At the height of her career, Marilyn Monroe was undoubtedly considered one of the most beautiful women in the world. The curvaceous, full figured actress certainly represented the antithesis of the scary thin, androgynous models of today.
The drastic change in society’s view of female beauty over the past 50 years has coincided with an equally drastic change in diet.
Artificially made “health” foods, protein powders, bars, drinks, mixes and supplements take center stage instead of the basic, traditional and highly nourishing fare such as what Ms. Monroe preferred.
The September 1952 edition of Pageant magazine highlighted the Marilyn Monroe diet, which was comprised of extremely simple fare, written in her own words.
For breakfast, Ms. Monroe whipped two raw eggs into a glass of warm whole milk to drink. Interesting that she didn’t opt for skim. Eggs and milk were her favored morning fare even while traveling and staying in hotels.
Dinners were equally nutrient dense. Instead of opting for the best restaurant food which she undoubtedly could easily afford, Marilyn would stop at a market near her hotel and select steak, liver, or lamb chops for dinner. She would even broil them herself right in her hotel room with an electric oven!
Ms. Monroe also especially enjoyed raw carrots and usually ate several along with the meat she had chosen for the evening meal.
For treats, ice cream sundaes were the favorite on the way home from her evening drama classes. No mention of any bread, cakes, cookies or pies.
A diet focused on nutrient rich animal foods with a notable absence of grain based and starchy foods was likely a key reason she only required light exercise to maintain her enviable figure. While this doesn’t work for every woman, it does for many, even a curvy one like Ms. Monroe. Â She spent only 10 minutes each morning working out with small weights. Light jogging, yoga and horseback riding were other active pursuits she enjoyed. Â No special trainers, heavy lifting or sweaty workouts of the day were a part of her life.
Does the Marilyn Monroe Diet Offer Any Wisdom for Today’s Generation?
There has been renewed interest in the Marilyn Monroe diet since the marking of the 50th anniversary of her death in August 2012.
Many would find the very simple Marilyn Monroe diet unbearably boring and uninspired. However, the basic premise she followed was sound albeit controversial and perhaps even quirky for her day.
Low carb and high fat aptly describes the food choices for Ms. Monroe:
- No processed foods with the exception of an occasional ice cream treat. Antifreeze in commercial ice cream likely didn’t exist then either, and it certainly wasn’t lowfat!
- Minimal inclusion of starchy, grain based or sugary foods. This included favorites such as bread, pasta, bagels, cereal, crackers, cookies and other refined carbs.
- Frequent consumption of liver, the number one nutrient dense food on the planet and nature’s multivitamin. Clearly, the benefits of high cholesterol foods like liver helped Ms. Monroe’s health tremendously.
- Raw eggs and whole milk. No egg white omelets or skimmed milk on the menu!
- Balanced exercise without undue focus on constant or excessive working out to maintain one’s figure and muscle tone or to overcome poor dietary choices. As Paula Jager CSCS, owner of Crossfit Jaguar in Tampa is fond of saying, “You can’t outwork a bad diet!” Â Clearly, Marilyn Monroe’s focus on simple, self prepared, whole, nutrient dense foods afforded her the luxury of not having to find this out the hard way.
Could women both young and old derive some helpful pointers in their own diet and lifestyle regimens through knowledge of the Marilyn Monroe diet? Â I, for one, believe they could! Â What about you?
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
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Ha, that article made me laugh. Yes, I am sure anyone would be hungry if you ate breakfast at 9am and then dinner at 8:30PM! While I take the whole Marilyn Monroe diet with a grain of salt, it does show how our nutrition has changed. The egg thing aside, she was able to just pick up liver at the regular ole grocery store. Nowadays, eating liver is seen as gross and the article writer had to wait for it to come in.
That’s reallly interesting…. read the articles on the real reason why she was depressed on vigilantcitizen.com …. Its an eye opener as to why a lot of stars lose it!
not surprising. simply low carb, then high protein & fat. perhaps what’s surprising is that she already knew about this.
Did she eat lunch?
Its been a great read. She was tremendous actor and a truly inspiration for the people. 🙂 🙂
she wasn’t that great of an actor and hardly got any great roles. it was all about the looks and the publicity.
