VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good

by Mark Bittman

LEFTOVERS FOR LUNCH No matter where you work, lunch is the ideal opportunity to make a delicious meal out of food tucked away in the fridge. And once you start cooking and eating VB6, you’ll always have plenty of beans, grains, and vegetables—raw and cooked—ready, wherever you need to go. One key is to start thinking of food preparation in terms of components—there’s a reason the last recipe chapter is called “Building Blocks”—and not just finished dishes. When you do, you’ll top a bowl of greens with last night’s cold roasted vegetables and cooked black beans from the weekend, and call it salad: While the coffee is brewing, you’ll throw that stir-fry from a couple of days ago and the remaining brown rice into a container to nuke at the office. Spread a sandwich with pureed leftover veggies, toss beans, grains, and veggies into soups, warm up last night’s tomato sauce with some grains, or bake it with some veggies—many things are possible, and good. Another important tactic is to make large quantities of dishes that reheat especially well, like soups or stews. In this chapter—and throughout Part Two—I point out which recipes are best for this. About storing and reheating: Invest in a wide-mouth thermos and some microwave-safe glass or silicone containers, or carry food in sealable bags and reheat meals in the microwave on plates. (Some plastic vessels are safer than others. Those that contain a chemical called bisphenol A—or BPA, for short—may become toxic, especially when...