Sorry if I’m straying too far from leadership, meaning, value, importance, and purpose, but I find food, eating, and physical fitness an increasingly important part of personal leadership the closer my diet consists of fresh fruit, vegetables, and legumes.

Today someone took me to lunch at a nice natural foods restaurant in Soho, Manhattan. His company was paying for it so I didn’t have to think about price. I ordered what looked like a healthy, nutritious dish.

As always:

• Tons of rice (I ordered it with less rice and more vegetables)
• Overly sweet sauce
• Few vegetables

Sure, sweet tastes pleasurable, but it deprives the dish of complexity. It’s just sweet. It makes you want to put more in your mouth, but at the cost of your health.

Lesson learned, or rather, reinforced: restaurants don’t want to serve healthy, satisfying food. They want to serve you simple, sweet, filler. I’m not into health food. I’m into delicious, satisfying food that doesn’t take long to prepare.

I never noticed this before cooking from scratch all the time. Learning about nature and bringing it into my life improves it a lot. I eat healthier, more delicious, save time, save money, and pollute less.

• ← Life lessons from fruits and vegetables
• To meet more valuable people, spend less time with people you know →