Why France is finding vegan croissants hard to stomach

[hunter]

There it sits, in all its flaky glory, with a crust the colour of autumn leaves, and two plump claws almost begging to be torn off and devoured. Light as air and as French as the guillotine.

One impeccable croissant.

But this particular pastry - among dozens crowding a display shelf in an unremarkable looking boulangerie in central Paris - is no ordinary offering. Far from it. For this is a butter-free croissant, a crisp swerve away from more than a century of devout culinary tradition and a nod towards larger forces seeking to reshape French food and agriculture.

Sacrilege has rarely looked so seductive.

-- more --

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68944117

It's good to know I'm able to get a fine croissant that doesn't require industrial scale egg or dairy production.

This article illustrates once again how small farmers don't recognize the actual threats to their familiar way of life. It's not the people who are trying to reduce their environmental footprint by avoiding certain foods, it's the giant corporations that would happily burn out, bankrupt, and/or buy out small farmers to further industrialize production.

Industrial scale milk and egg production is a very ugly business. It's not good for the environment, it's not good for the workers, and it's especially bad for the cows and chickens.

I'd buy a vegan croissant not because I have any grudge against small farmers. My grudge is against the giant industrial food corporations that masquerade as small farmers themselves or use small farmers as their political pawns.