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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Love it! I hope you don’t mind– I posted a link to it on my blog.
I think it all depends on your individual body. I, personally, don’t process grains very well. I also don’t handle dairy, beef or corn well. When I stopped eating them, I regained vitality and dropped pounds without much exercise – it was all inflammation! But inflammatory autoimmune disorders run in my family. My dad, on the other hand, gets anemic the second he stops eating red meat. I have friends who’d lose their minds if they didn’t eat whole grains every day. Marilyn’s diet sounds awesome to me – healthy fats, fruits and veggies. But I’m sure some people wouldn’t thrive on it. It’s hard to judge someone else’s diet when you don’t know their personal constitution or dietary needs.
I love this comment. I get tired of reading everywhere that grain is the ultimate evil, because I don’t feel well when I go without properly prepared grains. I don’t consume processed grains, rather soaked, sprouted, or soured grains — I feel much better this way than I did when I had cut out grains. Thank you for being so open to the fact that what is good for some isn’t good for all. I hope more will catch on to this idea.
And, actually, back in her day, (and possibly depending on where), the ice cream treats could have even been good for her because things weren’t as processed (and in some case never processed) then. If she got it from a local mom and pop shop, it could have been made with fresh raw eggs, whole fat cream, and real vanilla beans. Same with chocolate–all real ingredients. 🙂
I can’t let Ken’s comment about Dr. Atkins lie there unchallenged. Dr. Atkins died from a fall on ice, not from his diet. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Atkins_(nutritionist) and here: http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/atkinsdiet/a/dratkinsdeath.htm
Thank you for this. I was going to comment earlier. Dr. Atkins was years
ahead of his time. He had it figured right. His only downfall was substituting
artificial sweeteners for natural ones. But he was on the right track.
His wife is (was?) Tres French and they ate very well. indeed… and yes, he did die from fall on ice. If anyone cares to read his earliest books, you will discover what
the truth is. He simply jump started the body’s healing, slowly adding back
carbs to the point that ones body could handle. Unfortunately, his ideas were
convoluted by people who never even read his work or understood exactly what his premise was. He was a pioneer in his time.
I am confused as to why people are saying she was carb deprived. There are plenty of healthy carbs in a glass of milk!!
Thank you!!!
me and my husband has been on this traditional foods for over a year my husband had a heart attack was on low fat diet loss a lot of weight then gained it all back plus some we felt bad no energy then I was listen to the radio she was talking about Weston a price wow a lot of questions was answered thank u oh by the way lost 13 pound on the way feel so much better my husband had his checkup doctor about had a heart attack him self he said its all wrong diet but no heath problems yet all is clear
I did a Google search on her measurements and I’m pretty close to what she was (a little less in the breast but spot on for waist and hips) I’m pretty sure I have never been categorized as curvy – more like thin.
(Website in previous post is incorrect). Basically, Marilyn was living on the Atkins diet. She was carb-starved, which no doubt contributed to ultra-low levels of seratonin and her depression bouts. Healthy forms of carbs include fruit, sweet veggies, and a limited amount of whole grains…unhealthy forms include white flour, white sugar, and processed foods made with these (breads, pastas, cereals, cookies, crackers, etc.). Please don’t peddle the Atkins diet, since it not only helped kill Marilyn, but also Dr. Atkins himself. Even the Atkins foundation today recommends fruit and veggies to balance out the animal food, and is more of a Paleo approach (which I still disagree with as optimal for humans). Americans eat a diet of about 25% animal food while all other primates each 4% or less animal food. We have chronic disease; they don’t. The ideal diet for humans is primarily plant-based, as whole plant foods reverse disease rather than cause it, regulate body weight, and stabilize brain chemistry. If you want to learn more, check out my website or Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/phoenixway) or watch the movie, Forks Over Knives (there is a link to a free version of it on my FB page). Good eating! 🙂
Ken, there is not a single statement in your post which is factually correct.
Ken, reading your dietary beliefs, I feel sorry for you.
Cave horse…come out of the cave? Seriously. Barbie Doll…not sure if you’re a woman or a man…but you seriously lack in seratonin. Sandy, when you stop feeling sorry for yourself, you can feel sorry for others, dear. Have I stepped into some kind of Paleo WPF bees nest? Meat-lovers anonymous? Is this the place where you all come and deny EVERYTHING that’s going on around you today, right now…1/2 the population, huge, fat people walking around strung out on meat, dairy, white flour and sugar? Seriously??! Your own families and friends…maybe you yourselves? Will steak and pie really help you deal with that? Personal, slanderous attacks in response to research-based information presented in a neutral, factual manner are immature and unhelpful and show both a lack of confidence and real knowledge. I would challenge anyone to contradict a SINGLE piece of information presented in my post. I have been studying this field for 30 years and enjoy a healthy life free of any kind of drugs or medications or procedures and am 12 years older than Marilyn was when she died. If you want to live in denial and explain away Marilyn’s death as just murder and/or drugs and not face the fact that she was also destroying herself, physically and mentally, with her poor diet on top of the drugs, then please go back in your cave and play with your dolls. Otherwise, do some actual homework other than the WPF. Have you looked at Grandma Sally Fallon lately? You can see a video here of her, looking like Marilyn would have on that diet 20 years later: http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=740B7987404AC33550331594DE9C45E0. Try rather reading the likes of McDougal, Campbell, Esselstyn, Barnard, Cousens, Fuhrman, Graham, Robbins, Gerson, Ehret, Ornish. I wonder why all these writers are healthy in middle and older age? Hmmm. Let me know when you’ve defeated all their arguments, research, and positive results saving lives and curing chronic disease caused by the Marilyn Diet and its like. Then go out and find people who live to be 100 living on eggs, milk, and meat. Find a lot of them, and write a book about it. Otherwise, please don’t waste people’s time with your rantings. Good luck…and try to have a nice day…for all of us. 🙂
Ranting Ken? You first question my sexuality and then tell me I am lacking serotonin. I wonder what that type of mentality says about you and your inadequacies. Sorry you have no facts that make any sense. If this is a fact – “Americans eat a diet of about 25% animal food while all other primates each 4% or less animal food” then so is this – “Americans have about 4% of their body covered by hair while for other primates its 90% or more”. Neither says anything about the suitability of the diet of each.
