Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Brussel Sprouts and TisBest


The August 2012 issue of ‘Wired’ magazine has a fascinating article about a new restaurant in Palo Alto, California. It’s called Lyfe Kitchen. Lyfe is actually an acronym for Love Your Food Everyday. The restaurant is committed to healthy, organic ingredients and sustainable farming and restaurant practices.  Lyfe Kitchen will have no butter, no cream, no white flour, no white sugar, no GMOs, no high fructose corn syrup, no additives, no trans fats. And yet somehow, there will be plenty of burgers and beer. And lots and lots of Brussels sprouts.

It’s not unusual to find a trendy restaurant in Palo Alto that’s committed to healthy, organic ingredients and sustainability. What’s unusual is to find a fast food restaurant committed to those things.

And that’s what makes Lyfe Kitchen unique. It’s owned and operated by ex-McDonald’s executives, including Mike Roberts, McDonald’s former president and CEO. He’s the guy who brought Apple Dippers to Happy Meals.  (According to the article, McDonald’s is now the nation’s largest seller of apples.)

His goal for Lyfe Kitchen is merely to revolutionize fast food. “There are 80 million people who have become much more aware of the food they eat,” Roberts said. “And that’s going to continue as far out as we can see.”
Green drink from Lyfe Restaurant
He wants to open hundreds of locations in the next five years. It’s a huge task, but Roberts is a big dreamer.

So why am I so excited about healthy fast food? I’m not, particularly. What I am excited about is Roberts’ dream to stimulate change that helps make a better world. What I get excited about is getting people to think and act just a little differently that results in more “good.” That’s what I believe we’re doing here at TisBest.  Our Charity Gift Cards are a fairly radical approach to gift-giving. But they require only a minor change in behavior to create a significant change in the world around us.

A growing number of individuals and businesses seem to agree.  Like Roberts, TisBest is just seeing the beginning and it’s going to continue as far out as we can see. That’s pretty exciting. And I think it’s good for everybody.