Start a Revolution

Listen to Ted.com Speech

I think one of the most important things, whether it be becoming a PR agent or starting a healthy fast food restaurant like I want to do, you have to have passion.  If you go into a career, a project, or anything you may do in life without passion I believe you will live an unfulfilled life. Celebrities raise millions of dollars for charities because they are passionate about them.  New inventions such as the iPhone and iPod exist today because someone was passionate about technology.  As I was looking at videos on Ted.com I came across one that showed someone with a lot of passion about changing the eating habits of Americans.  That person was Jamie Oliver, and he took that passion and created his very own food revolution. 

Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution is about saving American lives by changing the way they eat. His mission to do so took him to the most overweight city in the U.S., Huntington, West Virginia. Once there, Jamie ‘s goal was to educate the community about how terrible the school’s food system was and how it is easy to change the way they were eating.  He saw something wrong in the way people were living and he developed a passion and a goal to make it better.  In his lecture on Ted.com, Jamie points out that every eighteen minutes four people will die from the food that they eat, that children today will have a shorter lifespan than their parents because of the food that they eat, and that the biggest cause of American deaths are diet related diseases. Every time we turn on our televisions there is another show, The Biggest Loser on NBC and Heavy on A&E, trying to educate Americans about this epidemic. Jamie Oliver has shown what one man’s passion can accomplish and I think that this is a step in the right direction to help change America’s eating habits.

            My own passion for this topic has led me to create the idea of my own health food fast food restaurant.  While researching why more people do not eat healthier food, one factor that seemed to stand out the most was cost. The biggest obstacles I have encountered while trying to create a healthier restaurant is finding a way to keep the price of the food down while still having as much fresh and organic food as possible.  However, I also found in my research that it isn’t necessarily the cost of the food that makes it more expensive, but also the cost of running the buildings that add to the high costs. So I figured that although it may cost me more in the beginning to create a more green restaurant, once these new systems are implemented and the locations are running as efficiently as possible, it will then become easier to have lower food prices since we won’t have such high bills in utilities and machinery that we need to cover. Ways that I have found to help make my restaurant more sustainable to reduce costs are through my energy, water, waste, disposables, chemicals and pollution reduction, and food systems. Other companies in the industry that have taken these initiatives are Chipotle, McDonalds, Subway, and Taco Bell.  With my desire to not only serve healthier food, but also to create a more environmentally friendly restaurant, I will be able to reduce my cost and solve the problem of high priced healthy fast food.

            Passion, imagination, and innovation have led us into 2011 with some of the most advanced technology and inventions that have improved our lives and environment. I have taken my passion and put it towards creating a healthy fast food restaurant, you may take your passion for PR to open a new agency like Johnathan Cheban did. Whatever you do though commit to it with everything you have. You may be pleasantly surprised how far a little hard work and a lot of passion can take you.