TARGET THE KIDS

            People constantly ask me “Are we winning?”

            Imagine asking a Jew in 1940 “Are we winning?”  The obvious answer would be “no.”  But the Holocaust set the stage to re-establish Jews in their ancient homeland:  the 1948 creation of modern Israel. The tragedy led directly to the triumph.

            An ultimate win often takes years of painful endurance.  More often than not, folks need to be hit by a 2X4 before realizing what a win might actually be.  McDonald’s, mRNA, and Chick-fil-A are all going in the wrong direction, of course, but taken together they are gradually building a sick, sick, sick society.

            Eventually that sickness—in health, land, water, economics, etc.—will create the truth win out the other side.  In that vein, I read with mixed emotions about Kraft Heinz hijacking our nation’s children by getting the green light for Lunchables in school cafeterias.            

            This has been a big corporate push and of course the USDA finally acquiesced.  The yellow-boxed Lunchables will invade our nation’s school cafeterias like an invincible army in the next year or two.  It’s brilliant marketing.

            The Wall Street Journal quoted company executives as saying “the kids have it and then they go to retail and they see it. [It’s] a penetration machine,” noting this all represents a potential $25 billion untapped market.           

            Anyone with an ounce of saturated fatty tissue in their brains knows this is a despicable abuse of our nation’s 30 million school-aged kids.  But does it bring us one step closer to the pendulum swinging so far out of kilter that we get a win?  Throwing our nation’s youth to Lunchables is definitely a major step into an abyss.

            Perhaps as our kids fall through that abyss and suffer the consequences, lots of folks will wake up and Lunchables will go bankrupt.  And McDonald’s.  And Chick-fil-A.  And mRNA.  And maybe, just maybe, we’ll ask for healthy food from healthy plants and animals grown on healthy soil with healthy hydration protocols and healthy farmers as part of a healthy economy.

            What’s the adult parental response to Lunchables in the school cafeteria?