They could have just called one of us...
...and we would have told them. But instead, a study was conducted that found that "Organic Foods Reduce Prosocial Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments" or as it is put in the connecting link on MSNBC (hat tip goes to reader Diane for emailing this to me) "organic food may just make people act a bit like jerks."
"I stopped at a market to get a fruit platter for a movie night with friends but I couldn't find one so I asked the produce guy," says the 40-year-old arts administrator from Seattle. "And he was like, 'If you want fruit platters, go to Safeway. We're organic.' I finally bought a small cake and some strawberries and then at the check stand, the guy was like 'You didn't bring your own bag? I need to charge you if you didn't bring your own bag.' It was like a 'Portlandia skit.' They were so snotty and arrogant."
As it turns out, new research has determined that a judgmental attitude may just go hand in hand with exposure to organic foods. In fact, a new study published this week in the journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science, has found that organic food may just make people act a bit like jerks.
I guess this makes it official. But to me it goes in the "no duh" category with established phenomena like divorce rates being higher among Hollywood stars and kids being more likely to drop out of high schools in the inner city.
"We found that the organic people judged much harder compared to the control or comfort food groups," says Eskine. "On a scale of 1 to 7, the organic people were like 5.5 while the controls were about a 5 and the comfort food people were like a 4.89."
When it came to helping out a needy stranger, the organic people also proved to be more selfish, volunteering only 13 minutes as compared to 19 minutes (for controls) and 24 minutes (for comfort food folks).
"There's something about being exposed to organic food that made them feel better about themselves," says Eskine. "And that made them kind of jerks a little bit, I guess."
A little bit? You guess?? Come on. These people will bring their own snacks to your party and put them front and center, and then they go around telling everyone to eat their stuff because its organic. No lie.
Oh, I loved the concluding quip:
"At my local grocery, I sometimes catch organic eyes gazing into my grocery cart and scowling," says Sue Frause, a 61-year-old freelance writer/photographer from Whidbey Island. "So I'll often toss in really bad foods just to get them even more riled up."
Woman after my own heart.