Daphnia as possibly acceptable home B12 source for vegans

Tiny aquatic Daphnia, water fleas, are easily raised in a trough or pond, and readily available from live pet food suppliers.

They contain vitamin B12, the Achilles heal of veganism:    

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-17790-z#:~:text=Vitamins%20and%20antioxidant%20content,1).&text=Vitamin%20and%20antioxidant%20content%20of,%2DTaleb%20et%20al.11.

Also Daphnia, being invertebrates, lack a nervous system, so don't feel pain:
 
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-17790-z#:~:text=Vitamins%20and%20antioxidant%20content,1).&text=Vitamin%20and%20antioxidant%20content%20of,%2DTaleb%20et%20al.11.

in addition, Daphnia may be tiny but so are our daily B12 requirements, 2.4 micrograms daily for an adult:

 https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminB12-HealthProfessional/

Though I am not vegan or vegetarian I eat little meat and raise none, I may move to veganism for for medical reasons.

I wonder if Daphnia would be an acceptable B12 source for vegans, especially those who want to produce it at home. Most seem to object to eating meat because of the suffering, pain, killing an animal causes. It may not be perfect, but it may be the best way available.

The other thing about it is it requires little or no care, certainly not the tedious routines most animals demand.    

Vegans also don't eat eggs, honey or any animal product I would think daphnia would be off limits, since it is an animal.

David Nicholls wrote:Also Daphnia, being invertebrates, lack a nervous system, so don't feel pain:

Here's a link to a page about invertebrate nervous systems

I'm pretty sure a vegan, by definition, would not eat daphnia.

Someone whose diet is plant based but not strictly vegan might be interested in researching this though.

Thank you. You are correct

my ref, which I managed to not include, said:

Furthermore, they are invertebrates and lack a central nervous system, and as such, cannot feel pain, minimizing their suffering. As a result of this, Daphnia magna are regularly used in ecotoxicology studies - and bred as live fish food!

So they do have a nervous system, just not a central nervous system.  

"Daphnia, also known as water fleas, are not believed to feel pain in the same way that vertebrates do. They lack a central nervous system and the complex neural structures associated with pain perception in more advanced animals. While they exhibit behavioral responses to stimuli, these are likely due to reflexes and simple nervous system reactions rather than conscious experience of pain.

Daphnia have a relatively simple nervous system consisting of a brain with a few ganglia, nerve rings around the esophagus, and a ventral nerve cord. This is a far cry from the complex brains and pain pathways found in vertebrates" (Google AI)

I have no expertise in the area, I have not researched exhaustively, just trusted the 1st few things I found on Google

It is possible there is disagreement between experts, they do have a face, I thought it a little odd something with a face would not have a nervous system but did not dwell on it.

From what I've read B12 pills vegans take are hard to make, only a corporation can make them by the sound of it, this is also an ethical issue that should be factored in choosing the best source.      

I've been a non-vegan vegetarian for over thirty years and as a result I have associated with a fair number of vegans. In general, they're pretty dogmatic about the line between animalia and other forms of life and more interested in the non-exploitation of animals than they are specifically causing pain. I am confident the vegans I know wouldn't go for that.

Daphnia probably fits my personal ethical standard as an acceptable food source (as do oysters) though it would take some getting used to. But I get plenty of B12 from eggs and cheese.

Many vegans are dogmatic as you say. I know one very empathetic thoughtful vegan who avoids meat because it causes pain and suffering, she said did not mind the idea, perhaps being polite.

I'm getting from comments I am wasting my time trying to help most strict vegans, but Daphnia does seem like an easy way to raise your own B12 with a minimum of harm, probably a lot less than corporate manufacture of B12 pills.      

David, I really wasn't trying to be discouraging. I'm glad you're here thinking outside the box and trying to solve problems! If I were marketing daphnia as a B12 solution, I might target ovo-lacto vegetarians who don't really love industrial egg and dairy practices as a kinder source. Probably a lot of those (my) people are eating cheese and eggs because they like them, but some of them must be for strictly dietary reasons. And I think the scant potential for cruelty to daphnia compares favorably against tossing live chicks into a chipper-shredder or a lifetime in battery-cages.

Hey David, as a longtime past vegan and person who spent a lot of time in vegan community, i can tell you people are vegan for a lot of different reasons. I knew just as many who were there ONLY for the health thing as were there for the animals. And there are always "squidgy" issues in veganism, the more you look for issues to debate the more questions you're going to find. I knew someone who didn't have a driver's license because (back in the day) the photo used gelatin in its makeup. I could give dozens of examples of this same level of detail in other areas of life.

But no matter the diversity among vegans, there is no "authority" who decides. Everyone makes their own decisions. If you want to help people find a new B12 source, that's great. Someone, somewhere, may look at that and say "hm, that might work for me." The people who don't agree will protest very loudly and probably make you sorry you even tried to help anyone, which is discouraging. If the solution works for you, then great.

To me, most folks are not even interested in B12.

Find what works for you.

Daphnia sounds like a lot of work to me.  I like foods that are easy.

I used to like shrimp though it is too much trouble to peel.

I found Daphnia very easy, no care at all in plastic tubs filled with rainwater and soil with plants outside. I don't know about long term, there may be cleaning or other issues over long periods, years. Worms, pigeons, axolotls, insects, dogs (as pets, not for food, though I know someone who made a jumper out of their dogs hair) too much routine care &/or reproduction of population impossible. Perennial plants my thing.

To me the narrow focus of dogmatic vegans on animal exploitation without thinking about other harm and exploitation is probably incompatible with permaculture: thinking about the whole system as one and all aspects of each part.

Christopher Weeks wrote:...compares favorably against tossing live chicks into a chipper-shredder or a lifetime in battery-cages.

This is more along the lines of the way I feel about animals for food in general. I would very much like to see a world where animals are treated humanely, with love and respect, and if need be, killed quickly and without trauma or pain.  I doubt I will ever give up meat and animal products forever, but I don't understand people that feel profits are worth abusing and isolating animals. Maybe someday we will move back to the idea of small homesteads where people raised their own animals, or at least their neighbors did, and the cruelty can stop.

I was just reading they think in the past people got B12 from bacteria in dirt on plants they ate. Also B12 is pretty stable if heated/ cooked. So I suggest leaving some dirt on  a root crop say, and cooking it hot & long enough to kill all germs, would be the simplest way for vegans to get B12, without killing any animals, you would kill bacteria, not an animal or plant. Or using industrial corporations to make pills out of bacteria.