#116: SNACKABLES with Rip and Ami Mackey - Faster than a Drive-Thru: The Easiest Way to Eat and Live PLANTSTRONG
Welcome to PLANTSTRONG Snackables, a bite-sized podcast where host, Rip Esselstyn dishes on all things plants!
Today's guest is Ami Mackey, longtime PLANTSTRONG Team Member, Rescue10x Coach, and Curator of Creative Content.
As a health coach, Ami has heard every reason and excuse for not being able to sustain a plantstrong lifestyle: it’s too expensive, it’s too complicated, you can’t cook, you don’t like to follow recipes, you don’t have the time.
Today's episode outlines a lifestyle habit that is faster than a drive-through and, without a doubt, the easiest (and tastiest) way to eat and live PLANTSTRONG.
What is this magic bullet? BOWL BUILDING! If you've ever been to a salad bar, Chipotle, or even Subway, you already know the premise. Gather all of your favorite beans, grains, and greens, toss them in a bowl, add your favorite sparks, and enjoy your favorite meal - no measuring, no recipes, and no hassle. In no time, you'll have a gigantic bowl of your own creative PLANTSTRONG concoctions.
Rip and Ami at Boggy Creek Farm in March 2012.
Simple, Quick and Affordable Bowl Building Ideas
Full Transcript
Rip Esselstyn:
Hello, PLANTSTRONG gang. I hope everybody's doing really well. I want to welcome you to another episode of Snackables, where we chew on all things related to food, and specifically, usually plant-based food. And I've got a special guest for us today. Actually, as many of you probably are aware, the last Snackables that I did with Jess, Jessica Hegarty. Jess was about nine months pregnant and she was ready to give birth and just gave birth, just about a week and a half ago, a little baby girl named Ellie, Ellie Hegarty and Jess and her husband, Evan and Ellie are at home doing fantastically well. And we wish them well over the next couple months, that Jess will be away. But, in the interim, I want to introduce you all. And many of you know of Ami Mackey, but Ami has been an integral part of the Engine 2, PLANTSTRONG team for geez Ami, I would say, it's probably eight and a half, nine years, right?
Ami Mackey:
Yup, nine years.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, nine years. And Ami and I, we first met... So, we started throwing these Farms To Fork events in 2012. And the first one we did, was here in Austin, Texas. It was on Boggy Creek Farm, which is this really cool organic farm. And we had about, gosh, we probably had 500 participants. And Ami was one of the participants. You came with your husband Bill, right?
Ami Mackey:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rip Esselstyn:
And what inspired you to come to that event?
Ami Mackey:
We had been on the Engine 2 Plan, since January of that year, and the event was in March and I wanted to learn more about it. And I was in Kansas City at the time. And so, I thought it would be a great opportunity to come to Austin, where my husband and I had our honeymoon. We'd been there before anyway and loved it. It would be a great place to sit and learn. And the Boggy Creek Farm was amazing. So, drove down for the weekend event and got to meet you and the whole Esselstyn clan and the folks at Boggy Creek Farm. It was a life-changing experience.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, it was a really fun one. And then, afterwards, I think what happened, is we had a free community that people could join, right? To help them with their journey. And you joined that. And if I remember correctly, you were such a fantastic advocate of the lifestyle. You were so supportive of everybody that was coming into the community, that I actually got tapped, or I got approached by, at the time, the person that was running our community to say, "You know what? I'd like to bring in this Ami Mackey woman, because she is such a cheerleader of the lifestyle and so positive and so upbeat and just has so many skills." And I said, "Let's do it."
Rip Esselstyn:
And so, you came on board and you have been with me longer than anybody else-
Ami Mackey:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
At this point in time. Other than, of course my wife, Jill.
Ami Mackey:
Sure.
Rip Esselstyn:
But so, yes. And I think, your title is the curator of all creative content. You help with so many things on social media. You are the keeper of the keys for where everything is and all of our archives. And you're also one of our Online Rescue 10x coaches that support people on this journey. Anything you'd like to add to that?
