Forks Over Knives (24 page)

Fresh fruit

Leftovers

Homemade trail mix

Banana with nut butter

Dried fruit

ANN CRILE ESSELSTYN

USE ANY WHOLE-GRAIN pasta, oil-free pasta sauce, greens, and vegetables you desire. Just be sure to fill that pasta with lots of greens. This is such a good meal in one, and though it takes a number of pots, it is ready very quickly. Skip the zucchini and mushrooms if you are in a hurry.

SERVES 4 TO 6

One 10-ounce package whole-grain pasta

One 16-ounce jar pasta sauce (Muir Glen Portobello Mushroom is good and usually available)

1 large bunch of kale or collards, roughly chopped, stems removed (6 to 8 cups)

1 zucchini, sliced

1¾ cups sliced mushrooms

1.
Heat a pot of water to boiling. Add the pasta to the water and set a timer for 3 minutes less than the pasta cooking directions recommend. While the pasta is cooking, heat the pasta sauce in a covered saucepan over medium heat until it just begins to bubble. Reduce heat to low and simmer gently until ready to use. When the timer goes off, add the kale to the water and cook about 3 more minutes until the kale is tender.

2.
While everything is cooking, put the zucchini in a nonstick skillet over medium heat and dry fry until just brown, then flip the slices over and brown the other side. Push the zucchini to the side, then add the mushrooms and stir-fry until soft. Remove from heat. When pasta and greens are cooked, drain them and put in a large casserole dish. Add the hot pasta sauce and stir. Put mushrooms and zucchini on top and serve.

Tip
Plenty of pasta sauce is good, so you might need extra pasta sauce.

RIP ESSELSTYN |
THE ENGINE 2 DIET

I PREPARED THIS
lasagna for my first cooking demonstration at the new Whole foods Culinary Center in Austin. Tim Lafuente, an award-winning chef who is also an Austin firefighter, asked me to join him at this event, where he made angel hair pasta with chicken, bacon, butter, and oil.

Firefighters are naturally competitive, so the demonstration quickly turned into a contest. No one was declared the winner, but I walked away with my head high because the lasagna was a smashing success: another triumph for plant-happy cuisine!

This lasagna is so good my wife Jill and I chose it to be the main dish at our wedding reception.

SERVES 10 TO 12

1 onion, chopped

1 small head of garlic, all cloves chopped or pressed

8 ounces mushrooms, sliced

1 head broccoli, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

2 red bell peppers, seeded and chopped

1 can corn, rinsed and drained

1 package firm tofu

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon basil

1 teaspoon rosemary

2 jars pasta sauce (kinds with minimal or no added oil)

2 boxes whole-grain lasagna noodles

16 ounces frozen spinach, thawed and drained

2 sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed

6 Roma tomatoes, sliced thin

1 cup raw cashews, ground

1.
Preheat oven to 400
^°
F. Water sauté the onion and garlic on high heat for 3 minutes in a wok or nonstick pan. Add the mushrooms and cook until the onions are limp and the mushrooms give up their liquid. Remove them to a large bowl with a slotted spoon. Reserve the mushroom liquid in the pan. Water sauté the broccoli and carrots for 5 minutes and add to the mushroom bowl. Sauté the peppers and corn until just beginning
to soften. Add them to the vegetable bowl. Drain the tofu by wrapping in paper towels. Break it up directly in the towel and mix into the vegetable bowl. Add spices to the vegetable bowl and combine.

2.
Cover the bottom of a 9 × 13-inch casserole with a layer of sauce. Add a layer of noodles. Cover the noodles with sauce. This way the noodles cook in the oven, saving time and energy. Spread the vegetable mixture over the sauced noodles. Cover with a layer of noodles and another dressing of sauce. Add the spinach to the second layer of sauced noodles. Cover the spinach with the mashed sweet potatoes. Add the final layer of noodles and a last topping of sauce. Cover the lasagna with thinly sliced Roma tomatoes.

3.
Cover with foil and bake in the oven for 45 minutes. Remove the foil, sprinkle with the cashews, and return to the oven for 15 minutes. Let sit for 15 minutes before serving.

Rip Esselstyn, A former professional firefighter and triathlete, became a standard-bearer for a plant-based diet after an argument lead to a bet. Rip, the eldest son of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, worked at the Engine 2 Station in Austin, Texas, for ten years. One day in 2003, he and two other firefighters made a bet about whose cholesterol level was lowest. When they got tested, one of them, James Rae (J.R.), discovered his level was dangerously high. Soon Rip who had been a plant-based eater since his father published his groundbreaking health study in 1985, decided to help his friend by making Engine 2 a plant-based firehouse. Once J.R. changed his diet along with all the other firefighters, his cholesterol levels plummeted from 344 to a much healthier 196.

Rip then decided to create his own, more formal study to prove the effectiveness of his personal Engine 2 diet, so he recruited fifty-eight people, from firefighters to lawyers, from housewives to doctors, to participate in a six-week program of eating nothing but plant-based meals.

The results were dramatic: Everyone who finished the study lowered his or her cholesterol levels and showed spectacular results on other measures of health as well, from triglyceride levels to weight.

Rip went on to write his best-selling book,
The Engine 2 Diet
, which caught the eye of John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, who in 2010 hired Rip to become a Healthy Eating Partner and to help launch a line of plant-strong foods under the Engine 2 name (the first products—pasta sauces, salad dressings, frozen entrées, and cereals—will be appearing on shelves in mid-2011).

When Rip first switched to a plant-based diet in the 1980s, “it was pretty much considered fringe. Now it’s becoming more and more mainstream—in just the last year, a plant-strong diet has seen more television time than ever
before: Oprah, Martha Stewart, Ellen DeGeneres, and Dr. Oz have all done shows about it.

“The fact is, as more and more people understand what a plant-based diet is, and why they should do it, it’s going to be hard for them to eat the standard American diet of meat, dairy, fat, and more fat. I think we’re approaching a point close to where we were with tobacco in the 1950s. Back then, smoking wasn’t just accepted, it was encouraged. Even my father, a doctor, felt it was a normal part of life—I remember when my parents had parties, they’d run to the store to buy cigarettes for their guests, and then place ashtrays all over the house.