By Joe Cross
Wow only 20 more days to go. I guess that still sounds like a lot but when I’ve been juicing for 40, 20 should be easy!
On to Lindborg, Kansas, which was a place I’d never heard of before we began planning our trip. The town is known as Little Sweden, U.S.A., as it was first settled in the 1800’s by a group of Swedish immigrants and is still home to the annual Svensk Hyllingfest, a well-established Swedish cultural festival. It’s also where the Anatoly Karpov International School of Chess is located. But for me the most interesting thing about the place, and the reason for our visit, is that there is no fast food to be had within the city limits – none whatsoever. The local government has, in effect, banned fast food chains from opening in their town, something at least a dozen other U.S. municipalities have also done by adopting zoning laws that prohibit “formula restaurants” like McDonald’s, Burger King, and Subway. Why? Because they are health hazards that have a negative impact on the community.
In Lindborg, I also got my first taste of motivational speaking since embarking on the Reboot. One night, I spoke before a crowd of fifty or so at a local Lutheran church, where I talked about my journey, how it was going, and what had prompted me to do it in the first place. I did pretty well. No one fell asleep and I received a lot of positive feedback afterwards. Yes, here I was, now officially delivering a speech about healthy eating on my fruit and veggie soapbox. I also found out that there were quite a few people in the audience who also had experience with Prednisone. It was a pretty responsive audience, who at the end of the talk flocked to the temporary juice stand I’d set up, where I was serving shot glasses filled with Mean Green. Giving the talk forced me to evaluate and assess what I’d learned and how best to go about sharing that information. In Lindborg I found out that there were many other examples across the U.S. where government and people are trying to take back control of their nutritional health.