Not since I wore Earth Shoes.
Forgot to add:
When my ex’s son turned 4, she threw a birthday party for him. All of his friends came over. She made some sort of whole bran buckwheat cake, covered in carob. Her son was ultra psyched. Yes! Sweets! His friends all learned to say “WTF?!?” that day.
As someone who has not eaten ANY meat or poultry for the past 13 years or so (though I do enjoy seafood and dairy products) I cant stand going to “vegitarian-run” food stores or restaurants…
Generally, the food is way overpriced, the staff often condecending (I guess i dont look like the typical vegitarian) and the clientelle often smug and veggier-than-thou.
Of course there are plenty of exceptions, but it’s something I have noticed for a long time.
I wrote about the humanity, or lack thereof, of Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods shoppers back in December, on my blog.
Another possibility that can range the gamut within any consumer experience- They hate grocery shopping or shopping in general. As much as I like food, I hate supermarkets …It’s like a switch that turns on inside me when I go into a supermarket or store. My eyes glaze over and acquire blinders, I become autistically focused on getting what I need and getting out. It makes me snarky and my mind is a tumult of automatic response. I can’t think normally, the crowds freak me out, I can’t seem to buy anything outside of a certain set rhythm… it’s almost obsessive.
That sounds awful! have you tried shopping after 10pm? I hit the grocery store at least twice a week, but never before 9:30 and usually more like 11. It’s a whole different world. Last time I shopped on a Saturday I truly felt homicidal, but that was a couple of years ago and I haven’t looked back.
I don’t know, but I suspect it’s related to the phenomenon I noticed as a waitress where the after-church crowd were the biggest pack of assholes I dealt with all week. Sweet as pie to the members of their party or other church members they ran into, but apt to treat me like something sub-human. And the more crosses and Bibles and whatnot, the shittier they typically treated me. As others have said, it’s a better than you thing.
I’d invite you to meet my husband, but frankly, I’m a cranky omnivore and he’d probably be nicer to you than I’m inclined to be.
I’m often rude in natural food stores. However, it’s not because I ignore people or get in the way or don’t acknowledge it when someone is helpful. It’s that 90% (easily) of everything in one of those places (I’m thinking the little places and not something like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods or a locally-owned place in Las Cruces that I really liked when I lived there that, if nothing else, are high-end grocery stores) is complete crap. They’re full of books for “natural cures” and homeopathy and any other sort of quack whackjob idea. And then there’s the actual products, supplements, and so on. And I hate the word organic or the label “chemical-free.” And since it’s normally a stop I’m dragged to after already being out shopping far longer than I like, I can’t be too nice.
Moral of the post: Don’t drag an organic chemist who works in pharma to a natural foods store.
But your ORGANIC. You should fit right in and be soooo goood for people 
I’m intrigued to read this. While I haven’t noticed this in health food stores, since I never go into them, but I would imagine that the people at the music festival I attended a couple of years ago would be the same demographic, and I noticed the same thing. It mostly took the form of not paying any attention to the people around you. It’s nice that you’ve met an old friend in front of the narrow service window of the organic bubble tea trailer, but could the two of you possibly move off to one side so the rest of the line could get some? No? Okay, we’ll just stand here and wait until you feel it’s time to move. That sort of thing.
The contrast was heightened when we moved to a nearby pub. Everyone there was quite polite.
At the time I had two theories going:
a) given that I am much more familiar with pubs than festivals, and know more drunks than hippies, I was probably just being too uptight and applying a different set of standards than everyone else; or
b) when you enter a pub you are on some level aware that you might wind up in a physical confrontation, which is not the case at a festival, and if that isn’t your idea of a good time you make some effort to avoid it. Most of us know someone who has been in a barfight, I would hazard that fewer of us know one who’s been in a folk festival fight.*
I may go back to the festival this year and check out some of the ideas in the thread.
*Local folk traditions may cause this sentence to be completely backwards, but it wasn’t that kind of festival.
I get this way when going into a department store. I’m not usually snarky, but I walk in and single-mindedly head for exactly where the product I need is, buy it and get out. For some reason, being in a department store too long gives me a headache and makes me incredibly cranky. It probably has a lot to do with having to run the gauntlet of people trying to squirt perfume on me.
Champagne will do that.
What I recently found interesting was the Universal Values framework developed by Schwartz, which suggests that people tend to be either benevolent or universalist (but not both).
Benevolent people are more likely to value security and community and people like themselves, while universalists tend to value social justice, peace, diversity, but also autonomy. I very much see this as the contrast between conservatives and liberals.
I tend to see conservatives as being very big into this idea of promoting a somewhat homogenous group of people with the same values (ex. “a Christian nation”) and acting with suspicion towards vague and abstract others (“foreigners”) until they meet them in person; I see liberals talk big about freedom from social pressures and the right to not conform, but also strong advocates of a generalized “diversity,” but in my observation, they tend to act suspicously towards people they meet in person.
I posted about this years ago, when high-end organic/natural supermarkets like Whole Foods were still relatively uncommon, and the natural grocery stores that were out there tended to be more “granola” than they are now; Wild Oats, Alfalfa’s, indie food co-ops, and 1970s-style health food stores that have an odd smell.
Found it! From 2003:
Damn, Dopers that post “selection bias!” are starting to piss me off as much as those that respond with “Cite?” and “Google is your friend.”
Actually, I noticed the same thing about Prius drivers early on, before they became more common. Back when they were the real “look-at-me-I-love-Mother-Earth” car, I’d swear that there was not a single Prius driver in the entire Seattle area who paid the slightest bit of attention to what traffic around them was doing.
I just came on here to say that I am what my dad calls a trickle-down vegetarian – I only eat things that eat plants. 
Also, and I realize I’m probably going to piss off a few people by saying this, a disproportionately large amount of bad drivers own a Prius. Driving a hybrid does not give you a license to kill (or attempt to kill).
Cue music.
Vegetarian people got no reason.
With their tiny little voices that go meep meep meep
And their tiny little cars that go beep beep beep
Vegetarian people got no reason.
Ah, so those things turn you into a Southern Democrat?