My Beef with Meat: The Healthiest Argument for Eating a Plant-Strong Diet--Plus 140 New Engine 2 Recipes

290 Pages·2013·3.11 MB·English

by  Rip Esselstyn

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To my parents, Ann and Essy. You made this possible. I love you.
Introduction
F
orty-two-year-old Nick Gravina was one of the fittest firefighters in
the South Metro, Colorado, fire department. He was also a total beast at the
Firefighter Combat Challenge, a timed competition that involves climbing a 50-
foot tower with five flights of stairs carrying a 42-pound roll of fire hose,
descending and slamming a sledgehammer into a 160-pound metal beam until it
moves 5 feet, pulling a charged hose line 75 feet, opening the nozzle and flowing
water and hitting a target, and dragging a 175-pound dummy 106 feet to the
finish line. Nick was able to do all this in less than 1 minute and 35 seconds, all
the while wearing full gear and breathing air from a 30-pound Air-Pak on his
back!
But I didn’t meet Nick in an athletic contest. We met because Nick’s mother
sent me an e-mail asking for help.
Although Nick’s athletic abilities were amazing, his health wasn’t. One day
in March 2012, Nick, who is married and has two young kids, started to feel
some chest pain that he thought was just a bad case of indigestion, but it was
painful enough that he alerted his crew, who immediately hooked him up to the
heart monitor to get a look at his heart. The paramedic saw an abnormal rhythm
and called an ambulance just as Nick’s heart stopped beating and he stopped
breathing—he was, basically, dead. The firefighters immediately gave Nick two
defibrillation shocks but they didn’t work. So the crew started CPR, and Nick’s
heart barely began to beat on its own again. The ambulance then rushed him to
the hospital, where for the next hour Nick went in and out of cardiac arrest while
his crew and doctors tried desperately to save his life. After one hour of CPR and
eighteen shocks to his heart, Nick’s doctors finally were able to remove a blood
clot from his heart, saving his life.
When Nick recovered, he was determined to do everything in his power to
make sure this attack was a onetime event. He was a great athlete, but he’d
always eaten whatever he wanted, thinking he could burn everything off since he
was so fit. Then his mother sent him a copy of my book, The Engine 2 Diet,
which lured him into the plant-strong life.
Since going on the E2 diet, Nick’s total cholesterol has come down to 83
mg/dl, his LDL is 35 mg/dl, he’s leaner than he’s ever been, and he feels
empowered with the knowledge that he and his food choices now control his
health destiny. He is now a dedicated E2er. Way to go, Nick!
Nick isn’t alone. All over the country people are learning about healthy plant-
based diets. In fact, things have changed dramatically since my first book, The
Engine 2 Diet, was published in February of 2009. People are waking up to the
fact that the current paradigm is broken. The answer is not another pill,
procedure, or doctor, or more legislation. Unbelievably, the answer is right in
front of our faces. But we’ve been blind because we had no idea the answer
could be so simple. It’s like Glinda, the good witch of the North, telling Dorothy
she’s always had the power to leave Oz and go home—all she ever had to do was
click her heels together three times and say, “There’s no place like home.”
It’s the same with eating a plant-strong diet and the wonders it can do to
prevent and reverse disease. Say it three times (and click your heels if you’d
like): “There’s no diet like a plant-based diet.”
Over the last decade more and more people are figuring this out. The plant-
strong boom is on! High-profile celebrities from television hosts Ellen
DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell to NFL star running back Arian Foster, from
actress Michelle Pfeiffer to President Bill Clinton have joined the plant-based
team. Books and documentaries on the subject are selling like plant-based
hotcakes—especially the documentary Forks Over Knives (starring T. Colin
Campbell, Ph.D., author of The China Study, and my father, Caldwell B.
Esselstyn Jr., M.D., author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease), which has
become one of the top-selling and most viewed documentaries in America for
the last two years.
Other parts of America are noticing too, from nutritionists to doctors, from
restaurants to stores. In 2010, the natural food supermarket chain Whole Foods
Market launched its healthy eating initiative to educate the company’s thousands
of employees and millions of customers about the benefits of eating a
wholefood, plant-strong, nutrient-dense, healthy-fat diet. CEO John Mackey
invited me to help the company do this, and so after twelve years at the Austin
Fire Department, I jumped off the fire engine and stepped out of my bunker gear
to rescue people from food instead of fires.
And yet, despite this terrific momentum, too many people are still eating
terribly, and too many people are ill-informed about food. In fact, even after
Nick’s heart attack and brush with death, his fellow firefighters still can’t
understand why he doesn’t eat meat or drink milk.
That’s why Nick’s mother called me—to ask me to support his new,
lifesaving diet, but also to give him the information he needs to win over his
firefighting friends. We talked for more than an hour, and I gave him all the
ammunition he needed to win every argument his fellow firefighters might throw
at him.
That’s exactly what this book does as well. Inside are all the facts you’ll need
to combat the silly claims and misguided myths you’ll hear from naysayers who
throw out statements like “You can’t get enough protein eating plants,” or “You
can’t get enough vitamins,” and so on. You’ll learn the truth about protein, the
facts about vitamins, and the myths about meat. In fact, by the time you’ve
finished this book, you’ll be an expert on everything you need to know to win
any argument with a meat eater. And you’ll be more convinced than ever that
your plant-based diet rules!
Of course, once you’ve won the argument with your words, you’ll want to
win it with your cooking as well. To that end, I’m offering you 140
mouthwatering Engine 2 recipes to serve to your no-longer-doubtful friends.
These recipes will put a smile on your decreasing belly and you’ll be able to
