Torrance Journal for Applied Creativity

spices, textures, flavors, and sundry
other culinary satisfactions. Burgeoning
cookbooks, websites, and recipe-rich
blogs belie the doubter’s claims that a
plant-based diet lacks variety, verve, or
vigor of victual. Cashew nut sauces
swelling with succulent mushrooms,
seitan chunks in tangy barbecue on
buns, and tofu-tumeric ‘omelets’ might
well entice the penchant of distrustful
skeptics keen on carnivorous chow. Supermarket
shelves, coolers, and freezers
showcase entrepreneurial plant-based
nutritional variety.
Still, Biernes (2005, p. 64)
notes that, “[p]reparing a meal depends
on our ability to peel, stir, lift, and pour
before the guests can be invited and the
celebration begun.” And in research
cited by Joyce and colleagues (2012, p.
4), “the main barrier [42%] to eating
a plant-based diet was lack of information…on
nutrition and preparation of
plant-based foods.” Virtue-laden dietary
change seems a miniscule investment of
creative genius—but to bridge consumers’
wide psychological gap (see de
Boer & Aiking, 2010) means no longer
joining in the death or inconvenience of
another [i.e., an animal] to fill one’s belly.
Wanting to eat nutritious food is an
internal dynamic—arising from learning
to genuinely like that food (Satter, 2007).
And, “[i]nvention, the essential result of
creativity may only occur when we have
mastery of the necessary underlying
skills upon which we can rely” (Biernes,
2005). Food acceptance attitudes and
behaviors (Satter, 2007) progress from
curiosity and inclination to experiment
with novel food (e.g., examining it,
watching others eat it, repeatedly tasting
it) to eventually being comfortable
enough (e.g., taste and texture) to enjoy
and include it in one’s dietary repertoire.
Creativity Imbued Virtue—
A Global “Path Hierarchy” Towards
Vibrant Health?
As just discussed, among the
numberless daily tasks in which innovation
can be expressed for good, eating
and its pleasurable accouterments hold
much sway over the human psyche.
148
Scant other pursuits offer so great a
pull towards survival in its highest
form. Consuming food is essential.
Moreover, gustatory fervor unites our
minds’ cognitive, affective, and conative
threads (Satter, 2007). Simple evidence
puts eating on each rung of Maslow’s
self-actualization schema—making
the culinary arts exceptional in ability
to coalesce humans’ joie de vivre. To
accelerate eating’s purview of good well
past “survival” and move it resolutely
from food (physiological) to health
(safety) simultaneous with friendship/
family (love/belonging), confidence/
achievement (esteem/mastery), and
spontaneity/creativity (self-actualization)
would benefit human existence.
The means I propose is a multicultural
eco-friendly ethos (i.e., “plan hierarchy;”
see Bowlby, 1982, p. 77-79) steered by
constructive creativity rooted in virtue
(e.g., temperance, prudence, justice,
transcendence, courage, humanity, and
others; see Dahlsgaard, Peterson, & Seligman,
2005; Wong, 2011). Creatively
sustained health (i.e., a vibrant and
self-actualized existence; see Schmid,
2005b) for all peoples is the “set-goal”
(i.e., “…a time-limited event or an
ongoing condition…brought about
by…behavioral systems…structured to
take account of discrepancies between
instructions and performance;” Bowlby,
1982, p. 69). Per this framework,
“aliveness” accrues bit-by-bit as we
embrace wide-eyed our inner and outer
creative geniuses towards what is best
for all (i.e., altruism with a reasonable
measure of self-interest: de Boer &
Aiking, 2010). All alternatives must
conform to value-focused thinking—
relevant only because they are means
to achieve values (Keeney, 1994). The
parameters are: 1) what is good needs to
be both for the individual and for the
common good (Wong, 2011); 2) “not
good” outcomes or actions—even for
“a-single-person-at-a-single-moment-intime”—fail
the model’s intrinsic criteria;
and 3) living well (i.e., abundantly;
virtuously) is a goal in and of itself, as it
is patently unsatisfactory to “live-wellonly-so-as-to-die-well”.
Living becomes
a “mastery goal” self-regulation scenario
(see Mann, de Ridder & Fujita, 2013)
towards health, where, human-by-human,
we choose what is best (i.e., conscientiousness;
see Friedman & Kerns,
2014) even when the going is tough.
Conclusions
If it could help you, others,
and the planet (see Joyce et al., 2012;
also de Boer & Aiking, 2010), why not
embrace a plant-based diet with gusto?
This query is well analyzed by Robert
Keeney’s (1994) “values first” perspective
where “values are the principles for
evaluating the desirability of any possible
consequences or outcomes” and “[t]
he greatest benefits…are being able to
generate better alternatives for any decision
problem and being able to identify
decision situations that are more
appealing than the decision problems
that confront you” (p. 33). He calls it
“creat[ing] a win-win alternative” or “removing
constraints to action” through
empathic negotiation (Keeney, 1994, p.
40). Creativity—“an inherent property
of human cognitive functioning…a case
of problem solving…of finding a path
through ‘problem space’…that links the
initial state to the goal state” (Nijstad
et al., 2010, p. 38)—is joyfully requisite.
To “create decision opportunities”
around living in a creatively inspired
healthy manner, one “convert[s] an
existing decision problem [how to stay
healthy until one dies] into a decision
opportunity [how to continue living
healthy day-by-day sans death]…by
broadening the context” (Keeney, 1994,
p. 40). It then has a ready answer in the
realm of creativity—where plant-based
nutriments exuding gustatory flair can
tantalize the ubiquitous human craving
to crack the conundrum of rampant
human death.
At once bringing this essay to a
close, I have attempted to do the following:
1) show that survival-focused
creativity provides an as yet unexplored
means to conquer death,
2) demonstrate that a plantbased
diet’s ethical/practical criteria