Ami Mackey:
It's been an incredible nine years getting to not only, learn so much information, but to share that information with so many people and be part of their journey. Whether, it's helping them with how to get over a hurdle, or "What if I'm gluten-free?" Or, "How do I get my family to do this with me?" Or, "I travel a lot." There's so many different hurdles that people can encounter when following this lifestyle, that I've tapped into how I can make it easier for people. Because, ultimately if we can make it easy, people will follow the plan and being part of that journey for so many people, it's just been really special.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, and so that's what we'd like to talk about on this episode of Snackables, is what people can do to make this journey as easy as possible. I think that this is probably, and you'd agree with me, one of the most important habits that you can become proficient at, to make this lifestyle stick for the longterm. And so, just right out of the gates Ami, as a health coach, you have literally, seen and heard every excuse for not being able to do this. From, "It's too expensive. It doesn't taste good. It's too complicated. I don't have the time. I don't like to follow recipes." But, this, and I'll let you say what it is, this particular skill, will take out every excuse that anyone can throw at us.
Ami Mackey:
Absolutely. I mean, if you think about it, before you start eating this way, if you're following the standard American diet, chances are you probably aren't following a recipe for every meal you eat, right? You're grabbing a bagel for breakfast and grabbing drive-through for lunch and for dinner, something that comes out of a box, something that's super easy, because we're all really busy. Ultimately, you're probably not following a recipe for breakfast, a recipe for lunch, a recipe for dinner. We are all about the convenience life, right? We've gotten into that habit. So, ultimately if you can't grab something at a drive-through, that is 100% plant strong. And if we're trying to cut back on all of the packaged items that are loaded with sodium and oil and things of that nature, how do you make this stick, without having to cook constantly and do really complicated things? Well, the answer to that is bowl-building.
Rip Esselstyn:
Bowl-building, exactly right. And it goes back a long way. I mean, in 2017, I wrote this book, The Engine 2 Seven-Day Rescue Diet. And when I did this, in order to make sure that this worked in the real world, because for the most part, all of the data that I'd accumulated for this book, was from people and their success stories. But, people that had come to a Engine 2 Seven-Day Immersion Program. That was either in Hawaii, or Sedona, Arizona, or Asheville, North Carolina. And I wanted to make sure that people could do this at home. And so, I actually did a bunch of different pilot studies with people that are doing this at home, to prove that they could get these results, without being locked away, in the mountains of Sedona, or on a little Island of Light.
Rip Esselstyn:
And what we discovered, is that people can absolutely do it. And one of the key ingredients, is bowl-building, no-recipe rescue bowls. And just to give people a little background here and why we are all about the bowl and building your bowl, or creating it is, one of the pilot studies that I did was in Mesquite, Texas. And so, my sister Jane and I, to make sure that people did not blow it, we created menus for those that love to cook, for those that like to cook, and for those that hated to cook. And we gave them not only menus, and meal ideas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we also gave them ingredients and grocery lists that they could go and buy at the grocery store. And one of the contingencies in people signing up to do this, is they had to agree to keep a food log of everything they ate for the entire seven days.
Rip Esselstyn:
And so, in going over the seven-day food log, what my sister and I discovered, is that people were not following any of the meals that we wrote down, all the grocery lists, that all went out the window. They still were compliant, right? To the guidelines, and we can go through what those guidelines are. But, what we discovered, because they had to write down what they're eating for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, is that they were just doing basically, they were bowl-building with what they had in the house. And this is when Jane and I decided, "Let's meet people where they are." Right? They're busy. They don't have time. So, let's create these rescue recipe bowls, give them the graphic designs, give them all the different things they can use, as bases, as sauces, as inclusions, just to get this bowl-building party started. And it was phenomenally successful, people absolutely loved it.
Rip Esselstyn:
And you have taken this torch now, and you have run with it with what you and John Fitzgerald were doing with the Rescue 10x Program. I think, in your life, I know that I do it in my life. I mean, before we finish here, I want to talk to you about what you and I have both eaten so far today. So, people can see, this is how we live this life. We love making fantastic, tasty recipes, but it is not the mainstay of our success. The mainstay is these no-recipe, rescue bowls where you're taking leftovers, you're doing batch cooking and all that. So, I'd love for you to dive in and help all of our listeners that are wondering, "Okay, how can I benefit from bowl-building? And what really is the gist of it?"
