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Live Maine lobsters have been harvested from around the coasts of Maine for many generations. It's hard to believe that in the beginning, people placed no value in lobster meat. Only the poor ate it. Over the decades, however, tastes changed, turning lobsters into expensive delicacies to be enjoyed by the wealthy in America's finest restaurants. By the 1840s the Maine lobster trade had become so lucrative that the first commercial lobster fishery opened for business.

Most people eat lobster because it tastes so good. It's nice to know, though, that something tasting so good is also good for you. To start with, live Maine lobsters are lower in calories and contain less fat than skinless chicken breasts and have about the same amount of cholesterol.

The label on a certain brand of canned lobster provides us with a nutrition fact sheet for a three ounce piece of lobster. This serving of lobster contains 98 calories with only 5 of them being fat calories and a whopping 300 mg. of potassium. The following list shows you the percentages of the daily requirements of certain vitamins and minerals which are listed on the can label:

1. Vitamin A - 2% 2. Calcium - 6% 3. Riboflavin - 4% 4. Iron - 2% 5. Vitamin E - 6% 6. Niacin - 4% 7. Vitamin B6 - 4% 8. Vitamin B12 - 45% 9. Magnesium - 8% 10. Selenium - 50% 11. Manganese - 2% 12. Phosphorus - 15% 13. Zinc - 15% 14. Copper - 80%

Just imagine getting all that nutrition out of one tiny three ounce piece of lobster. You might try comparing these figures with those on any other canned good in your cupboard. That will show you just how impressive these numbers are.

Live Maine lobsters are harvested by independent boat captains with possibly an assistant or two. Most harvesting is done during day trips that go out no farther than 10-12 miles from shore. An individual harvesting operation can maintain as many as 800 traps by following a daily schedule of setting new traps and hauling in filled ones. Harvesters mark their traps with buoys containing their own state-registered designs.

Inclement weather doesn't halt the lobster harvest in Maine which operates twelve months a year. Lobsters are most active between late June and late December, and that's when the majority of harvesting takes place. Although the catch is smaller during the other months of the year, that doesn't stop harvesters from making their daily rounds.

One of the specialties among live Maine lobsters are new shell lobsters. Mature adult lobsters continue to molt about once a year. During molting they shed their old, tough shells for new, larger ones. It is at this point, when the shells are still very soft, that harvesters are most avid to trap them. There are people who will pay very high premium prices for new shell lobsters, because the meat is especially flavorful, and the shells can be cracked with the bare hands.

Any chance you have to indulge in the succulence of a live Maine lobster, you should grab it. Not only will the taste wow you, but you'll be eating something that is extremely healthy for you. What a winning combination!