Let’s get some facts straight. I’m 49, have no maladies, weigh as much as I did at 20, take no medication and eat a predominantly meat and fat diet. My family all do the same and live long lives. My Aunt just turned 90, still drives her car, shops and lives on her own, and eats plenty meat and organ meats along with her rice, potato and vegetables. My father worked till he was 74 and my mother continues to work at 68.
I am not American (I’m inclined to see that as a virtue these days!) but can clearly see why Americans are so unhealthy – too much sugar, too much trans fats, too much refined grains, too much factory farmed meat. It’s not the meat Ken that makes you guys so unhealthy it’s the other garbage.
I am not sure why you veggie-zealots have this need to demean all others and your pointing to a video of Sally Fallon is a prime example. Please tell me what you see wrong with Ms Fallon in that video – she looks normal to me. Your friend McDougal is always at great pains to point out that nobody but the anointed veggie intellectuals know anything about diet and all others must kiss their feet or hold their tongues.
Lastly why do you and your type find it necessary to troll websites like this with the zeal of Paul, trying to convert all the non believers to your cause. Frankly I don’t have a need to go onto your or similar websites and leave self promoting nonsense trying to convert people who are happy following their own belief’s. Now leave us alone and do your own thing and respect that some of us don’t need your religion, we are quite happy with our own.
Good luck to you to – enjoy your day further!
This is not researched based in anyway, but it is based on my human experience. I’m currently 40. When I was much younger, late teens to early twenties, I began starting to eat less meats. In my early twenties I finally went vegetarian. This was mostly due to feeling horrible after eating meat. (Back then I was consuming all factory farmed garbage from the grocery store.) I had felt fantastic at the time by cutting that out. I would eat veggies, carbs, and of course the soy alternatives and still felt great for a bit. My doc was even pushing low fat all the time and i went with it. The whole thing turned out to be a bad choice for me.
A few years later, I ended up with endometriosis. I had problems from the beginning with my cycle, but it definitely escalated during my vegetarian stage. I ended up having the doc tell me it was an emergency and I needed to take care of this ASAP. Afterwards I continued with my current eatng habits. As the years went on I felt worse. I was in a constant fog and couldn’t concentrate on anything. It just kept getting escalating and I was sick all of the time.
Years later, I was told I’m almost anemic while I was finally able to get pregnant. The doctor recommended I start eating some meat. So I did; however, I wasn’t serious about it. Just enough to not take iron supplements and make sure the baby was healthy. After my daughter was born, I kind of kept eating meat, but not much. I was definitely in a fog all the time and shaky constantly even after meals. Then, a few years later I slowly started to incorporate more meats, mostly grass fed, pasture raised with no antibotics, etc. after reading about how much better they were. The more I did that while still eating a good serving of veggies, the better I felt. I eventually cut out all of the plant based oils too, canola, soy, etc., and only used olive oil, coconut oil, butter, etc. I rarely touch refined carbs. When I do use carbs it’s quinoa, rice, sprouted grains, etc. We do not over do carbs in my house. We DEFINITELY do not go near soy. As soon as I consume soy I gain 5+ lbs in water weight overnight and feel horrible for days.
This is definitely the clearest and healthiest I have felt for as long as I can remember and my cycles are completely normal. I’ve never had this much energy before, except for maybe when i was in grade school. Previous to this, all I ever wanted to do was sleep until noon or later. Now I’m up at 5 or 5:30 every morning.
I will every now and then do a cleanse with all veggies for a short time and feel great; however, I can’t continue with it. When it goes beyond the cleanse stage, I get foggy and shaky again.
For me at least, there’s a lot to be said for consuming quality meats and fats in conjunction with many veggies and some fruits. A “whole” foods non processed way of living has been wonderful with all the right ingredients.
You said it! 🙂
My two cents: I went on the McDougall diet in the mid 90’s and my health pretty soon started going down hill. I eventually lost my gall bladder, and I am convinced it was due to this diet. I have also come across others who have had similar problems on the McDougall diet.