Ami Mackey:
Yeah. I mean, the way that I like to explain it, is if you've ever been to a salad bar, if you've ever been to a Chipotle Restaurant, if you've ever been to a Subway Restaurant, you already know how to bowl-build. It's really easy. You're just going to use ingredients that you have on hand to build a meal, right? When you are building a salad at the salad bar, you're not measuring the ingredients. You're not putting in a quarter cup of red peppers, compared to three quarters of a cup. You're just piling things up on your plate. That's how we build bowls. And it can be really simple. It can be very basic, or it can be really fancy-
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm.
Ami Mackey:
But, the process is the same. You're basically just going to decorate a bowl. You're going to add your base ingredients. You're going to add some colors in there, different textures, different flavors. You're going to add some sparks on top to make it exciting. But, the best part about it, is these are custom, just the way you want them. Because, if you don't like hot sauce, don't add hot sauce. When you set out to look at a recipe, you might like all the things in it. But, "Oh gosh, there's mushrooms. And I don't like mushrooms. What do I do?" Well with bowl-building you just skip the mushrooms, right?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Ami Mackey:
But, we hope we'll change your mind about mushrooms eventually. But, ultimately, whatever you decide to put in that bowl, that's basically how you're going to build your meal. And the cool thing about bowl-building, is that you can do it ahead of time. You can do your bowls, that you're going to take with you for lunch ahead, and have them all ready to go for the week. You can do it individually. You can even do a bar, where you're going to have a bowl for everybody in your household, but you can incorporate different ingredients. Say, you have someone in your house, who's still eating meat. They can add meat to their tacos, their burrito bowl, or whatever it is that you're making. There's so many different ways that you can do this, but it's so easy. We really hope that you will dive deep into bowl-building, because ultimately, it's the super quick way that you can live this lifestyle.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yup. And you just mentioned, bar-building where you basically, have a bar, and then you go through like, it's a buffet line-
Ami Mackey:
Yup.
Rip Esselstyn:
And you just put in whatever you want. And that's what we do for example, at all the Esselstyn holidays. Our favorite are, it's either a potato bar, or a rice and beans bar. And you can imagine, with Jane and Anne around, the different toppings, the different sauces are just, out-of-this-world fantastic. And so, to me, even when we're doing big fancy events, we're still in essence, doing a version of a bowl-building, because it's so easy and everybody can customize it to their liking. As you just talked about-
Ami Mackey:
Absolutely. When we're at our immersions and we have everybody coming through and they're learning so much information, they've sat and listened to a couple of lectures, then it's off to go to lunch. When they're going to lunch, we don't have to teach them how to make their bowls, except how to make them bigger. I always enjoy watching the people who have come to the event, watch the Esselstyns and the whole immersion crew walk out with these giant plates, filled with food and the people who are new to eating this way, generally have smaller portions, smaller, more dainty meals in front of them. And all we have to teach them, is just make it bigger. But, otherwise this is great. You're just going to load things up on your plate. Take a little bit of everything, try it out, taste it, see what you think. You can always add a little bit more.
Ami Mackey:
You can always take things away, if you added say, some hummus to a bowl, but you don't like it, just put it on the side, eat around it. That's really how you learn how to enjoy different flavors together. And it's one of the things that we actually cover in the Rescue 10x, is how to make different ethnic foods for example, taste that way. Because, you might need a recipe to create a Greek salad, for example. But, if you just want to get those flavors in your bowl, we teach you how to do the different flavors and different herbs and spices, the different toppings that you can put on things to actually emulate the flavors that you're used to finding in recipes. So, bowl-building can be as creative, or as basic as you want it to be. It just depends on how much fun you like to have with your food.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, as you know Ami, we just got back from hosting our first... Well, this was a six-day, but six day immersion program in two years. And this was in Sedona, Arizona at the Mago Retreat Center. We had roughly, 80 participants and we taught them on that first night, how to bowl-build, how to go through that buffet line. And of course, the first night's dinner, is always the rice and beans extravaganza, because it is such a mainstay and it's so near and dear to our hearts. And we told people, "Listen, let us go through first, watch how we build these plates and don't be afraid, like you said, to really make it Herculean." Right? Because, as we know, these plant-based calories, especially these whole food plant-based calories that we're eating are so calorie-light, nutrient-dense, that they need to eat a substantial amount more than they're used to, just to get the same amount of calories and not feel wonky.
