It's vegan for the same reason it's kosher: if the choice is "do this or starve/die of thirst/etc.", you do the thing. Not even Old Testament God is this pedantic.
Impossible! They don't call it Vegan York City for nothing. :vegan-tofu:
Microscopic animals are ruled kosher. It’s an issue if any copepods grow large enough to be visible w/ the naked eye.
I've heard some people clarify that it's basically okay only if the only way you can detect the micro-organisms would be with a tool such as a microscope, but might not be kosher if the presence of the micro-organisms results in a noticeable level of cloudiness in water, but aren't individually visible to the naked eye, or even if there are visible individual things that aren't immediately recognized as insects, but could be identified that way with the aid of a tool like a magnifying glass or microscope. Here is some info I found clarifying halachic status
I've also heard people say it's kosher if you are unaware of the presence of an adulterant in an otherwise assumed kosher food, but treif if you're aware of it and choose to consume it anyways. I'm pretty sure this is the criteria the famous "three strikes" policy on which the Vegan Police operate. No vegan diet, no vegan powers.
I think the real answer is assuming that a water filter solves it and not googling to see if I'm wrong. Also not living in New York, Syracuse, or Seattle. I don't want to know if I'm wrong.
I assume (safe) microscopic animals not filtered for would be perfectly vegan anyway considering you couldn't just not drink water or not breath air.
The process of removing them from the water will kill them.
Edit: oh, they add them to the water as part of the treatment process, nvm. Fortunately, these things probably aren't sentient.
Damn that's actually kind of awesome, naturally occuring nanomachines
its part of the treatment. they're completely harmless & used in several water systems to eat bad things
Is it to control for algae or something? Because I can't think of a use for shrimp here besides eating algea without shitting out too much nitrogen, but I also have no idea if the shrimp at that scale are even comparable to the freshwater shrimp I'm familiar with.
Interesting, I'm surprised that something so small could feed on the mosquito eggs - I'd expect the mosquito larva to feed on the shrimp instead. I might have to actually read this article.
I was watching some old Modern Marvels episodes a while ago, and they had one on tunnel #3 that sent me down the same rabbit hole.
In the 1950s they realized that tunnels 1 and 2 were in severe disrepair and hemmoraging water, so they proposed tunnel 3 as a bypass so they can shut down the original tunnels for inspection and repair while still provide the city with clean water. Construction started in the 1970s, and because of capitalism's basic inability to fix or update infrastructure the construction of the original tunnel 3 is still underway. New York's water supply has been in severe disrepair for 70 fucking years! It's a microcosm of the exact same way we're failing to address climate change and all of the other meaningful issues of the last century.
Oh absolutely, the modern marvel manages to be the fact that the originals work good enough for everyone to pretend it's not a problem.
well fuck i guess i might as well start murdering animals again.
CW for link: carnism/vegetarianism/mass murder.
A few people have said in this thread that microscopic animals aren’t sentient but I don’t see any proof of this.
Anyway I hate debating “sentience” as a bar for what deserves to get murdered or not.
Animals need a sensory apparatus to function in this world.
