What about thinking *inside* the box?

It's funny how the English language, and presumably all languages, actually evolve. Business lingo is all around us. One of my favorites is "Think outside the box".

We use that statement to evoke creativity. Intellectual enterprise. Usually while brainstorming. Brainstorming sessions that take place around a big conference table, sometimes. People sit around those tables, conversing about how to make things better. Sometimes those discussions are so vital we skip meals, and instead do "business lunches", a masqueraded way to get the most out of people by bribing them to stay and work longer.

Usually, those meals are the most bang for the lowest buck, certainly not a splurge but rather how to feed the most people with the least amount of money to maximize their input, and subsequently output, by having them skip a break to conduct more business in the work day.

How much really goes into those meals? How much effort and creativity actually gets exerted to put together a healthy, quality meal to provide for those who drive creativity in a brainstorming session?

In this day and age, you can bet a whole lot less goes into thinking inside the box to get outside the box with regards to the lunchbox.

It occurred to me the other day when I had my first cafeteria style lunch in a very, very long time. In fact, it was the very same cafeteria at which I dined the last time I had a cafeteria lunch. Same office building complex. Same long line. Same plastic tray. Same processed foods.

The one difference? Four years later my diet is significantly different. My veg*n diet is considerably more out of the box than they put inside the box: Processed, canned tomato sauce on white flour noodles with oversteamed mixed frozen veggies on the side, and a bowl of commercially prepared and canned lentil soup that they warmed up and called the Chef's Special Soup Of The Day.

Amongst the selection of pizza combinations, veal and chicken cutlets, unidentifiable beef stew bits, that was the best thing I could get to accommodate my lactose-intolerant, animal- and dairy-free diet needs. It's a common occurrance. Simply put, no one has the time or margin in their bottom line to produce fresh foods AND offer them at affordable pricing, apparently.

It's simply cheaper to have a McCheeseburger. Or a coffee and a donut.

 The important part is that I'm an adult. As an adult, I get to make choices. Choices like what I eat and what nourishment I fuel my body with. The key though, is that I am educated enough to know what I'm eating. Now, anyhow. A few years ago, it wasn't the same, but now I am enlightened and self-aware. I can choose what to put into my body, and the bodies of my loved ones (read: kids or dependents for whom I am responsible).

But what about the rest of the kids in the world? What do they know? They're being raised in a world where fast food is a way of life, and cooking skills are something that are rarely taught, if at all.

In fact, its a society based on "want now, pay later" about everything from cars to toys to vehicles to food, and ultimately, our health.

Don't believe me? Ask Joe Cross. Joe was a richie rich on the stock marketing in Australia who created a life in the fast lane. And then he found himself in a state of being Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. So he made a movie about it. You should watch it.

Whether you decide to Juice, or not juice... Whether you go vegetarian, or even vegan.... it's your life. You can do whatever you choose: carnivore, omnivore, herbivore. But think inside the box.

When the Journey Began...

When did it really begin? I'm not sure.

Perhaps at the moment of conception, followed by roughly nine months of forced feeding through the gestation period of human pregnancy and continued into toddler years with breast-feeding. Natures perfect food: The mother's milk.

Then what happened is a giant blur; the wheels fell off the bus. The planet shifted. The universe stood still. All that was good in the world changed, and we became just another example of the statistical behavior of Western dietary habits in a world of processed and packaged convenience. But why?

When did we begin the sacrifice? By sacrifice, I don't mean the act of crucifixion or tossing a virgin into a volcano to appease the gods. I mean, at what point did we decide to sell our Lives for convenience?

My father used to complain at meal times that he wished eating dinner was as simple as taking a pill; so much time was lost sitting down around the table to break bread as a family, he lamented as he conceived the notion of a single meal replacement tablet that would forever forgo the need to commune as a family.

How ironic. What seemed absurd an idea is now, retrospectively, exactly what society has done. We have forsaken our rights to join together in the morning as a family to start the day. Looking back 60 years, Father would read his morning newspaper, possibly speaking sternly to his children about the merits of being diligent in their grades. Little Jenny would tattle tale on Little Johnny's silly bubble-blowing antics into his cereal bowl. Mom would bring over another handful of hot-off-the-skillet plates of pancakes, eggs or some other warm cooked meal, and all would be hurried off to whichever appointments or school bus stops they needed to be at.

Dinner time would be much the same, together regurgitating the events of the day and how they unfolded, while indulging in a home cooked meal. That is, until modern technology advanced Take Out, canned goods and other amenities like microwave dinners, and sold them to us as "The Next Best Thing".

Fast forward to present. We are inundated with marketing. Neon lights, signs, print ads, television commercials, social media, and word of mouth... Everything directs to the cheapest, fastest, tastiest foods with immediate gratification for our taste buds at the lower dollar value.

And we're fat. And sick. Funny though, that we're the last ones to find out.

Recently, scientists had isolated the theoretical cause of the potato blight in Ireland that, as a result of the Great Potato Famine, drove hundreds of thousands to flee Ireland and head for North America. That journey killed many that tried. That emigration to what is now our homeland killed Irish, Chinese, English, French, African, and many other people as millions have relocated to the "New World" over the past few centuries.

Initially, the earliest settlers had to learn to farm. It was a must. If you couldn't grow food, you starved. Yes, there was hunting as well, but most provisions were plant-based, with livestock (what could be kept alive) and wild game to supplement.

Many a millionaire was made by farming. As time passed, cattle ranches sprang up along side cash crops such as wheat, barley, corn, potatos, and now, soy.

Today, you go to a grocery store. We eat what "they" give us. Now, we're the cash crop.

Like any good business, you create as large a margin as possible. You manufacture a product at the lowest possible cost and sell it for as much as the market will bear - and then some. The laws of Supply & Demand always take precedent. Thus, big Agro business creates plants to feed livestock. That livestock is fed to other livestock (see Male Chickens). This other livestock is sold to humans as both direct and indirect products. And we feed; boy, do we feed.

Our inability to fend directly for ourselves has created three booming businesses:

• Consumable Food Retail
• Diet & Weightloss
• Medical and Pharmaceuticals.

Not one of these industries benefits us as consumers. We benefit the owners of the businesses.

 They make it. We eat it. In large portions.

We binge. We get fat.

They give us weightloss programs. Most that lose the weight put it back on and more.

We get sick. They give us medicine.


None of it improves life. In most cases, it doesn't even extend it. So far, of every single dollar spend funding cancer research not one single person has been cured of cancer by modern medicine. By cured, I mean have had cancer completely and fully reversed, or fixed. Removed a tumor? Yes. With chance it comes back. And it almost always comes back.

What no one tells us is that none of this is normal. No one wants to point out the obvious - that manufactured foods are bad. No one wants us to know that even the typical produce we find at the store is far less nutritious than nature intends.

No one wants us to know because we're a source of income for someone higher up our financial food chain. And we pay for it with our lives.

Until we become unplugged and start putting our own lives ahead of the fast food drive thru windows and put nutritious, healthy lifestyles as our priority.

Whether you're a health nut or just an average Jo, a raw foodie or a strict carnivore, there is space for everyone to get unplugged from Big Brother's unhealthy network....   Join me in Coming UnBinged!