The Engine 2 Diet: The Texas Firefighter's 28-Day Save-Your-Life Plan that Lowers Cholesterol and Burns Away the Pounds

I got this book mostly for the recipes (which I haven't tried yet - I'm a plant-strong recipe hoarder). The book part itself is pretty decent, but there wasn't any new information for me there. Recommended for those who are just starting, or starting to consider, a plant-strong (vegan) diet. It's geared toward being twenty-eight days long, but I would hope that once one is on a vegan diet for almost a month, they'll be less inclined to go back to the SAD (Standard American Diet).

The Engine 2 Diet has typical self-help elements—personal success story, user testimonials, good advice, and bold claims for positive life-changing results. The advice is simple; Esselstyn summarizes it in just eight points. Like the advice in most self-help books, it’s been preached elsewhere. Esselstyn’s contribution summarizes the evidence for significant health benefits from a “plant-strong” diet, adds a dash of exercise, and lays out how to identify healthful choices and fix a variety of dishes from breakfast through desert.

Esselstyn’s “plant-strong” means vegan. Engine 2 adds strict limits on sodium, fat, and sugar. It may be smart to avoid the vegan label. Engine 2 is aiming for the mainstream. There’s no show more mention of saving animals, just a healthy lifestyle saving people. Another thing you won’t find, there’s no advice to limit how much you eat. The diet focuses exclusively on what you eat, claiming you can eat as much as you want of the allowed foods, be healthier, and lose weight.

I love many things about Engine 2. It gives people excellent goals for better health and explains in detail how to achieve those goals. I found the chapter on reading labels extremely helpful, especially the specific criteria for the grocery store aisles. The large recipe section includes many simple everyday dishes and few elaborate dishes. It offers replacements for animal-sourced high-fat workhorses like mayonnaise, salad dressing, and sandwich fillings. The book’s strength is showing how to live this lifestyle every working day.

The recipes are easy to follow, instructions are clear, and I usually end up with what I expect. I had trouble finding ingredients for some of the recipes, especially on the first trial, and had to substitute and omit. Substituting firm tofu for soft in the mousse was unsuccessful. The result was grainy and runny—edible but not appealing. With the right type of tofu, this was very nice, not as rich as a high-fat dairy version but nearly the same consistency, very tasty, and totally acceptable to my household. Omitting nutritional yeast from the salad dressing changed the consistency only slightly and made an acceptable dressing. The black bean sandwich spread, on rye with the fixing, will be a regular lunch. The curry-seasoned tofu sandwich spread was good with rice and chutney in a tortilla. The simple sweet potato fries didn’t last long. I really liked the meat-less loaf, although the rest of my household was less enthusiastic. The sloppy joes were easy and tasty, with nice serving suggestions.

Coming from a former professional triathlete, I expected exercise would get more coverage. Esselstyn gives a basic workout, fine if you aren’t already exercising regularly. He emphasizes that anyone can exercise without joining a health club or installing a home gym. I really loved this; I am living proof. Aside from one basic chapter on exercise, this book is about the diet.

Many readers will encounter real difficulties adopting the Engine 2 plan. The book glosses over difficulties and makes a couple of rather silly recommendations. Readers are to empty and refill their kitchens over a weekend to immerse themselves in the Engine 2 plan. I laughed out loud. What working family can afford to throw or give away hundreds of dollars worth of food? Not mine. Engine 2 recommends that you get several medical tests to compare before and after results. What insurers will pay for medically unnecessary tests just to see if a new diet works? These put me off.

Readers who can’t or won’t mostly buy fresh and cook from scratch will find it hard to adhere to the Engine 2 plan. Finding Engine 2 approved packaged prepared foods as well as some specialty ingredients is a significant difficultly. There’s not much at my local Safeway. At My Organic Market (MOM), I find only a few canned and frozen foods that met the Engine 2 guidelines, even among the brands and products mentioned in the book. (And the stuff at MOM is pricey.) There are other stores and the internet but this is starting to eat up considerable time and money. As an environmentalist, I object to extra miles driving from store to store.
Most readers will have to give up many foods we are currently eating. Even with strong motivation, it’s hard to give up favorite foods cold tofurky. The promised benefits are great enough that my household will adopt as much of the plan as our resources and willpower permit. But, it will definitely take much longer than 28 days and we will certainly make compromises between what Engine 2 recommends on one hand and what foods we can find, how much time we can devote to extra shopping and cooking, and what we can bring ourselves to give up on the other. Instead of a 28-day sprint, this will be a longer journey for us. show less

The Engine 2 Diet is written by a firefighter who, following studies done by his medical doctor father, did a study of 13 firefighters and 2 civilians with the twenty-eight day plant-based Engine 2 diet. All were able to reduce their cholesterol, some significantly.

The book covers food myths, case testimonials, target BP & BMI, and how to read food labels. There is a section with basic cardiovascular exercises such as jumping jacks and step-ups. The exercise section is short, but covers all body areas and is mostly aerobic and body strengthening workouts. Most able-body persons will be able to accomplish the exercise routine.

The recipe section is more extensive with foods for every meal and dessert. This is, however, a very strict show more vegetarian diet. Most of the ingredients are readily available in your grocery store. Living in a small town area, I always take notice of the availability of the ingredients recommended. One lesser known ingredient that is frequently listed is Bragg Liquid Aminos, of which I just recently received a free sample. It is simply a healthier version of soy sauce and can be ordered online if not in your stores. Even in small towns, most grocers now have frozen meat substitutes.

Strict diets are difficult to stick to, but if you want to be healthy, I’d at least give this one a try for the initial two weeks. You may be hooked on it! show less

Basically, this book recommends becoming a vegetarian. There are plenty of examples of how people will sabotage or undermine your attempts to be healthy; however the author doesn't announce in a loud, booming voice that this is what is occurring and how to handle it, he just *shows* the actions. I got the feeling that the author truly has gone through this experience, truly eats and exercises this way, and truly has seen healthy results. There are lots of recipes and ways to modify them and there is just the right amount of stress on exercise. A very helpful and recommended book.

Rip Esselstyn and 2 firefighting buddies made a bet as to who had the lowest cholesterol. To Rip's surprise, his wasn't the lowest! But even worse, one of his buddies had a cholesterol of 344!

Rip's father is well known for his research on plant based diets healing the damage from heart disease. Rip proposed the three start a plant strong diet and support each other in doing this. As a result, the 344 cholesterol score dropped. These results were further borne out when Rip asked for volunteers in Austin to follow plant strong diets for 1 month.

In this book, Rip presents some of the evidence for using a plant strong diet, tips for implementing it, and recipes to use--recipes tested at the firehouse!

I enjoyed the narrative about how this diet got started, as well as personal stories of success. Some of the recipes look really good, to boot. This book has inspired me to incorporate more fruits and veggies into my diet.

Sound evidence for a plant-based diet in easy-to-absorb conversational language, and wonderfully narrated by Atlanta actor Daniel May.