John Mackey

I started eating vegetables, getting myself used to it and liking it.

I became the food buyer for the co-op.

And I had thought previously to that, Jen, that it was like, my body was like a car.

You take it in, like you go to the gas station to get fueled up.

You go to McDonald's or the Jack in the Box to get fueled up.

Right.

So it never occurred to me that we were like a living being that has tens of trillions of cells that need to be nourished.

And food could make you feel better, give you more vitality, help you supercharge your immune system.

That was all new to me.

And so I began to learn that at the co-op.

And then I got interested in it.

So I'm reading cookbooks for fun.

I'm practicing.

I go to work for this small natural food store called Good Foods.

And I came home back to the co-op one day, and I started talking to my girlfriend, who I'd met at the co-op, at Prana House, the name of this co-op.

And I said, Renee, what do you think if we opened up our own natural food store, you and me?

And she said...

Oh, Macko, man, I think that'd be really cool.

Renee was definitely a hippie.

She was like, so I'm 23 now and Renee's 19.