Posted on 06/02/2012 1:24:50 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Does eating organic food make you a jerk?
By Dr. Dale Archer
Published June 02, 2012
| FoxNews.com
Jerk.
What image does that word conjure up? Is it your uncle Joe, who lives in a McMansion, complete a large staff to serve his every whim while never saying, "thank you"?
Perhaps your sister’s boyfriend who drives the Bugatti Veyron and talks about it to anyone who will listen?
Maybe a friend of a friend who dons thousands of dollars of exclusive designer clothing to go to the grocery store?
Or, perhaps, it's your next-door-neighbor who buys and eats organic food.
Whaaaat?
A new and very provocative study, "Wholesome Foods and Wholesome Morals? Organic Foods Reduce Prosocial Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments," by Dr. Kendall J. Eskine from Loyola University New Orleans, indicates that buying and consuming organic foods can actually induce self righteousness and selfish behavior.
In other words, it can make you a jerk.
What influences someone to go organic? Organic foods in general cost more than conventionally grown foods, so why pay more for already expensive food?
Some controversial explanations are provided by the author of the study:
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
What the study is picking up on is the fact that liberals are self-righteous jerks. The part of the American population that insists on eating only “organic” food (last I checked no food is inorganic unless one counts salt, but I digress) is heavily biased toward self-identified “liberals” and “progressives”, who also, as other studies have shown, engage in less prosocial behavior (like giving to charity or volunteering with community groups) than do conservatives.
I make a point of buying “organic” milk, despite the higher cost, but won’t buy Horizon brand. Why? What I’m really trying to buy is milk from cows that actually get to wander around pastures grazing. I don’t really care that the feed they get when they’re in the barn was “organically grown”. It turns out that the fats and proteins in milk from cows that get pasture time are measurably different in ways that are healthier for human consumption than the fats and proteins in “factory cows” that stand in stalls eating feed (Horizon brand isn’t worth buying because it come from “factory cows” that just happen to eat only “organic” feed. (It’s also better tasting — skim milk from “factory cows” is quit unpalatable, while skim milk from “free range” cows tastes like milk.)
I buy “organic” celery just because it tastes better. I buy free-range eggs for similar reasons to buying “organic” milk, but don’t really care whether they’re “organic” or “conventional” so long as they’re from free-range hens. Other than that, I’ll buy “organic” products when some quirk brings them down to price parity with “conventional” products, or when the “conventional” greens of a particular sort look tatty, while the “organic” ones look fresh.
(I realize some FReepers with whom I’ve exchanged cross posts might think I’m a jerk, but even if I am, it really has nothing to do with pouring “organic” milk over my breakfast cereal.)
And open the door for "protective" environmental and health laws to make food production a nightmare proposition for American farmers and regular Joes who'd like to try to grow something on their property and maybe sell it.
In a very sly way, with all these "protective" values, they're strangling food production the same way they've nearly strangled energy production.
I don’t think that’s necessarily so but I do have to say that Whole Foods has the rudest, most oblivious clientele that I’ve every run in to. The staff are fine but the people shopping are a real pain in the neck.
Yup.
I’m having a chili dog with onions right now.
Have you been to Vermont? It's uncanny how you have nailed it...I used to see them standing around on the street, noses in the air. I thought they were trying to pick up the scent of weed, but you are right...they were just enjoying the scent of their organic farts. I tip my hat to you...
I've managed not to be a jerk about it, even though it I'm smarter, better looking and in general, superior to those with other eating habits.
LOL!
LOL! GMTA! Chowing on a bowl of chili over rice right now...
Ever have one of those 'Boomsticks' at the ballpark in Arlington? Now THAT's a chili dog!
Agreed! I hate the Eeeevilll Monsato. Perhaps More than Obummer even.
As if it would kill the kids to eat "normal" by your standards for the week or two they were with you. What a rude guest your fiance's daughter was, if you ask me! If you went to California and your kids had to put up with horrific dried-fruit compote as their sole dessert, hey -- it wouldn't kill them. As my dad would say, "It'd put hair on their chests." I doubt you'd be rude enough to insist on your own special desserts.
Harrrrumph!
Never been to the Arlington ball Park.
Maybe not a jerk but stupid!!
Organic=throw shit at it and hope you get something edible crawling with bugs!
Personally I wanr food that is grown in soil that has been anylized, fertalized for the crop being grown, and protected from bugs with pesticide!!!
Bring back DDT, I love the smell when you breath it!
I don’t know if it makes you a jerk but I do know a couple of jerks who claim to eat “organic” food when they aren’t piggin’ out on pizza.
Templates are always misleading. Demonizing something knee-jerk because some hippies go overboard with it, is kinda limiting. Some very wise conservatives I've known are pretty much 98% "organic" in a lot of ways.
I agree with your main point.
However, it’s not entirely true to state that “any carbon-based molecule is organic”. True, the study of chemistry is divided between “inorganic” and “organic” — but, there are other classifications.
The term “organic” suggests an origin in living organisms. There are a great many abiotic carbon molecules — i.e. not organic. /pedantry
I grow my own vegetables...then can them. Next year I’m going to sell them if I can grow that much and if the economy doesn’t go batsh*t crazy thanks to Obama.
Dont get me started.
Obama has shut down local farmers that produce raw milk.
“Its for the chilrens safety”
I might look for additional indicators. For example, if a person who eats organic food also drives a Prius with an Obama bumper sticker, that person is probably a jerk.
You were already a jerk to eat it.
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