Of course her looks were a major part of her appeal but she also had acting chops.
I’m sure the speed helped, too.
I wonder how the persistent use of drugs and alcohol played into her general state of health?
This article is based on her diet from 1952. No doubt 10 years later at the time of her death it was a far different story after years of abuse by those surrounding her and her emotional difficulties adjusting to being a movie superstar.
Nevermind the fact that she needed speed and barbituates to get on day to day and suffered from depression and mood swings. This woman claimed to have very low energy levels and was woozy on the Marilyn diet. Probably would’ve felt fine if she’d just added that speed to the regimen.
No doubt being in the constant limelight and being a superstar unable to live a normal life would have been such a terrible burden for her. Many in this situation find it difficult to deal with long term without some form of emotional problems of some kind.
I eat low carb and high fat and I have more energy than I ever had on a high carb diet. Carbs are definitely not the answer. I would say most women would do better on a low carb diet, I did!
Totally Ashely!!! Instead of drugs she could have used carbs for energy. Photos in early of her career she was voluptuous and then she started to get really thin. I wouldn’t use Marilyn Monroe for a healthy role model. I don’t think that High fat and low carbs is good for any woman. We need our carbs!
I think what people forget is you can get carbs from things other than grains. Fruit, vegetables, and dairy products are all full of carbohydrates. Many people find a low carb/grain diet to be exceptionally healing. What many people often find is that when they first start a low carb/grain diet, your body goes through an adjustment period. Many people quit at that point, but if you stick with it, many people find their body is much happier without it. I think what happend to Marilyn was a tragedy. The studios owned her and the pills were often perscribed to people in and out of the lime light. My own grandmother (a stay at home mom) was given uppers and downers to “cope” with the stress of raising 7 kids on her own after a divorse.
She grew thin when she had her appendix removed. Also, most likely from having her miscarriages. Some women tend to lose a lot of weight after pregnancies.
I agree, I don’t see why people idolize her so much. She had multiple failed marriages, had relations with a married man and committed suicide. Hardly a candidate for being “healthy” if you ask me.
Agree !
Well, she was used by a lot of men, including the saintly Kennedys, who passed her back and forth. AND it’s never been totally confirmed that it was suicide and not murder….just sayin’.
People respect her because she was clearly beautiful. Beauty is what we all want — go on ahead and deny it! She was mentally troubled because she was like all the other MKultra mind controlled celebrities of today — pushed, paranoid, and possessed — but still BEAUTIFUL.
I agree Lisa; some say she was the first MKUltra pres. model.
Can’t find fault in the diet so you’ve gotta attack the person, huh? Classic.
if you do any critical reading about marilyn monroe you will see that she was isolated and kept on those drugs prescribed to her by at least two psychiatrists who were in constant contact with marilyn and even lived at her house or vice versa much of the time. she was being controlled by those people, sadly. they even got her fortune when she died. any altered state she was in was due to that mistreatment, not her diet, if her diet was as described.
Exactly. That psychiatrist (Greyson I believe) would have lost his license today. She also tried to talk about her childhood sexual abuse but was discouraged. She did alright for herself anyway and won her fight against the studio at the time of her death. She created a persona (and maintained) star quality unsurpassed to this day. She had many Black friends (especially Dorothy Dandrige) was active in civil rights and saw gay as normal. Norma Jean was tough, smart, down to earth and a bit of a bitch; along with all the bad stuff. You don’t get to be Marilyn Monroe by being too weak to stand upright. Get real.
And then there’s Sophia Loren who said, “Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.” Just saying, different strokes for different folks. And I happen to be one who loves spaghetti!
Is that perhaps a joke or a misquote, because I read that Sophia Loren said she avoided bread and starch like pasta (she does eat some) as it makes her fat.
Sophia Loren has always loved her vegetables, and often-times
would have a plate of broccoli with oil/garlic for a snack !
do any of you actually KNOW her personally…this is a ridiculous conversation between you two! hahahaha
That was a cute answer but there is very little truth to it. Sometimes we just need to use logic and take things with a grain of salt 🙂 I think the beauty she has is just what Italian genes gave her and she represented it by spaghetti. I’m sure she was not talking about consuming spaghetti.