou 8y ago
  > It’s not all that different in intent from kosher and halal slaughter: minimize pain and suffering, respect the animal, get tastier food while you’re at it. Except that this is not the intent for kosher and halal, nor do these methods minimize pain and suffering. In both kosher and halal the animal has to fully conscious when its jugulars are cut, the difference lies mainly in whether the name of god is to be proclaimed over every slaughtered animal (halal) or only on the first and last one (kosher), whether slaughter can be performed by any believer (halal) or only by a specific priest (kosher, only Sachets (a type of rabbi) can perform kosher slaughter), whether the whole animal is considered to be edible (halal) or only its forequarters (kosher) and which animals can be consumed (rabbit, wild hens, shellfish, duck and goose can be halal but they can never be kosher). Kosher and halal were and are ways to identify tribes as being part of a religious group - a form of shared ritual - and probably also contain some vestiges of lore (trichine-infected pork can kill, Red Tide-infected shellfish likewise, a rule which makes sure the animal is fully conscious when slaughtered also gives a reasonable guarantee it is not diseased, etc). Whacking the animal over the head with a mallet or using a more modern equivalent like a bolt pistol (cattle, horses) or electric shock (pigs) before slitting its throat does tend to reduce suffering when done correctly so it can not be said that kosher and halal lead to 'minimize[d] pain and suffering'.
  - hopler 8y ago
    You are stretching. Obviously pistols and electric shocks aren't recommended by the Bible. The incompatibility between technological progress and ancient gospel is a different problem, which is why there is a rift between modern "progressive" sects of a religion and fundamentalist sects. For example, see magentzedek.org/animal for a modern kosher.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > which is why there is a rift between modern "progressive" sects of a religion and fundamentalist sects. Fundamentalism (with a capital-F), which is the inspiring example from which the more general concept of “fundemantalism” is derived, is actually one of the younger branches of Christianity. It's even one of the younger branches of Protestant Christianity. This is actually true fairly generally; fundamentalist sects tend to be products of reactions against modernism being perceived to influence the core religion rather than being the oldest branches of religion.
  - ars 8y ago
    You are incorrect. I can not speak for halal, but in Kosher slaughter minimizing pain IS a primary goal. You have completely skipped the stringent rules about the knife in your summary, so perhaps you are just not aware of it. The knife must be razor sharp - the slightest knick renders it unusable. The knife must be drawn in a single motion, any hesitation, or pressure, while cutting makes the animal not kosher. The location of the cut is precisely defined. All of the above are there to minimize pain, because the knife is so sharp the animal doesn't feel the pain, any pressure on the wound would also trigger pain. > or only on the first and last one (kosher) This isn't correct. Only one blessing is said, and not saying the blessing does not render the animal not-kosher. The blessing is about the shochet, not the animal. This is different in Halal were the blessing is the primary thing that makes the animal halal. > whether slaughter can be performed by any believer (halal) or only by a specific priest (kosher, only Sachets (a type of rabbi) can perform kosher slaughter) The shochet is not a priest. Being a shochet is 100% about knowing what to do, and 0% about any kind of special status. Anyone can be a shochet, including women. And you do not need to be a Rabbi, you just need to be trained. > bolt pistol A captive bolt pistol has an unacceptable high failure rate. You can NOT consider them more humane than Kosher slaughter.
- artificial 8y ago
  All of these methods are not equal nor about tastier foods. Both of those are ideological lawfulness. My point is not denigration, Kosher and Halal for the most part stuns animals just like nonreligious slaughtering, however there still are traditional outlets that slit the neck of unstunned conscious animals.
bryanlarsen 8y ago
A brain spike is seen as more humane than decapitation for larger animals like cattle, I imagine the same applies for fish. And given that this method provably results in less trauma byproducts than traditional methods, there is strong evidence that this is a more humane method.
- strainer 8y ago
  I think the modern western practice owes more to what is most convenient in industrial setting than most considerate to the last moment of consciousness or spirit. fwiw I would personally go with hypoxia over deep brain trauma, of course also hoping it matters little whatever else may or may not be in store.
Tor3 8y ago
The method is better than just cutting its head - it starts with quickly destroying the brain.
gotocake 8y ago
Cutting off the head of a fish or eel is not as quick a death as you might hope. Destroying the brain is.
- mfoy_ 8y ago
  You might find this mobidly interesting... http://www.strangehistory.net/2011/02/06/lavoisier-blinks/ http://www.strangehistory.net/2011/02/06/lavoisier-blinks/
  - gotocake 8y ago
    Oh wow. That really is dark and fascinating, thanks!
  - reitoei 8y ago
    I know what this is, and I'm not clicking it.
    - mfoy_ 8y ago
      There's no graphic images. It's not a "shock" or "gotcha" link. The TL;DR is that the head can stay "alive" for some time after decapitation. The nominal example (see the URL) being Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier who was guillotined during the French Revolution and committed to blinking for as long as he possibly could after being decapitated. There are also more modern examples "thanks" to ISIS.
      - reitoei 8y ago
        Oh I didn't think you were trying to trick me or anything. I read about Lavoiser and the guillotine when I was a child and it stuck with me. The Russian experiment with the reanimated dogs heads... I'll let you google that one yourself.
  - apo 8y ago
    Debunked here: As for the story of the postmortem experiment with Lagrange, no mention is made of it in any of the reputable biographies of Lavoisier. ... https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ed081p629 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ed081p629
rtkwe 8y ago
The very first step in this is destroy the brain that's wat faster than just cutting off the head and letting it slowly die of hypoxia. After the pithing everything is just dealing with autonomic systems to prevent muscles from working and building up lactic acid. After the first step there's nothing there to feel pain.