Rip Esselstyn:
And then, so they go through, and then we have a whole bar set up where we have all the different toppings. So, the different, the Jane's 3, 2, 1 dressing, or the sweet fire dressing, or balsamic vinegars for all of the different green leafies. Because, as you know, we're trying to get people to consume anywhere from three to six servings of green leafies a day.
Ami Mackey:
Yeah. And when you're building a bowl, you can, especially if greens are really challenging for you, if you didn't come to this way of eating from a land where you eat greens all the time, it can be really challenging to do that. And the cool thing about bowl-building, is if you just load some greens in the bottom, you're mixing them up with everything else. It's far less challenging to get that spinach in, if that's the green that you've chosen, when it's mixed up in a burrito bowl than it is steamed, and having it sitting on the side of your plate, when you're not used to that. So, I think for people who are brand new to this lifestyle, bowl-building can be a lifesaver when it comes to getting your greens in.
Rip Esselstyn:
Absolutely. So, do you have any graphics that you can share with the people that are not only listening, but also watching this on YouTube. And we'll try our best to explain to the people that are just listening.
Ami Mackey:
Well, absolutely. And one of the things that we have encountered with the Rescue 10x program, and just in general, over the years when people have emailed us and said, "Well, I'm trying to do this, but I'm really struggling." Every excuse that you can come up with, and every hurdle, because not all of them are excuses. Some of them truly are hurdles. "What if I'm in a house where there's meat-eaters and I'm the only one doing this? What if I travel a lot? What if I don't have an opportunity to sit down and have a really great meal, because I'm super pressed for time? I'm really busy." All of those hurdles that you can come up with, for not going PLANTSTRONG, can really be answered really simply. And so, I have some graphics that I can share with you, to show you exactly how easy this can be.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Let's do it.
Rip Esselstyn:
All right. I see a couple of plus signs and some really-
Ami Mackey:
Yup, hold on. There, we go. How's that?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yup, that's great.
Ami Mackey:
Okay. So, what I want to show you here, is basically, this can be as simple, or as complicated as you want it to be. This is the simplest version. So, I'm going to start with the top line and just show you how easy it is to create a meal. If you have a bag of frozen brown rice, or if you've got brown rice in the refrigerator, you've got a can of black beans, you've got some salsa and you've got a five ounce box of greens. You've got yourself a burrito bowl, right there.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ami Mackey:
You don't have to do anything more complicated than that. Of course, you can, you could add cilantro and green onions and you could add jalapenos, or some hummus to it as well. You can add as many toppings as you would like to add, as many sparks. And we'll show you some information on where you get the sparks here in a minute. But, ultimately if you have those four things, you've got yourself a meal and it takes three minutes to microwave the brown rice. So, this is a three minute, or less meal. This is basically, quicker than drive-through. You can do the same thing with sweet potatoes and Pinto beans, barbecue sauce, and some baby kale. The sweet potatoes are frozen, cubed, already peeled, no oil, ready to microwave. And you've got yourself a meal.
Ami Mackey:
Especially, if you're traveling, the examples that I've shown you can be really easy to do, even if you don't have a microwave. I mean, all of these meals could be had hot, they could be had cold. Either way, you've got yourself a meal to go. And if you buy the boxes of greens, you actually already have your bowl, right? So, if you're in a hotel room and you can get yourself InstaCart delivery, or you can get to a whole foods market, or any other grocery that's nearby, you can actually pick up these ingredients and have them in your hotel, if you have a little mini fridge, or cooler. These are great for travel as well.
Ami Mackey:
So, your sweet potatoes, your Pinto beans, your barbecue sauce, and baby kale is a meal. And like I said, you can add more to it, or not. Next, I've got a baked potato, a box of our PLANTSTRONG white bean chili with some hummus and some baby spinach and arugala. Again there, you've got yourself a meal, super easy. Microwave the potato, especially if you're in a hotel, or even as our executive director Laurie Kortowich says, "Gas stations have microwaves."
