US President-elect Donald Trump eats a diet filled with fast food and Diet Coke. What does it feel like to eat like him? One reporter found out. Photo / Stephen Lovekin, WireImage for Hill and Knowlton
A bland bonanza of beige and not a drop of water in sight – the US President-elect’s diet is that of a child
It was a picture that revealed more than just Donald Trump’s inner circle.
Following the jubilation of the United States election, the grinning President-elect was pictured on board Trump Force One tucking into a McDonald’s with Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy jnr.
Donald Trump jnr, seated to his right, would later joke that Kennedy jnr’s mission to “make America healthy again” would have to wait until “tomorrow”.
Trump’s penchant for fast food was once again in the spotlight. But what does his diet consist of?
Breakfast – nothing. Lunch – nothing. Dinner – a McDonald’s, KFC, pizza or a well-done steak.
Twelve Diet Cokes a day, and snacking on Doritos.
The man appointed to become his own health secretary, RFK jnr, described what Trump eats as “poison”.
“His diet is exceptionally poor,” agrees Telegraph nutritionist Sam Rice.
“It’s unbalanced, with far too many ultra-processed foods, too much saturated fat from red and processed meat, simple carbohydrates that can cause sugar spikes and lead to insulin resistance. It’s also low in fibre and gut-friendly plant foods.
“The copious amount of Diet Coke he drinks, which contains the artificial sweetener aspartame – identified as a possible carcinogen by the World Health Organisation – makes his diet a nutritional nightmare.”
So as well as being a diet that’s too reliant on ultra-processed foods, it also doesn’t offer much in the way of nutritional benefits. Here’s what happened when I tried it for a week …
‘I just want a coffee. Please. Please?’
Trump has nothing for breakfast if he can avoid it. If he does have breakfast, it’s bacon and fried eggs.
The President-elect, perhaps unsurprisingly, downs a few supplements to start the day: zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin, and a daily aspirin.
Gareth’s verdict:
This was bleak. I’m not usually one for breakfast. I usually power my way through the morning with three or four coffees and then have an early lunch around midday. But with coffee off the menu, I was reaching for a can of Diet Coke at 8am, and a handful of Doritos if I was getting hungry mid-morning.
It felt, and looked, obscene. On an empty stomach, and with only a Diet Coke to wash the supplements down, nausea rushed over me every morning.
On day three I had to take myself for a walk outside as the saliva in my mouth got extra runny and I thought I was going to vomit. Apart from making me feel disgusting, I didn’t feel any benefits from my pills.
Nutritionist’s verdict: two stars
+ Protein from the bacon and eggs, also vitamins B12, D, A, and selenium and choline from the eggs.
- Potential carcinogens from the nitrates in bacon. High in saturated fat and salt, which is linked to cardiovascular disease.
Bacon is a processed meat containing nitrates which have been linked to cancer. The stars are for the eggs as they contain a range of essential nutrients and protein, but they would be better poached or scrambled rather than fried (unless it’s in heart-healthy olive oil).
Zinc supports the immune system, ensures proper cell function, and helps heal wounds. Meat is our main source of zinc, so I’d be surprised if Mr Trump needs to supplement, although absorption can reduce after the age of 60.
Vitamin D works alongside calcium to keep bones strong. We mainly synthesise vitamin D through the skin when exposed to the sun. Judging by Trump’s tan, he’s no stranger to the sun, but again, as we age, our ability to make vitamin D reduces.
Melatonin is a hormone produced by the body when it gets dark to make us feel sleepy, so it’s taken as a sleep aid. It’s no surprise that Trump might find it hard to sleep, given his high-stress lifestyle, and going to bed with a belly full of burgers won’t help.
Aspirin a daily low-dose thins the blood and can help to prevent heart attacks and stroke, so presumably Trump is considered at risk for these conditions.
Famotidine is a medication prescribed for acid indigestion and reflux. Given Trump’s unhealthy diet I’m not surprised he needs it, but he may be taking it to counteract the effects of the aspirin which can lead to gastrointestinal bleeding.
‘It can’t have been easy for my colleagues’
Extraordinarily, Trump gets through 12 cans of Diet Coke a day. His hydration is reliant solely on Diet Cokes, with water off the menu. RFK jnr recalled Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, telling him that he had “never seen Trump drink a glass of water”.
And his snack of choice? Doritos. (A big bag contains 2100 calories and it’s recommended that men eat 2500 in a day.)
Gareth’s verdict:
Usually, I’ll try not to snack during the day, and just stick to water and coffee. A chocolate bar may or may not slide into the mix every now and again.
I managed to creep up my intake of Diet Coke day by day from three on day one to nine on day five. But how anyone manages 12 cans a day is a mystery, partly because they are disgusting and taste like sand.
Doritos are fine, but it feels incredibly odd these days to eat a dry crisp out of a share bag.
Where’s the dip? Also, my colleagues can’t have found it easy having to deal with me relentlessly busting open cans and chomping crisps. It’s no more acceptable in the US than it is in the United Kingdom. But I do have gravy granules on my desk in London, so it’s pretty much par for the course.