batbomb 8y ago

This is probably a better overview for the HN crowd: http://www.cookingissues.com/category/ike-jime/ http://www.cookingissues.com/category/ike-jime/

Casseres 8y ago
Interesting website. My cooking skills are very basic, but now I'm interested in getting a Searzall. http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=6031.html http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=6031.html
- gotocake 8y ago
  My friend bought something similar when he got a sous vide circulator, and let me tell you... it really works. You get the perfectly cooked steak, plus that Maillard reaction we all know and love. It’s also killer for anything you want to melt cheese over, to get that lovely brown crust. Ever had a Hot Brown? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Brown https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Brown It’s the tastiest massive coronary you’ll ever have.
  - wenc 8y ago
    Just another data point: I have an Anova Immersion circulator and have made some good steaks with it, but in my experience, reverse searing works even better [1]. Reverse sear entails pre-cooking the steak in your oven at a lower temperature and then searing. The steak from the oven is less wet compared to sous vides so it sears better. The crust tastes better than a sous vides steak. [1] https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2018/10/reverse-seared-steak-recipe.html https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2018/10/reverse-seared-s...
    - nathancahill 8y ago
      Very popular technique with the kamado/bge crowd. Can confirm it sears much better than the sous vide.
  - vict00ms 8y ago

truculent 8y ago

Vox's Future Perfect podcast did a good episode on this, too: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/11/14/18091698/future-perfect-podcast-killing-fish-ikejime-animal-welfare https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/11/14/18091698/futur...

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wodenokoto 8y ago

> After all, key to good sushi and sashimi is in ageing the fish, allowing the enzymes to break down and moisture to evaporate, resulting in a concentrated flavour. Can someone elaborate / explain? I always thought that the main quality in sushi and sashimi fish is its freshness. The fresher the better, to the point where shops might even keep the fish alive in aquariums.