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Ami Mackey:
And that's true. When you're on the road, that's really important, right?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Yeah. I would make sure that you at least, fill up your tank with them so that-
Ami Mackey:
Oh, there's that.
Rip Esselstyn:
So, they're okay with you using the microwave for three minutes.
Ami Mackey:
Gas stations are really getting better. You can get cups of fruit now, you can get whole fruit, like a banana, or I've even seen little Clementine cuties in little three packs that you can pick up at gas stations. So, that's really handy for when you're on the road as well. But, often, chances are wherever you're traveling, there's going to be a grocery store. So, somewhere along the way on your travels, if you come across a grocery store, all you need is a fork, and you could actually have any of these things as a meal. Now, the hummus of course, is a recipe. But, when I travel, I have a tendency to take a cooler with me. And I usually have hummus on hand as well. The same thing goes for breakfast, though. You can have rolled oats with berries and some oat milk, and you've got yourself a meal.
Ami Mackey:
And in addition to these items, you can also come up with many, many other combinations. These are just some quick ideas that show you that in the time that it takes to go through the drive-through, you can actually create a 100% PLANTSTRONG meal really simply. And you can do it with the ingredients that you like. If you don't like barbecue sauce, try using something else. There's always low-sodium tamari. There's always dressings that you can come up with, that you can make from our books, whether you like the three, two, one, or the sweet fire dressing. I happened to like the Amazon dressing. That's one of the ones that I really enjoy. But, all of these can be really simple meals. And you can expand upon these by simply doing a little-
Rip Esselstyn:
Can you go back for a sec?
Ami Mackey:
Sure.
Rip Esselstyn:
So, let me just tell you some of the modifications that I would make to this. So, on the-
Ami Mackey:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
On the top row... Actually, I would leave that as is. I love that, just the quick brown rice, can of black beans. Let's try and make sure when we're doing the beans, that if we can, we're doing the no-salt-added-
Ami Mackey:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
Otherwise, and I know you talk about this Ami, in the Rescue 10x, but let's rinse the black beans in a colander, or something. And then, we can get off about 60 to 70% of the excess of sodium that's in there, but we're still going to be left with about 30% of the sodium. I love that. I love Pace Picante, and then some greens. The only thing that I would change on the second row, is I would substitute Sriracha for the Stubb's BBQ Sauce. That's just me personally. On the bottom row, I would alternate between the white bean chili, and then the firehouse chili, I dig them both. And I'm sorry, I would have to kick to the curb, the Bob's Red Mill and put the Rip's Big Bowl Cereal there.
Ami Mackey:
Well, I figured that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Ami Mackey:
And the cool thing about that, is that the Rip's Big Bowl is a great thing to have with you, if you are planning ahead.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Ami Mackey:
But, if you catch yourself out and you don't have Rip's Big Bowl and you didn't get it in the mail before you left for your trip-
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Ami Mackey:
You can usually get old-fashioned oats, at just about any grocery store. And even maybe, the gas station, if you look.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Ami Mackey:
But, these are all really easy, simple things that you can do. Me, I would have the potato with the hummus, with the salsa and the hot sauce.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Ami Mackey:
That's one of my favorites and some steamed kale in there.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, like it. Okay, what do you got next?
Ami Mackey:
So, next is, this is our Engine 2 Rescue Bowls. This is the supper bowl, the soluble flats and our breakfast bowl. And these are guides that are in The Engine 2 Seven-Day Rescue Diet Book, that Rip was talking about earlier. And these guides are really handy, because they give you all examples. So, think about these as meal starter idea, centers, right? Each one of these, as an idea for breakfast, or flats. Flats are just, we use an open-face sandwich, a burrito that uses one tortilla, or pizza, PLANTSTRONG pizza.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yup.
