Kansas City Blog

​It's time to add a new word to your lexicon: eco-douchebag. Guilty Planet has offered the phrase and asked for comments regarding a sign on a bread slicer at a Whole Foods in Vancouver warning customers that the bread slicer is used on both organic and non-organic items.

It seems unlikely that bread would be affected by an all-use slicer. You could sway me that the coffee grinder in the next aisle matters. (Never use a store's coffee grinder. You're always getting the end of someone else's grind and leaving your own for the next person. And invariably the person before you has selected flavored coffee.)

The bread slicer is indicative of a bigger societal issue -- it raises the question of whether we've gone too far or we've been on the wrong side of reasonable for a long time.

For some people, demonstrating their food knowledge seems to be as important as having it. It's not enough that you know what it takes to make a pana cotta -- everyone else also needs to know that you know. And here, men and women can be equally insufferable. In a world of conspicous consumption, these people make it a point to judge your consumption while pointing out the benefits of their own.

Has food always been about demonstrating superior knowledge? Did the first caveman grunt knowingly when he went to another cave and discovered that the cook wasn't using a flat rock?

Regardless, it seems like it's time for eco-douchebags to take their rightful place among the other buzzkills of the food and beverage universe. Feel free to dismiss them with the same ease as the wine snob, the elitist barrista and the guy who explains the origin of what you're eating -- while you wait politely as it gets cold.

[Image via Guilty Planet]