gotocake 8y ago
Fish used in sushi is almost inevitably frozen, or you’d have a mouthful of extremely rubbery, almost crunchy fish. Remember also that the original sushi was fish fermented in salted rice for a while. As the availability and taste for fresher fish grew, along with modern refrigeration it was discovered that you get a better texture with fish that had been frozen immediately after slaughter. This, it is important to note, is only really the case with large, slow-growing pelagic fish like tuna.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  Freezing also kills some potentially zoonotic parasites that may be present in fish. Unless you're buying it straight off the docks, or pulling it out of the water yourself, any unfrozen fish you see has likely been thawed on site, after delivery. "Fresh" fish means that it was frozen on the boat, and just thawed today. I sometimes make nigiri sushi by sawing slices off of a frozen fish filet with a kitchen-use-only coping saw. Then I put it in the fridge for the next day. Comes out fine. If I wanted, I could freeze the rice with it, and have sushi later in the week.
- munificent 8y ago
  I have had sushi that was completely fresh — literally a tuna I caught myself, carried off the boat, cut up and ate. The taste and texture was fantastic. You are right that almost all fish you eat has been frozen. This is partially for practical reasons: fishing boats are often at sea for weeks at a time. Also for safety reasons: most fish have a significant risk of parasites which are killed by deep freezing. Tuna is one of the few fish safe enough to eat fresh and raw (and even then there is some amount of risk).

Odenwaelder 8y ago

When hearing about cooking things the one or the other way, I always wonder if the difference in taste is significant. If you'd do a double-blind study, would you see (taste?) a significant difference?

laxd 8y ago
I suspect that it's often the cumulative effect of several, on their own maybe imperceptible, differences that separates a good dish from a great one.
athenot 8y ago
Yes, if you developped the taste for it. If you repeatedly savor something, you will become very familiar with it's taste and notice subtle variations. But you need to savor it slowly and be intent about it, not just consume it rapidly while thinking about other things. The fun part is that it doesn't have to be fancy. Wine is probably the most extreme example as there's a heavy push to equate fancy (expensive) with tasty but very often the 2 don't correlate. While my favorite wines are from the Burgundy area and can reach insane prices, I will thoroughly enjoy a $4 Vinho Verde. I've mostly eliminated soda from my diet but recently went back to enjoying the Mexican Coca Cola made with cane sugar. It comes in small bottles. I sip it slowly and enjoy it over the course of an entire meal—still my favorite pairing if I'm going to grill my own hamburgers—and of course with water on the side. It's a very different experience than guzzling an enormous amount of fountain soda with a straw.
- greedo 8y ago
  There have been numerous double blind tests of wine that show an astonishing lack of difference based on price. The adjectives you use are also common in audiophiles who seem to value very expensive speaker cables etc.
  - athenot 8y ago
    Funny you should mention audio because I enjoy really good audio but on equipment that's often cheaper than run-of-the-mill equipment (and certainly way cheaper than the audiophile hype). Again it comes down to listening and savoring the differences, not the price tag. And a cheap extension cord is more than sufficient when it comes to speaker cables. ;)

justicezyx 8y ago

I am slightly cringed by Japanese this Korean that, while all these stuff almost universally has been practiced on ancient China for much longer history. That's actually no surprise at all, considering the sheer size differences between these nations.

mfoy_ 8y ago
Feel free to provide some sources to back up your claim.
- justicezyx 8y ago
  Well, I do all those things everyday. I am not sure what kind of proof you want...
  - mfoy_ 8y ago
    That's unclear and unhelpful.
dang 8y ago
Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic quarrels. That's not the kind of discussion we're looking for here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

theabsurdman 8y ago

fish are intelligent creatures. debating the best way to kill a sentient being so that it produces the best "taste" seems the epitome of our selfish consumer-minded culture. we need to leave animals alone, and think of something other than our own pleasures.

jimmy1 8y ago
You are so right, let's leave nature to it's own devices, sheesh people! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NU0Mv_bKtU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NU0Mv_bKtU

theabsurdman 8y ago

do fish feel pain? https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/fish-feel-pain-180967764/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/fish-feel-pain...