Nutritionist’s verdict: 0 stars
- A very small amount of much-needed fibre from the Doritos.
- As well as being linked to cancer risk, the aspartame in Diet Coke may also disrupt the gut microbiome.
Diet Coke is made up primarily of water (and chemicals) so you are taking in plenty of fluid but it also contains caffeine which is a diuretic so you’ll need to pee more. On 12 cans a day the problem is more likely to be very regular visits to the bathroom rather than dehydration.
It is an excessive intake of caffeine that can lead to a raised heart rate, digestive issues and insomnia. Doritos are a high-fat and high-salt ultra-processed snack that contains a whole raft of additives, from acidity regulators to flavour enhancers – they definitely won’t help the acid reflux.
‘By 3pm I was really hungry’
As with breakfast, Trump tends to not eat anything. If he does, it’s a meatloaf sandwich. The last time he was in the White House as President, meatloaf was his favourite dish.
During his last stint as commander-in-chief, he made a point of making all his friends eat his favourite comfort food on their first visit. Then-New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recalls: “This is what it’s like to be with Trump … He says, ‘there’s the menu, you guys order whatever you want’, and then he says, ‘Chris, you and I are going to have the meatloaf’.”
Gareth’s verdict:
Usually my lunch is leftovers of the previous night’s dinner. My go-to at the moment is some batch-cooked pasta, veg-laden and heavy on the meat (pork loin). If I’m trying to be a bit healthier, I’ll just have veg and meat and cut out the carbs entirely.
I didn’t have lunch at any stage during the week. But going without anything other than crisps during the day wasn’t ideal. By 3pm I was really hungry, probably because there are so few nutrients in what became my triangular nemeses (Doritos).
Nutritionist’s verdict: one star
- A small amount of fibre and some protein.
- Meals are irregular and unbalanced; this can negatively affect energy levels, alertness and productivity.
More red meat and probably not much in the way of vegetables in the meatloaf make this another poor meal. One point is for protein, zinc and B12 in the meat but it comes with a large side order of saturated fat. If the bread is wholegrain it might gain another point for fibre.
‘Piece after underwhelming piece of repulsion’
This is where the 78-year-old gets the bulk of his eating done. A long fast, and then a huge intake of calories. His meals – McDonald’s, KFC, pizza or steak. Seemingly on rotation.
Gareth’s verdict:
McDonald’s: The first meal of the experiment at McDonald’s was actually quite nice. The big man’s go-to order is two Big Macs and two Filet-O-Fish. He washes it down with a small chocolate milkshake. Perhaps my judgment is clouded, it being day one.
The Big Mac isn’t my usual order (I’m a double cheeseburger, mayo chicken, fries and a flat white man … maybe a McFlurry … maybe another mayo chicken), but it hits the spot. I lost my Filet-O-Fish virginity too on day one, and it was a surprisingly light and refreshing palate cleanser.
It was the chocolate milkshake letting the team down, really. Far too thick to rinse away the burger stodge. Now, it could’ve been that I’d only had an hour and a half’s sleep on an overnight bus from Boston to Washington, DC, the night before, but the second I finished eating, I put my head on my pillow and fell asleep. I woke up 11 hours later.
KFC: On KFC night, I followed in Trump’s footsteps and kept it simple. A bucket of chicken. No sides. The pits. KFC is the most overrated of all the fast food chains anyway, but this was bleak.
It arrived late, at 8pm. The label on the bag said it had been bagged at 7pm. So it had spent an hour sweating in the boot of some bloke’s battered Toyota Corolla. It arrived cold. I had to microwave it.
And it was just piece after underwhelming piece of repulsion. I don’t mind a KFC snack wrap or a Supercharger burger, but this was dreadful. The calories I’d burnt on the Peloton completely went to waste. Still, pro that I am, I made it through the bucket and went to sleep unsatisfied.
Pizza: Then, pizza. In one of the President-elect’s more peculiar eating habits, he leaves the crusts from his pepperoni pizza. Got to watch that waistline. Mind you, without anything to dip them in, what’s the point?
After being let down by Domino’s more times than I care to remember, I cased out a local joint. Whenever I cycled past it, Kouzina Angelina’s looked buzzing. I grabbed myself an 18 inch (45m) pepperoni and sausage pizza and took it up to the rooftop of my apartment building.
After a tough rugby session, I dipped my feet in the pool and got stuck in. It looked stunning, it tasted great, but she was a big old girl. And halfway through (having ventured indoors) chewing was becoming a chore. I needed water to push the pizza bung southwards, but I only had Diet Coke (my eighth of the day) to help me.
Have mercy. At least I didn’t have to eat the crusts, but I could’ve definitely done with a tub of garlic dip to help me through the final two slices. After a short time-out, I managed to force them down.
The following day, I could still smell pizza. It was seeping out of my pores. And making me feel quite sick.
Steak and chips: The only non-fast-food meal is a steak and chips. But Trump even manages to desecrate this slam dunk of a dinner. He has his steak cooked well done, and his former butler said it was cooked for so long “it would rock on the plate”.
