I don’t know how many of you would have read or heard about “Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert M Pirsig, but the book was a kind of cultural anthem for youth of post hippie generation of ’70s.

Was this book about a cross country motorcycle road trip Robert, author, took with Chris, his son, or was it about technology and its relationship with men, culture, roots or insanity. But one thing was very clear (I recall author also pointed this out in his forward) that the book was in no way associated with Zen Buddhism and was also not very factual on motorcycle maintenance either.

After so many years I’m still haunted by the conversation that took place between father and the son at one of their stop somewhere in Montana. The conversation that follows will give you enough clues on what this book was all about that made the author, a small time technical writer at a mofussil town in USA, a publishing phenomenon for more than two decades.

Chris asks “Do you believe in ghosts?”
“No,” Robert says,
“Why not?” Chris asks.
“Because they are un-sci-en-ti-fic.” is Robert’s answer.

“They contain no matter,” Robert continue, “and have no energy and therefore, according to the laws of science, do not exist except in people’s minds.”

“Of course,” Robert add, “the laws of science contain no matter and have no energy either and therefore do not exist except in people’s minds. It’s best to be completely scientific about the whole thing and refuse to believe in either ghosts or the laws of science. That way you’re safe. That doesn’t leave you very much to believe in, but that’s scientific too.”

How true. We continue to believe that 1+1=2 but neither the digits or the formula or the outcome contains no energy and therefore unscientific except in peoples’ mind.

Title of this post says it all. No need to spell out what shall come after ‘more’. Readers can make their own sweet guesses. What comes to my mind is the word ‘engaged’.

Various studies have shown that when employees eat healthier their productivity increases. But the value of nutritional benefits go beyond that. When employers offer nutritional benefits as a part of their health and well-being programs, they can help improve employee health, decrease absenteeism and sick leave, and lower healthcare costs.

With above truism in mind six months back Wingify started offering a assorted cut fruits (a tray comprising of 6 different cut fruits) to its all employees as a daily pre-lunch snack as a substitute for unhealthy chips or fries.

The results have been amazing so far on what we could directly measure. For example – even with an increase of 20% of our headcount since we started this fruit snack, the consumption of unhealthy snacks didn’t increase. As a matter of fact, consumption of one unhealthy snack actually decreased. However, the most important benefit of this introduction was creation of an awareness in team to introduce more healthy items. Goes with saying, our company has already started moving on a path built over healthy, hygienic and nutritious food foundation.

Having said above, logistics for providing on the spot cut fruit trays to employees was not easy. It was not easy to find a vendor who could provide such a on the spot service and also remains within our allocated budget. There were many who offered fruit trays from their centralized facilities. No one offered any temperature controlled shipment of pre-cuts. Being in the industry for so long, I would never agree to something which could turn out to be more unhygienic than the unhealthy snacks we were thinking of replacing. So on the spot and on demand processing was what we desired.

With the help from Vegfru, a group company, we were introduced to one budding entrepreneur who was willing to try his hand in setting up such a service. In just couple of months Vegfru has been able to replicate similar model to four other corporates in the vicinity. In the meanwhile, the vendor has also expanded his business.

May I suggest something to all my dear readers from Delhi NCR. In case your company also provides you food and snacks, take some time to suggest to your admin teams / management to introduce something similar. Introducing healthy options in your canteens / pantries does add to cost but just a change of mind. The benefits of eating fruits are too obvious to list here.

P.S: In case you have any difficulty in finding a vendor for on the spot service, I’ll be more than happy to help.