This is the story of how our plant based journey began, specifically how Jordan’s plant based journey began. This is a tale very near and dear to our hearts, and it’s never been more relevant to share with you in honor of Engine 2’s national upcoming challenge on January 12th.
That was how I ended up at a Whole Foods with Rip and his crew who effectively changed our lives forever. But this story, as most do, begins much earlier. Picking an exact date is tough, but let’s say it began in June 2008, on a submarine, the USS Topeka to be precise, off the pacific coast.
I was a midshipman in the US Navy, stationed in San Diego for our summer training. Some of the food in the Navy chow halls was decent, some was terrible, but it was generally all unhealthy. The submariner food was most delicious, yet overwhelmingly and catastrophically composed of surf and turf, and fried food. During our week of sub training, I really began to feel as if my insides were going to explode. On the Topeka, the unhealthy nature of the already sedentary submariner lifestyle began to sink in as I peered into the galley and looked for any sign of plant life form (not unlike Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock on an alien planet!). Dinner consisted of fried shrimp, steak and potatoes. Breakfast was eggs, potatoes and sausage; I think I might have seen a bag of apples being passed around, or it might have just been a bag of red bulls, which were prolific on the boat. This was when I first noticed, I was getting sick, really sick. But in keeping with the military training I was undergoing, I kept my head down, took some no-go pills with a side of Advil and powered through the rest of my time in San Diego. I loved being in the Navy, and I didn’t want any medical problems getting in my way.
Later that year, during a particularly stressful time at my unit, I got really sick and was hospitalized. To make a long story short, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, a gastrointestinal, autoimmune disorder with no known cure. Six months later I was medically discharged/separated from the Navy and my world was upended. While my military career had been cut short, my culinary/nutritional adventure was just beginning, although at the time I didn’t know it. I hated taking medicine, but I took whatever my doctors gave, and lots of it. Anti-biotics, steroids, anti-inflammatories, immunosuppressants, drugs I thought were only used for chemo, and other fun stuff I would inject into myself or sit for hours on IV drip. I battled weight loss, pain, fatigue, and a host of nasty GI problems for many years all the while trudging along, not really knowing what, if anything I could make of my life, and if I would be able to live the way I wanted to. I ended up making it through college, with omnipresent fear of my disease. When was the next flare up? When would the next round of pain and drugs come? Determined to ease off heavy medicines, I tried every diet I could find: specific carbohydrate, gluten free, paleo, pescetarian and plenty of others. They were all so confusing and arbitrary it seemed, with not much research to back them up. Also, keep in mind, none of my doctors believed diet was at all related to Crohn’s disease (that’s modern medicine for you, and a whole other story), so this quest for the perfect diet was a leap of faith, without much support. I spoke to numerous nutritionists about how I could regain a healthy weight; most of whom ironically suggested eating basically the opposite of what they told everyone else: less vegetables, less fruits (decrease fiber), more sugar and more fat, as much as possible, pastries, pizza, whatever for the calories. Well that didn’t work out, clearly, otherwise I wouldn’t be telling this story today.
This is the when the story takes a happy and progressive turn. After arriving at the Whole Foods, we were shuffled into a dark room in the back of the store, eloquently hidden behind the wine section. Around the room I could see a diverse crowd; young, old, kids, senior citizens, all races, genders and socio-economic classes, all there for one reason: to live healthier, more fulfilling lives. For some reason this made me even more skeptical. Why would all these people, who have so many other things they could be doing, be here? Now? And how did they get here? I had done my research, had all these people not? What were we going to learn today?