Ami Mackey:
And so, all of these things give you different ideas that you can draw from, to build your own meals. And these are not exhaustive list. Obviously, there's over 400 different varieties of plants, or vegetables and fruit and beans and starches that you can add to your meals. We couldn't fit them all on the sheets, but these are actually examples that you can draw from and learn how to build more bowls and stretch your imagination. Isn't it, something like seven, or eight meals that we have typically, in our repertoire?
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah-
Ami Mackey:
That we can actually eat.
Rip Esselstyn:
So, what I heard from my father when he first started talking about this in the 1980s, was he would say, "People are like, "Oh my gosh, what am I going to eat? I'm going to starve to death. There's no variety."" And the reality, is that most American families, when it comes to dinner, they rotate through six to seven meals, basically their whole entire lives. Six to seven. And so, there's really not much variety whatsoever. I mean, I just look at what the guys at the Firehouse would eat, and it wasn't six, or seven, it was more like three, or four, there's no variety. So, the fact that there are a infinite number of possibilities that are before us and you can get so creative and the only limiting factor really is, our minds and how creative we're willing to get. So, don't let, "What am I going to eat? There's no variety." Be an excuse. And you'll overcome that in very short order.
Ami Mackey:
Yeah. I think, you'll actually find that you are trying new foods that you've never had before, or you're branching out. You're trying collard greens for the first time, or you're having quinoa for the first time. There's so many different plant foods out there that are really amazing and can create an incredible variety in your meals that you have each week. If you just take a look at the guides and say, "Oh gosh, here's this, that I wouldn't have thought to put that in a bowl, but that would be great." So, these are available for you. They'll be on the podcast episode page, that you can download this particular document with the meal builders on it. And the best part about this way of eating, is that you actually, can do it a bunch of different ways.
Rip Esselstyn:
Ah.
Ami Mackey:
You can make this as simple, or as complicated as you want, again. And I'm going to show you how to do it the simple way. Because, I'm all about the easy. So, you can do batch cooking, where you're going to batch all of your base ingredients, things like grains and potatoes and beans and things, and you can create larger amount of those, than you would normally make for one recipe, because you're going to actually eat those things all week long. We have a Batch Cooking 101 Guide that you can get in our PLANTSTRONG community, that you can download. And it gives you all tips to how to do batch cooking, super simple and super quick.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm.
Ami Mackey:
The other way that you can actually do it, is you can find a variety of frozen ingredients that are now chopped up, ready to go, oil-free that you can load up in your bowls that can make this really, really simple. So, next time you're at your local grocery, go through the frozen food aisle, and you're going to be looking in the frozen vegetable section. But, everything that you can see pictured here, you can find in the frozen food aisle of your local grocery. From beet spirals, to cubed sweet potatoes, cubed kabocha squash, Frozen from Salvage Farms, is a great one. There's rice cauliflower. There's any ingredient, that's a vegetable, that you can think of, that would go in a bowl. You can already get ready to prepare.
Rip Esselstyn:
Ami, can you make this a little bit bigger?
Ami Mackey:
Sure. There we go.
Rip Esselstyn:
There you go. Now, I think people can really-
Ami Mackey:
So, I mean-
Rip Esselstyn:
See all the... Yeah.
Ami Mackey:
You can get frozen greens. You can get frozen kale, frozen chard, you can get frozen beets. There's so many different ingredients that you'll find now, in your freezer section, that can really make bowl-building super simple. So, if you have any of these ingredients... Let's say, you've got your rice cauliflower, which is technically a green. You've got your black eyed peas that are frozen and ready to go. You've got, let's say, let's throw in some, ooh, zucchini. Zucchini, and then you're going to top that with some hot sauce, or maybe some hummus and a little drizzle of sweet fire dressing, you've got yourself a meal. Any of these things can be put together in any combination that you like, but just know that I don't expect you to go out and clean and prepare your own butternut squash and cube it up.
