The Engine 2 Diet by Rip Esselstyn

I give this book 5 stars for the book part itself, but 3 stars for the recipes. The book does an excellent job of explaining why a plant based whole foods diet is the healthiest way to eat. It also has interesting stories about firefighting and the author's life and some nice looking exercises that I may try.
My favorite story is the one that ends with "Don't eat bear balls. Eat healthy, delectable, plant-based foods so that you will never fall over on your cat."
The recipes, however, make me a bit sad.
I want simple to prepare, whole foods, plant based recipes.
Many of the recipes in this cookbook look good, but are quite labor intensive. I am going to make some of them, but am going to try to simplify them some. I also was saddened by the amount of soy included in the recipes. There is a lot of tofu, textured vegetable protein and other soy products included in many of the recipes in the cookbook part of this book.
There are also a lot of milk substitutes recommended, and unless you make them yourself, those are processed foods. The author states, on pg. 52, "Cow's milk is fine for a calf who wants to gain one thousand pounds in less than a year. Whenever possible, humans should stick to breast milk until the age of two, and then make the switch to a milk substitute." While I agree that it is ideal to breastfeed babies until the age of two, I think that milk substitutes are not necessary and even may be detrimental especially soy milk.
I enjoyed reading the book and found it to be well-written and interesting and I am also reading sequel to this book "My Beef With Meat".