After a brief introduction, Rip launched into a gRipping (see what I did there?) presentation, filled with colorful graphs, journal references and anecdotes, much of which I had seen before, but the way he described it, deftly listening with this group of strangers, things seemed to click for me. Rip was so different than every other vegan I had ever met, and the way he explains things isn’t from a “let’s save the world, save the animals and achieve world peace” perspective (although he does explain these benefits). Engine 2 is from the perspective of how can I change my lifestyle to be happier, healthier and more productive. He even explained the title of the book and website “Engine 2 Diet” was just a marketing tactic by the publishing company. Rip clarified, this is in no way, shape, or form, a traditional “diet”…this is a lifestyle, a plant based, Plant Strong lifestyle. This wasn’t about one man selling a diet, supplement, nutritional shakes or expensive consultations. This was about someone who had discovered a lifestyle shaped by so many positive externalities, it was hard to fathom. This enlightenment that Rip was sharing was formulated with years of experience from his father (world renowned Cardiologist, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn) treating heart disease, and Rip’s firsthand experience as a professional athlete and fire fighter in Austin. As Rip explained a huge part of fire fighting today is actually combating heart disease, and other nutritionally induced problems. In fact, at their station, Engine 2, Rip helped drastically improve the health of his crew, some of whom had dangerously high cholesterol levels. Meeting Rip, it’s hard not to relate to him. Rip’s presentation started from the basics with what everyone thinks is common nutritional knowledge, then Malcolm Gladwell style, he turned that knowledge on its head and asked, is that really right? Should we really be putting that in our bodies? “Ask yourself why we drink cow’s milk? Are we trying to quadruple our size within a matter of months like a baby calf? If you were an alien and came to our planet, would you think it was weirder to drink infantile milk from the same species, different species or not at all? You don’t see adult cows drinking cows milk do you?” This kind of “question everything” culminated in a blue pill/red pill, Neo moment. I could take the blue pill and go back to happily eating whatever I wanted, ignorant of consequences, and keep popping whatever doctors were prescribing, or I could take the red pill, and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. As soon as I shook Rip’s hand and thanked him for the presentation, I knew I would never go back to my pre-plant strong ways. I went all out, all vegan, all plant strong. I didn’t need 28-days to make the transition, for me it was about 28-minutes.
That being said, I had several competitive advantages to my transition that many of you don’t have. First, I’ve been lactose intolerant since the age of 10, so I was accustomed to not eating dairy. Second, the crippling pain, fatigue and digestion problems of Crohn’s disease were exacerbated by red meat and fried foods, so I hadn’t had any of those for years. Another factor was my stubborn, disciplined nature, that when I’m challenging myself, I’m all in, but that’s just me. I highly encourage you to follow the plan outlined by Engine 2 if this is your first rodeo. It does a great job of addressing all the initial steps, like what should I buy at the store, what kinds of things should I cook, what kinds of things should I order out to eat. Once you get into food, and into cooking, you start to realize, what makes food great isn’t the base material, it’s how you prepare it, the spices you use and how you construct the dish. What you like about food is the texture, taste, temperature and communal aspects of it, and it doesn’t take long to figure out all the things you loved about food are still there with vegan cooking. In fact, I would argue your sense of taste vastly improves once you stop eating animal products.
For most of my Plant Strong friends, their transition wasn’t as easy. My Coming Out of the Garden partner in crime Owen was skeptical of the lifestyle for the first year or so I was rocking it, until we started cooking together more and more. Owen then read Rip’s books and got his whole family with it. Owen has been plant-strong for over a year now, and his family is mostly plant based, and much healthier. When Owen and I moved to different cities we were constantly sending each other new recipes and food shots. Hence the origin of our instagram account. We have found such a wonderful community, and have found amazing insta-friends from all over the world.
If you’ve read this far, first and foremost I commend you! This was a long and emotional post, and thanks for hanging in there.
You can take what I’ve shared with you and put it in your collective background memory, right next to the quadratic equation and the capitals of all fifty states your geography teacher made you memorize. But, know that if you ever are faced with high cholesterol, heart disease, or many other serious health conditions, you have another way out. Or you can read the book and start your own E2 story. Then you have two options:
1) You can read Rip’s book “Engine 2 Diet,” or at least browse through the website to understand the basic concepts. The knowledge of a plant based diet will help improve any diet, even if you choose to not go plant based. I’ve never met a good nutritionist or doctor, or anyone of marginal intelligence who’s said “eat fewer vegetables.”
2) You can throw down, go all in, read “Engine 2 Diet” and join the thousands out there who will be attempting the Engine 2, 28-day challenge on January 12th. With the full support of Owen, myself, Rip and all your other plant based friends, you can do this; I know you can. I’ve seen it, and I believe in it. It’s a great community waiting to support you. You will have another choice, the same choice I did at the end of it. You can take the blue pill, or you can take the red pill.
Seriously though, Owen and I will be on call all throughout this national challenge to answer any recipe, lifestyle, eating out, working out, how do I explain this to my friends…whatever questions you have, we would love to answer and we have your back! And remember, if you want to take the red pill, we’ll show you the way down the rabbit hole.
Email us at comingoutofthegarden@gmail.com, or if you’re in Texas come on by.
Come out of your own garden,
Jordan and Owen
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