Study Links Liking Organic Food With Being A Jerk

Diners in "Portlandia" demand to know where their chicken came from

Controversial new research suggests that being a regular organic food eater increases the chance that you are "selfish." In what I like to refer to as the "Portlandia" study, Loyola University researchers concluded that being very concerned about the quality of your food = being a overly-judgemental jerk:

"After viewing a few organic foods, comfort foods, or control foods, participants who were exposed to organic foods volunteered significantly less time to help a needy stranger, and they judged moral transgressions significantly harsher than those who viewed nonorganic foods."

The researchers explained this connection by suggesting that since the "organic foodies" already defined and justified themselves morally through their food choices, they didn't feel the need to go any further.

Columbia Gorge Organic Drinks: A Challenger To Naked and Odwalla?

The time was, buying juice drinks from brands like Odwalla and Naked required a trip to the natural foods store. Now I can find Naked at pretty much every larger corner store, including the bodega across the street. Isn't this a good thing -- healthy drinks getting more mainstream? Or has the fact that Naked is now owned by PepsiCo and Odwalla owned by Coca-Cola a reason for concern?

This is not the blog to foster immediate panic and suspicion over the fact that a large company is distributing "health food." One should never assume anything when it comes to personal health and nutrition -- research and personal experience should be your guiding lights.

That said, there is nothing wrong with researching alternatives, either. In this post I'm going to talk about two drinks I've recently bought from a potential challenger to the Naked & Odwalla throne, Columbia Gorge.

Look, your big issue with buying any of these juice products on a regular basis is sugar content. Many years ago I had to go to a specialist with a pre-diabetic condition, and they said: watch it on the sugar from juices. This is a constant struggle for me in terms of finding healthy juice drinks ("smoothies"), and why I'm more likely to stick with something like kombucha.