wow your friends at breakfast with Savory Shiitake and Cheesy Oats (here),
Zeb’s Waffles (here), and Cranberry-Polenta French Toast (here); at lunch with
Asparagus and Cream of Cashew Collard Wraps (here), Armadillo Sweet
Potatoes (here), and Rockin’ Reuben on Rye (here); at dinner with BBQ LOL
(Lentil Oat Loaf) (here), Summer Soba (here), and Raise-the-Barn Butternut
Squash–Vegetable Lasagna (here); and for dessert with Bittersweet Chocolate
Truffles (here), Banana-Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies (here), and Mango-
Cherry “Ice Cream” (here). You’ll find recipes for the soup lovers in your circle,
as well as the burger and fries fans. You’ll even find sauces, dips, salads, and
salsas.
To source these recipes, I talked not only to my family, where everyone has
been collecting plant-strong recipes for years, but to Engine 2 fans all over the
country. Some of these people are professional chefs such as John Mercer, Fran
Costigan, and Lindsay Nixon; some are parents such as Maria Steiner and Renee
Van de Motter; some are working professionals such as Polly LaBarre, Wendy
Solganik, and Dick DuBois. What they all have in common is they’re all eating
plant-strong and creating a new arsenal of amazing recipes that are plant based,
filled with whole foods, and always delicious.
Armed with these facts and recipes, you, like Nick and millions of others,
will be on your way to revolutionizing the way you eat and the way you live. An
E2 plant-strong diet can rescue your health and save your life. There’s no
argument there!
Stay Connected with Engine 2!
For more information about My Beef with Meat, please go to
mybeefwithmeat.com—and if you have any questions about science,
the recipes, or anything else, let me know! Also, check out our
Engine 2 site, engine2.com, for tons of resources, recipes, videos,
and everything else to get you started with your plant-strong life!
Look at Engine 2 Extra as well—here we have a wonderful support
network available with coaching and information on our daily 28-day
challenges (engine2extra.com).
Like us on Facebook! We have a great community with loads of
plant-strong tips (www.facebook.com/Engine2Diet). Find us on
Pinterest, where there are hundreds of recipes, articles, and plant-
strong finds pinned on pinterest boards (pinterest.com/engine2diet).
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter too (@engine2diet)! Ask
questions, post photos, and tag us! Join up for occasional Twitter
chats as well! And check us out on Instagram: tag us and show us
your plant-strong meals, places where you find E2 products, etc.
(instagram.com/engine2diet).
Don’t forget to come to an event! Join us for our Farms 2 Forks
events held across the country (www.farms2forks.com). And finally,
check out our new food line with lots of delicious and easy-to-
prepare plant-strong meals: www.wholefoodsmarket.com/engine2.
PART I
THE FACTS
Let’s begin with The Facts—thirty-six of them! If you’ve been following the
Engine 2 diet, or you’ve just been adding a lot of fruits and vegetables to your
diet, you probably can’t count how many times you’ve heard naysayers
proclaim, “Meat, it’s what’s for dinner” or, “Milk—it does a body good.” And
how many times have you heard people make fun of your plant-based diet and
spout their so-called facts about why you need to eat red meat, chicken, fish, and
dairy. The real fact is: Their facts aren’t facts! They’re myths!
The unfortunate reality is that the powerful meat and dairy lobbies have been
successfully spreading their propaganda for many decades. The fortunate reality
is that we are now in the midst of the greatest information era in the history of
mankind and the truth about food and nutrition and good health is rising up and
resonating with people around the world. Why? Because the answer is so simple:
Plants can heal. Plants can nourish. Plants can nurture. Plants can give you
everything you need to be the healthiest person you can be and live the life you
deserve to live.
So it’s time to learn the real truth. Not only that, when you’re done with these
chapters, you’ll be fully equipped to outwit, outsmart, and outmaneuver all those
meat-loving and plant-fearing souls you come across day after day.
Join me in a plant-strong healthy eating revolution. Let’s become a nation of
responsible eaters. Let’s learn the truth about nutrition! Bring on the facts! Go
plant-strong!
1
Animal Protein Is Dead Wrong
T
he classic fallback argument of meat eaters and milk-mustache
devotees is that a plant-based diet will make you chronically sick—and sickly
looking as well. They also insist that eating all that animal protein helps them
ward off the flu and protects against heart attack, stroke, and cancer, right?
Well, these people couldn’t be more wrong. It’s not the plant-based foods that
will make you ill, it’s the meat and the liquid meat (i.e.: dairy) that can lead to
sickness and death. Consider this: If your food had a face or a mother (or comes
from something that did), then it also has varying amounts of artery-clogging,
plaque-plugging, and cholesterol-hiking animal protein, animal cholesterol, and
animal fat. These substances are the building blocks of the chronic diseases that
plague Western society.
Surprised? Americans have become so accustomed to chronic illness that we
simply assume that conditions such as heart disease or stroke are like wrinkles—
bound to happen eventually and a natural part of the aging process. They are
certainly common. Just look at the explosion of new blood pressure and
cholesterol drugs in recent years; doctors and pharmacies seem to be giving them
out like candy.
According to the Harvard Health Letter, in 2011 more than 32 million
Americans were taking statins for high cholesterol. And a 2010 report by the
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that nearly half of all Americans use
some kind of prescription drugs on a regular basis.
Yet despite our attempts to medicate away our misery, Americans are sicker
than ever. According to the CDC, in 2005 133 million Americans—nearly one
out of every two adults—had at least one chronic illness. And the percentage of
middle-aged Americans suffering from three or more ailments has almost
doubled in the last fifteen years.
It doesn’t really look like all those medications are doing a good job. And it’s