mfoy_ 8y ago
Interesting experiments referenced. I think I my personal assumption was that fish could maybe feel pain, and insects probably couldn't. But now one of those is answered.
- InitialLastName 8y ago
  > insects probably couldn't I saw something (can't find source right now) that insects don't feel pain. The key observation was that insects with injured legs don't favor that leg at all. The evolutionary explanation is that pain is a survival mechanism to avoid further damaging an already-damaged body part; if the organism doesn't live long enough for its body parts to heal, it doesn't benefit from feeling pain.
  - lightbyte 8y ago
    I asked myself this a while back when I was feeding my tarantulas their weekly crickets and from my brief searches it seems like there isn't a general consensus on if inverts do or do not feel pain, but most people lean towards no. One big indicator for this was the fact that various insects have been observed to not react or notice at all when they are being eaten. I've anecdotal observed this myself sometimes where crickets do not seem to realize they are currently being eaten by a giant tarantula.
pvaldes 8y ago
> do fish feel pain? Yes, of course they feel pain.
- mfoy_ 8y ago
  > of course That's not how science works.

rthomas6 8y ago

It's important to note that this method of slaughter is also considered more humane, and for the same reason why the fish tastes better when prepared this way. Because the fish's body is not flooded with stress chemicals like it is when the brain is not destroyed first and its blood remains inside. In other words the usual fish slaughter method leaves the fish alive as it slowly suffocates to death and then is killed. This results in muscles filled with lactic acid and other bad things.

komali2 8y ago
>body is not flooded with stress chemicals like it is when the brain is not destroyed first and its blood remains inside. I've heard both sides of this but have never actually seen any evidence. Some cultures, portions of China for example, believe the opposite - the more stressful death leads to more delicious meat. I'm for the least stressful death for ethical reasons, but I'd be curious if there's any resources you've found that demonstrate for example your lactic acid point?
- darkerside 8y ago
  From another article linked in the comments: > Compared to red meat and poultry, fish muscle is delicate. It needs all the structure it can get. So unlike red meat, where we like a little protein breakdown to enhance tenderness, anything that breaks down the structure of fish muscle is bad. Stress causes fish muscle tissue to break down.
- eyko 8y ago
  This might help: http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=5661.html http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=5661.html (shared elsewhere in the comments here).
- refurb 8y ago
  Both arguments seem quite hokey and not really rooted in science. When muscle gets cut off from it's blood supply, it produces lactic acid through anaerobic respiration. That's regardless if the nervous system is sending out "stress signals". It's pretty hard to kill an animal and not produce stress (the physiological kind) response in it's tissue. The nervous system is also more than just the brain. For example your spinal cord can receive and send signals to your limbs that don't even pass through the brain.

komali2 8y ago

Given that it's on the Michelin website, it may interest you to know that Japan is tied for 1st for number of restaurants with 3 Michelin stars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Michelin_3-star_restaurants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Michelin_3-star_restau... It has a stunning 25 restaurants. For a population of 126 million. The runner up, USA, has 15 restaurants with twice the population. As a frequent traveler Japan, I can say from personal experience, it is hard to find a bad meal in Japan.

keiferski 8y ago
One of the things that surprised me the most about Tokyo was the variety of “pretty good” cheap food. The “fast casual” equivalent was far better quality than whatever it would be in the US.
- komali2 8y ago
  Right! Especially meals that would be considered "a dinner out" in the USA, e.g. incredible ramen can be had fast for lunch, and relatively cheap.
  - JoshuaRLi 8y ago
    Don't forget about gyudon :)
factsaresacred 8y ago
Yes, it's incredible. Almost as many in Tokyo alone as in the entire USA. You'll notice too that Japan (along with other Asian locations) received their first Michelin star in only 2008. European restaurants have stars dating from the 1960s, so this is really just the beginning for the East. When they finally get around to surveying Bangkok I've little doubt we'll see our first street-food Michelin star.
- curuinor 8y ago
  Done already https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/singapore/articles/singapore-street-food-stalls-get-michelin-star/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/singapo...