And as if that weren’t bad enough, there would be no peppercorn, béarnaise, Diane or chimichurri to wet it up. No. It’s ketchup. Just ketchup. Sigh. Come on, Mr President-elect. Do better. You can’t be the leader of the free world and have this as your steak order. A complete waste of a cow.
It was seasoned perfectly by the pros at the Queen Vic in Washington, DC, (a British pub in which Trump would probably not be given the most hospitable welcome) and looked for all the money to be lining up to be an almost-perfect meal in a week of dreck.
Alas, it was a case of what could’ve been. Because it was so well done, it was tough to get through, and not the melt-in-the-mouth rare I’m used to. The ketchup was needed, in truth, to wet it up a bit.
It was comfortably the best thing I ate all week, but that very much falls into the world’s fastest tortoise territory. Weirdly, I was still hungry after it too. Maybe my stomach had expanded?
Nutritionist’s verdict:
- There is plenty of protein here, albeit from animal sources containing a lot of saturated fat.
- Meals are ultra-processed, low in fibre, high in fat and salt and low in other healthy compounds like omega-3 fatty acids and plant polyphenols. Higher risk of chronic disease, including dementia.
McDonald’s: one star
There’s around 2500 calories in the McDonald’s meal, probably okay if this is all he’s eating in a day but lots of saturated fat, salt and sugar here and very little in the way of nourishment. I’ve given a point for fish, albeit overly processed fish, but it does provide some key nutrients like selenium and potassium.
KFC: one star
Eight pieces of chicken and nothing else is, by anyone’s standards, an unbalanced meal. At least it’s not red meat, and it does provide a big hit of protein, but otherwise this is a gut-busting 1640 calories devoid of fibre or any plant nutrients.
Pizza: one star
This pizza would contain around 3000-3500 calories, so even if this was your only meal for the day it’s still way over the 2500 recommended daily calorie intake for a man. Eating like this will eventually lead to weight gain and the processed red meat toppings increases the risk of colorectal cancer.
Steak and chips: two stars
I’d actually give the steak dinner two stars. A good quality, grass-fed steak would provide protein, vitamin B12, zinc, and iron but it is also high in saturated animal fat. This meal is crying out for some complex carbohydrates from, say, leafy greens to provide much-needed fibre and other healthy phytonutrients.
‘I don’t understand how Trump is still alive’
When the idea for this feature – to eat like Trump for a week – was initially floated by me, I couldn’t have been more keen. Eat fast food and Doritos for a week and not have to feel guilty about it? Bring it on! It took less than an hour to make me realise I’d made a horrible mistake.
I was ravenous on day one, but after that, the entire week just passed me by in a blur of dissatisfaction. Nothing filled me up, though I was never particularly hungry.
That’s probably because Donald Trump’s diet is that of a child. Just a bland bonanza of beige. “Mum! Dad! Can I have chips for tea? And can I have loads of ketchup? And pizza? And a burger?” There’s no spice, there’s no depth, there’s no … anything. And it properly affected my body.
My hands, for the entire week, were always cold. And that’s not something I ever suffer with. They also started peeling quite horrifically. I was quickly becoming a fast-food leper.
Rice explains: “Most likely it’s linked to your digestion and could be early signs that your gut is not happy with your new diet. Imbalances in the gut microbiome can quite quickly lead to skin issues; in fact so strong is the relationship between the gut and the skin it is often called the ‘gut-skin axis’.”
I was also barely going to the toilet, and when I was, I really had to try. Word of warning: this next bit is going to be a bit grim. My urine was like squeezy honey, although it smelled like beef. It was clearly so unhealthy, and I was only going around three times a day. Usually my stream will be a solid 20-30 seconds. Not this week. Four seconds at best.
I won’t go into it too much with number twos, but I will give you these bits of detail: sticky, lots of wiping, and incredibly difficult to pass. Exercising was a real chore, too. I carried on using the Peloton every day, with a bit of weight training and rugby. But my numbers were way down.
Usually on a Peloton I get through between 16-17km in a half-hour blast. This week, my best was 13km, and I had nothing in my legs to give. Rugby was much more difficult than usual, but I did feel lighter on my feet.
I was forced to skip the weekly post-training trip to the pub as well because Trump is teetotal, and I wasn’t going to sit with the boys and drink another Diet Coke.
My sweat, oddly, felt much thicker too. And it took a lot longer for me to actually start perspiring this syrupy sweat. Almost as if my body was trying to cling on to any water it could possibly retain.
Here comes the plot twist – I actually lost 2.6kg in five days. But please, please don’t think that this is a good way to lose weight.
Rice explains: “The weight loss is probably just dehydration caused by the poor diet and lack of water intake. Even with a very strict calorie deficit, you would be hard-pushed to lose a couple of kilograms in a week.
“On just one meal a day, it may be that you have been eating less than you usually do, but this diet is certainly not restrictive enough for there to be any significant fat loss over five days. So, the only plausible explanation is dehydration.”
I’ve never felt more unhealthy, and I’ve never wanted a glass of water more in my entire life. Frankly, I don’t quite understand how Donald Trump is still alive.
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