Ami Mackey:
Can you do that? Absolutely. But, you can also get it already done. So, if you're all about the simple and you really don't know how to cook, or you don't really want to take the time to cook, these are really great shortcuts that you can do. All you have to do is heat them up. You can put these things in a steamer basket, if you want. You can toss them in the microwave, if you want. But, basically these are bowl-builders. If you think about what a salad bar looks like and how you have all the sections with all of the different foods, this is the same example, right in your freezer. And so, those are the two different ways that you can go about this from batch cooking, to everything frozen and prepped ahead of time.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. This Saturday, I was in charge of dinner. My wife was done cooking for the week and I said, "All right, I got this." And so, I pulled out some of the PLANTSTRONG pizza crust. I put out four, they all come with a little marinara sauce. I put those on all of them. And then, I was like, "Oh my gosh, we don't have many ingredients for toppings." And I went looking through the freezer and looking through leftovers in the refrigerator. And I was able to find this great, big, old, sweet potato that was leftover from the week. I found some panini tofu steaks that were left in there. I found some spinach in the freezer.
Rip Esselstyn:
I mean, literally there was almost nothing, but I found a little thing of roasted corn that was in there. We had one onion that was laffed. I mean, the cupboards were bare. We had one yellow bell-pepper. So, I just sliced everything up, put it out there. And everybody made their own pizza and it was divine. It turned out so well. And so, you just get creative and work with what you have. But, speaking of which, is this a good time? Do you want to let people know what you had for breakfast today? Or, ooh, what have you got here?
Ami Mackey:
Well, this is just an example to show you exactly how you can put together a bowl. Now, it doesn't have to be all divided out in sections. This one was done specifically, so you could see what all the different ingredients was in here.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Ami Mackey:
And you've got a combination of already-prepared and some frozen and some fresh things. But, what I want to stress to you, is that there isn't a right, or wrong way to do this. If you've got three quarters of a cup of black beans compared to a half a cup, it doesn't matter. Have as much as you'd like to have in your bowl. You can play with the ingredients, play with the combinations. If you don't like red pepper strips, don't use them. You can use something else instead. There's no wrong answer here. As long as you keep it PLANTSTRONG, we want to always make sure that we've got greens in the bowl in some way, shape, or form.
Ami Mackey:
And then, you're going to just add in the rest of your toppings. And so, this is just an example to show you how easy it is to just put all this together. And the best part, is you can have all of this hot, or you can have all of this cold.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm.
Ami Mackey:
There isn't a right, or wrong way to do that. And we don't care whether you have it heated, or you have it room temperature, or fresh out of the refrigerator, either way is fine. But, this is just an example to show you how easy it can be. You're just tossing ingredients in a bowl.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's a gorgeous photo Ami, gorgeous-
Ami Mackey:
Thanks.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. All right. So, anything else on this screen sharing? Or, are you good there?
Ami Mackey:
I think we're good with the screen-share.
Rip Esselstyn:
All right.
Ami Mackey:
And so, all of this information will be available for you on the podcast episode page.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nice. So, before we leave people to go build their own bowls, what did you have for breakfast? Because, you're two hours behind me. So, you've probably only had breakfast, I would imagine.
Ami Mackey:
Correct. I had my standard. Which, I will take Yukon gold potatoes. I pop those in the microwave. While they're cooking, I go and get the rest of the ingredients out of the fridge. Once I get the potatoes out of the microwave, I get the big bags of pre-chopped kale. I'm not a kale stripper. I don't mind the stems-
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Ami Mackey:
I just buy the big bag, that's already chopped up. Toss a big handful of that. So, it's loaded up and it looks like it's going to overflow, put it back in the microwave for a minute. Of course, it'll shrink down, right? And then, on top of that, I put some hummus, I put some hot sauce. This morning, I actually had fresh jalapenos, chopped up. I like everything really spicy. So, I added some of that in. And I have some smoked mesquite, balsamic vinegar, that I just did a drizzle, because I love that smoky flavor. So, that's one of my typical standard breakfasts. Not everybody likes oatmeal. I happen to be a savory person. I prefer savory breakfast to sweet. So, that was my standard.
Rip Esselstyn:
Nice, nice. Well, I of course, did the Rip's Big Bowl. I did the date and raisin version. And with that, I had some frozen berries. It was a combination of raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries. And just put a bunch of those in a bowl, microwaved them for about 45 seconds. The date and raisin, a fresh banana, and then some unsweetened soy milk. And I was off to the races. For lunch, as soon as we hang up, I'm going to go to town. I have actually, some leftover stir-fry from last night that has onions, carrots, broccoli, some seitan as well. And then, I'm going to put all that on a bed with a sweet potato that I have left over. I'm not at my house right now. I'm at my office. So, I have a refrigerator here as well. So, I have one of those sweet potatoes here. And then, on a bed of some spinach, and then some Sriracha on top.
