Vending Machine Honesty Will Help All of Us

The four major food groups: chips, candy, cookies and pop-tarts

Sugar surrounded by a nice picture of water

Let’s imagine for a second that we really did support health and wellness in the workplace. Would these machines exist if we did? I hope someday I’ll be showing my grandchildren these relics at the Smithsonian:

“Yes, Jeremy, we mindlessly ate this garbage for many years. Crazy, right? You have no idea how much better things have gotten. Even your old grandad, who you know is an amazing physical specimen to this day, ocassionally ate junk food and soda out of these vending machines because it was right in front of him and really cheap. I know it’s hard to believe but we weren’t able to change our field of vision with Google Glass like you can now, so it was much easier to give into temptation …”

Something like that. But until that glorious day when the masses aren’t fed total crap to make businesses a few extra dollars, I propose we stamp these beasts with their own nutrition label to help us understand in a very simple way what we are choosing to put in our body.

Put the sticker as close to the coin slot as possible and see if anybody thinks twice. Maybe they’ll just laugh, but at least they’ll be thinking about what they’re doing.

Let’s all give future generations a healthier tomorrow by demanding better. And one day we can add this step to the list of impressive things to tell our children’s children.

“Yes, Jeremy, I was there for the dawn of vending machine transparency.”