Multinational food companies can play a large role in helping to

Host: The rain had just begun, a soft curtain of silver threads that blurred the city’s neon lights. Inside a glass-walled cafeteria on the top floor of a corporate headquarters, the hum of vending machines mixed with the distant thunder. The floor smelled faintly of coffee, plastic wrap, and ambition.

Jack sat at a table overlooking the city, his tie loosened, a half-eaten sandwich beside a pile of reports marked “Global Nutrition Strategy.” Jeeny entered quietly, holding a tray with a bowl of salad and a cup of green tea. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, sterile and steady, like the heartbeat of the modern world.

Jeeny: “Dean Ornish once said, ‘Multinational food companies can play a large role in helping to prevent chronic diseases around the world by offering healthier choices in the United States and abroad.’”

Jack: “Ah, the gospel of kale and quinoa. Nice thought, Jeeny. But these companies don’t exist to save lives — they exist to sell.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they can do both.”

Jack: “That’s like saying oil companies can promote clean air while drilling. You can’t sell sugar and preach health in the same breath.”

Host: The window shook as a gust of wind hit the building, scattering raindrops down the glass. The city lights looked like wounds — bright, open, impossible to ignore.

Jeeny: “You underestimate change. Look at PepsiCo or Nestlé. They’re reformulating products, reducing sodium, investing in plant-based options. People are waking up.”

Jack: “Waking up? Jeeny, they’re rebranding. It’s still profit dressed up as virtue. They remove ten percent sugar and call it revolution.”

Jeeny: “At least it’s a start.”

Jack: “No, it’s a shield — to protect them from regulation, not to heal anyone.”

Host: The rain deepened, a steady drumbeat against the windows. Jeeny sat down, her tray clinking softly. Jack rubbed his temples, his jaw tight. The tension between them felt like the storm outside — rising, electric, inevitable.

Jeeny: “You think cynicism is realism. But people are dying, Jack — not from war, but from what’s on their plates. Heart disease, diabetes, obesity. Don’t you think these companies have a moral duty to do something?”

Jack: “Moral duty? Corporations don’t have morals, Jeeny. They have shareholders. Duty ends where dividends begin.”

Jeeny: “You sound like the very machine you despise.”

Jack: “I sound like someone who’s seen how the sausage gets made — literally.”

Host: He gestured toward the cafeteria line, where employees in suits queued for burgers, soda, and frozen desserts. The bright posters above them read: “Healthy Choices, Happy Workforce.”

Jack: “You see that? Optics. PR. You can’t cure a culture with salad slogans.”

Jeeny: “You cure it with persistence. With education. With courage to change what people crave.”

Jack: “People crave salt, fat, sugar — survival instincts, not moral failures. The food industry didn’t invent our biology.”

Jeeny: “But they exploit it.”

Host: The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the whirr of a coffee machine and the low hum of fluorescent lights. Jack’s eyes softened, not from agreement, but from fatigue — the kind that comes from fighting ghosts of idealism long buried.

Jack: “I once worked for a food conglomerate in Chicago. They had a whole division called ‘Health Vision 2030.’ You know what it was? A marketing unit. They tested how much green packaging increased sales. That’s what the world calls reform.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe they need people inside — people like you — to make it real.”

Jack: “People like me get fired for trying.”

Jeeny: “Then people like me will keep trying from the outside.”

Host: Lightning flashed, illuminating her face — calm, determined, almost defiant. Jack looked at her and saw something he couldn’t name — a quiet kind of faith that survived every disappointment.

Jack: “Tell me something, Jeeny. Do you really believe kale chips will save the world?”

Jeeny: “No. But the intention behind them might. The choice to make something that heals instead of harms — that’s where it begins.”

Jack: “Intentions don’t stop heart attacks.”

Jeeny: “No, but they stop indifference.”

Host: The conversation tightened, like a thread pulled too hard. The rain rattled the glass, mirroring their voices — steady, then sharp, then soft again.

Jeeny: “Do you know how many lives could be saved if big food shifted even ten percent of its output to real nourishment? Millions. The World Health Organization calls diet the leading cause of preventable death. Imagine if profit aligned with prevention.”

Jack: “That’s the problem — it never truly does. The system rewards addiction, not balance. Look at tobacco — decades of denial before truth broke through. Food is the new cigarette, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “Then let’s make it the new medicine.”

Jack: “Medicine doesn’t taste like fries.”

Jeeny: “It can, if we learn to make health desirable.”

Jack: “You sound like you want to reprogram humanity.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what evolution is.”

Host: Her words hung there, suspended between hope and exhaustion. The rain had turned into a downpour, streaking down the windows like tears.

Jack: “You think corporations can grow a conscience.”

Jeeny: “I think conscience can grow inside people who work in corporations.”

Jack: “That’s a long shot.”

Jeeny: “All progress is.”

Host: The lights flickered, and for a moment, the room was lit only by the lightning outside — a raw, white pulse across the sky. Both of them looked at their reflections in the window: tired faces, two outlines against a storm, mirrored in glass that separated them from the world below.

Jack: “So, what do you want, Jeeny? A revolution through groceries?”

Jeeny: “Yes. A quiet one. Every label changed, every ingredient questioned. Every meal made with responsibility. That’s how revolutions begin — not with noise, but with awareness.”

Jack: “And you think that awareness can win against billions in ad revenue?”

Jeeny: “Truth always starts smaller than a slogan.”

Host: The rain began to slow, softening to a steady whisper. Jack picked up his sandwich, looked at it, then set it down again — uneaten. Something had shifted, not entirely in his belief, but in his weariness of disbelief.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe the real health crisis isn’t in what we eat, but in what we’ve stopped believing — that corporations could ever serve people, not markets.”

Jeeny: “And maybe belief is the first nutrient we need to restore.”

Jack: “If only it came in packets.”

Jeeny: “It already does. It’s called courage.”

Host: The storm had passed, leaving mist on the windows. The city below glowed — wet, alive, hungry for something better. The neon sign of the company’s slogan — “Feeding the Future” — reflected faintly across the glass between them.

Jack stood, picking up his reports, and looked at Jeeny.

Jack: “You know, maybe ‘Health Vision 2030’ needs someone like you on the inside.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it needs both of us.”

Host: Their eyes met, the tension melting into something quieter, something that felt almost like resolve. The rain stopped, the lights steadied, and the cafeteria emptied into silence.

Outside, the city — a labyrinth of consumption, commerce, and contradiction — waited. But somewhere within its glowing arteries, a new idea had just been born:
That change, like health, begins in the smallest choice —
and even the most powerful machine can heal,
if someone dares to redesign it from the inside out.