[afiori]

I like to pose this as not empathy for the animal but empathy for ourselves*

It is not nice to the kind of colture that inflict pain on an indutrial scale and we can empathise with the torture that is mutilation and being boiled alive, does not need to be about what an octupus feels during slaughter, it can be about how to approach the act itself.

I believe that buddhism teaches to pay respect or thank the lifes that died to become your food (plant of animal); in this context the question on my mind would be whether you can honestly pay your respects to something you boiled alive because it would have tasted worse cooked another way.

It feels disrespectful to the food.

Slaughter is natural, we should find a way to be ok with how we do it.

* I like to offer egotistical arguments for altruism, just my perspective

[toolz]

I would suggest lobster tastes worse when boiled alive. Any animal that has an endocrine system is likely to taste worse when boiled alive. My understanding is that adrenaline rush caused by immense stress eat up the glycogen stores in muscles which in turn prevents the production of lactic acid to tenderize the meat postmortem. I can't imagine this would be any different in lobsters than basically every other animal.

[phonypc]

That stress / lactic acid / meat quality relationship only really applies to meat that's going to be aged, and it's as much about preventing microbial spoilage as anything.

There's no time for it to be a factor for lobster, which is going to be alive or frozen until right before you cook it.

[bumby]

Your premise may hold true in the general sense but not in the specific. I don't think lobsters produce adrenaline. There may be some other hormone that has a comparable effect though