Hell I've seen he same thing at Powell's books. "Oh you are reading that?"

"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."
Why does eating better make us act worse? Eskine says it probably has to do with what he calls "moral licensing."
"People may feel like they've done their good deed," he says. "That they have permission, or license, to act unethically later on."
---

The same with Prius drivers (or Leafs, see other thread). It used to be that Porsches were like porcupines (except the pricks are on the outside), but now it's EVs.

This moral licensing works for all green activities. How else could Gore, Kerry and Edwards all spout the gospel, but live in (sometimes multiple) 20,000 sq ft mansions?

Or maybe they are just hypocrites who are playing their followers for rubes.

Don't get me started!

(I live near Portlandia New Seasons/Concordia)

This is why I like to wear my NRA hat and read Safari Magazine at Whole Foods.

Korean ribs and condescending looks. Dinner and a show.

All I know is that those reuseable bags that all the eco/green crowd like to use were a possible source of the Norovirus that my wife contracted and that sent her to the hospital for several days.
I don't remember EVER contracting any disease from new paper or plastic bags that we got from the supermarket.

I think the resentments to the smug greenies articulated here by the posters are the real reason that Eileen Brady lost in the primary. She came off smug just like the customers and employees at New Seasons. She wanted to force light rail to the citizens of Vancouver with the CRC. She talked about jobs, but only in the green arena, not real brick and mortar blue collar factory jobs. In her campaign she indicated that she had the only answers to what was good for Portland.

I completely agree with John Benton's comments on Eileen Brady. To me represented only a limited segment of Portland's over-all society, the holier-than-though segment.

I was in a Trader Joe's and asked a guy if they had pre-made taco shells. He started to tell me how they are better if you make them yourself out of corn tortillas, and how he does it!!! He seemed insulted when I interrupted and said. "O.K., thanks I'll ask somebody else" and walked away...talk about the self righteous. What gets me about the smug organic employee types is they're low income store clerks, but still arrogant! Try making something out of your life and earn the right to be smug...jeeeezzzzzz.

All these stories of self-righteous Greenies/Planners reminds me of the movie "Dr. Zhivago" and the character of Pasha played by Sir Thomas Courtenay. He became a Bolshevik and changed his name to Streinikov to be more politically correct. I remember that one scene where he vividly looks down scornfully and gives a smug proletarian speech.

Pretty soon we'll have the self righteous store clerks or lowly Planners changing there full names to one word with a tinge of Green.

Oh, we already have that, Tre Arrow.

I think Eileen Brady's political fortunes went downhill the day she said her "last meal" request would be steamed kale & miso soup.

R1Ray:

I totally agree with your comment about the Trader Joes/New Seasons employees who act self righteous, but in essence are barely above minimum wage earners. I felt the same way about Nordstrom employees in the 90s and stopped shopping there because of it. If I wanted to be insulted while spending my money I would attend more Blazer games!

I'm not disputing the holier-than-thou attitude of a lot of these types, but I think this exhaustive "study" (60 people being shown pictures of organic food) has the cause-causation backward. People like that are more likely to be drawn to activities that give them that feeling of superiority, not the other way around. Pretentious jerks are just pretentious jerks, however they choose to justify their pretensions. It's pretty pathetic that things like eating healthier or saving gas is a basis for it though, IMO. But what else do some of these folks have?

Another anecdotal thing about New Seasons. A few years ago, I asked the butcher department for some veal. The clerk gave me a lecture about how cruel the veal trade is and that New Seasons doesn’t sell meat from that kind of animal husbandry and butchery. Well guess what, today they sell veal. Oh, it is raised on organic or benevolent farms and now is OK to sell. What a crock. Many years ago I got similar treatment at REI coop. I asked the clerk about a carbide miner’s lamp they had for sale. He told me it was a real esoteric item and if I didn’t know anything about it, he didn’t have the time to explain it to me. He suggested I go away. I have never been to REI since and that was about twenty five years ago.

If any of the organic chow-heads ever bothered to do any real investigation and analysis of their sphincter-tightening, halo-farting fetishes, they would conclude that organic agriculture is really bad for the planet AND just immoral. What the heck is so great about us that our bodies can only be exposed to perfectly untainted substances, while Cambodian street kids eat out of garbage dumps?

I sell our organic berries at the Farmer's Markets in Portland. It's a crazy atmosphere. There are no garbage cans at the market! WTF? I even got a little lecture about it from some barely employable hipster kid.

I get a huge kick out of using plastic bags for my berries. Yep. Within the city limits of Portland I will put your berries in a clean, never been used, plastic bag.

So come on down to the Buckman farmer's market on Thursday afternoon or the King market on Sunday. Get your fresh berries with none of the snoot. :-)