Rip holds different immersion programs multiple times a year through his Plant-Strong website where he uses some of the programs he has written about in his best selling books.
This story was a part of the documentary Game Changers which came out in 2019 and is currently one of the most watched documentaries. Despite getting ridiculed by many other fire stations in the area, the men in Engine 2 began to wear it as a badge of pride that they were different and healthier than the other stations. Rip touches on the fact that many of his fellow firefighters had been fed the typical marketing strategy that it is not manly to have a plant based diet and that men need meat to be strong and healthy. It created spillover into the firefighters’ families when they began to gain their health and strength back from the plant based food. Engine 2 became a plant strong culture that people in the community knew of. He challenged his squad in Engine 2 to be plant based for 28 days and it led to them continuing that diet for 7 years. Rip was able to work with other firefighters and help bring their cholesterol down. Rip mentions how eating plant-based and plant-strong in Austin as a firefighter was tough because practically every other firefighter around him ate meat and dairy. Hear more about how Rip saves lives, but not in the way you would think! Rip says you need 30 different types of whole plants a week and plants provide protein and fiber. He talks about how 70% of our immune system resides in our gut so eating a diverse amount of plants to get fiber will create a better immune system. Rip talks about how most of the people who are hospitalized or have died from Covid-19 have from one to three preexisting health conditions and that many of those could have been avoided with a plant based diet. Rip believes we should not pollute our bodies with meat, dairy, and processed foods so that we are never in the situation of the people he had to help. They dialled 911 in response to shortness of breath, fainting, or chest pain and this was usually because of their health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, low cholesterol, or heart disease. The people he helped were usually in need because of their diets. As a firefighter he ended up mostly doing EMT assistance instead of fighting actual fires. Plant-strong, through and through! In 1997 Rip became a firefighter in Austin, Texas.