Tornhoof 8y ago

If you're interested in japanese cuisine and techniques, there is an excellent series of books from the japanese culinary academy. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/JCA/the-japanese-culinary-academys-complete-japanese-cuisine https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/JCA/the-japanese-c... The third book is about cutting fish and includes ike jima steps for different kinds of fish

twic 8y ago

I remember catching mackerel on a line while on a sailing trip once. None of us really knew how to do fishing, so we beat them to death with a bilge pump handle. It took ages. I don't think that was ike jime.

amsvie 8y ago

For those who want to see what the whole process looks like in reality, there is youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WLSdKunI2Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WLSdKunI2Y

kinow 8y ago
Thanks! Was about to open another tab to search for that!

rafaelvasco 8y ago

I can't help but feel bad about it, like we really shouldn't be killing anything to eat or to any purpose at all. Yes i'm much more sensibilized than most but we all should be.

rayiner 8y ago
The benefits of being an apex predator.
- dunefox 8y ago
  Just wait until Xenomorphs arrive.
chillacy 8y ago
If I had to guess, technology in the future will enable us to get there (maybe artificial meat or something). Then future generations will look back at us and judge us hard.

munificent 8y ago

I fish on occasion, though at my skill level it's probably better described as "being disappointed next to water". I'm usually going for perch or bluegill. People typically throw them in a cooler of ice while still alive, or put them on a stringer, a line run through their mouth and out the gill so that can sort of still somewhat swim around and live until the fisherman is ready to go home. Both of those seem pretty unpleasant to me. I tried putting them in a cooler on ice the first time and they flopped around for hours. They were still moving when I went to clean them later. If you watch videos of people cleaning fish, you'll see they are often still moving even while the fish is being filleted. When I was a kid, I once saw someone cut the fillets off a fish and toss the "carcass" back in the water where it proceeded to try to swim away. The last time I went fishing, I tried the first step of ike jime where you spike the brain. I used a little pocket knife and poked it between the eyes. It took a few tries to find the right spot, but once I did, I do think it was more humane. The gills flare and the fish stiffens for a second and then immediately after it has clearly shuffled off its mortal coil. I don't know if it improves the taste, but it seems kinder to me than letting it beat itself senseless in a pile of ice or flail around in the water with a line running through its throat. For anyone who thinks this comment is brutal or unpleasant, I would really recommend spending some time fishing or hunting if you eat meat. It's important to have a real tactile understanding of what it means to take an animal from the wild and turn it into food. It's up to you to decide if you think that people should or shouldn't do it, but, either way, I think it is a real learning experience to understand what that choice entails. Also, I think we tend to live lives increasingly removed from the physical, tactile, natural world. Fishing is a good way to reconnect with nature and with your own nature as an animal, a predator that eats other animals.

sizzle 8y ago
Reading this is making me want to go meatless, so thank you for not softening any details. I don't think I could handle directly killing an animal and preparing the meat unless I was in survival mode. Going to the local grocery store and picking up some neatly wrapped cuts of meat truly removes me from the suffering aspect of animals, let alone the atrocities taking place behind closed doors in mass production slaughterhouses. How does everyone deal with the cognitive dissonance of how your meat is prepared?

apo 8y ago

I'm all for making it quick, but the article doesn't inspire confidence that this process is quick. By the time this procedure is carried out, the fish has been hooked, drawn up and out of the water, dropped on the ground, and wrestled into position. That must take at least 2 minutes. If adrenaline and other transmitters were going to be released, that process should do it, regardless of what happens afterward.

pontifier 8y ago

I'm not sure I ever made the connection between Michelin stars and the tire company by the same name until I saw their mascot at the top of the page. Reading the history it makes sense: To sell more tires give people a good reason to travel. Are there other examples of this sort of unexpected symbiosis?