Ami Mackey:
Nice, like that combo.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah.
Ami Mackey:
When you're doing this eating, there are so many different tools and tips and things that you can learn along the way. You don't have to have all the kitchen appliances. You don't have to have all the fancy things. This can be really super simple. And we cover so many different tools and tips like this in the Rescue 10x program. We do an Ami's kitchen hack. I think we have seven of them, throughout the 10 weeks of the 10-week Mindset Mastery Program that we go over, because I love to eat. Don't love to cook, don't love to clean up the mess as many, one bowl things as I can do. As simple as I can make this for you, of all the tips and tricks I've learned over the past 10 years on how to live this lifestyle, how to do it simply. Those are the things that we share in the Rescue 10x Program that's starting next week.
Rip Esselstyn:
Mm. So, when exactly is it starting? And what can people do, if they're interested in knowing more about that?
Ami Mackey:
It's actually this week, October 28th. Where did October go?
Rip Esselstyn:
I know.
Ami Mackey:
We start October 28th. The day that this podcast comes out, we will be starting our first call at 8:00 PM Eastern, 5:00 PM Pacific, on the Rescue 10x Program, the holiday edition. We are going to walk people through the holidays, on how to deal with everything from Aunt Betty saying, "I made the pie that you love, just for you." And now, you're PLANTSTRONG. So, what do you do? What to share at at holiday dinners? How to take something to a holiday party that everybody's going to enjoy, how to not have to be as merry, let's say, with alcoholic beverages during the holidays and the tips that you can use to get through those things.
Ami Mackey:
What to do about cookie trade, and all of the things that come with the holidays? All of those tracks and all of the excuses that we have a tendency to use real easily during the holiday season. "But, Aunt Betty baked it just for me." And all of those things. "But, my brother, he was giving me a hard time, so I just ate the thing." Those are all topics that we tackle in this special, holiday edition of the Rescue 10x Program. In addition to tools that will take you throughout your year, on your own Plan-Strong journey.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, I know the holidays are coming up and there's a lot of minefields that people have to navigate and you and John do a amazing job supporting people. And I can't think of a better time to support people, than over the next two months, get through the new year and you haven't gained 10 pounds over the next, starting Halloween and going through the end of December. Instead, you're losing weight, you're feeling great, you're on a roll, as we go into 2022. And that is what it's about.
Ami Mackey:
Especially, this year, coming back after COVID and everything, there's a lot of people that'll be getting together for holidays, for the first time in a couple of years. Getting to see loved ones and things like that. So, it can be really challenging. And even if you started tackling this lifestyle a while ago, this might be your first holiday together with loved ones, or back at the office party. And so, these are all things that we can all learn from. I hope that this episode gives you some ideas for some bowl-building and know that in the PLANTSTRONG community, which is free for everyone to join, we have all ideas and things like that, to share with you. And you'll get inspired by other people's meals who have been bowl-building for a while as well. And they post their meals and photos of the different things that they're making in there, on the daily basis. So, I hope you'll join us there and happy bowl-building.
Rip Esselstyn:
Absolutely. And for people that, they want to know that URL, it's community.plantstrong.com. We have 23, 24,000 people that are in there.
Ami Mackey:
Yup, exactly.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yup, yup. So, you will not be alone.
Ami Mackey:
No.
Rip Esselstyn:
There's a lot of like-minded people out there, that are rooting for your success, as are we-
Ami Mackey:
Exactly.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yup. Ami, thank you for joining me on this week's episode of Snackables. What a great habit and great lifestyle, what do we want to call it? It's not a hack, I don't call this a hack. It's a-
Ami Mackey:
It's a life skill, I think.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. A PLANTSTRONG life skill that we want people to really embrace, so they can see how easy, affordable and tasty it can be to eat this way.
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