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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I believe what might have helped her back then was the lack of innovative processed foods. We certainly can emulate her diet and in fact, do better as we now have more ways to stay on a more enjoyable healthy diet. Thanks for sharing this info. Regardless of the politics behind or what not, her beauty and figure remain to be pleasing to look at.
I love her i will ne gettimgy nose and chin done, i eat like her it is so easy! I am beautiful without surgery but i want a chance at feeling as beautiful as she. We have alot of similar backrounds… I think she was phenominal, think how youd be if youre parents werent helping you… Itd be fun sad dangerous Wow! Shes daring and i love that about her.
Paris
Marilyn’s diet had nothing to do with her financial status. It had everything to do with her obsession of being perfect. Hell it took Norma Jean 5 hours a day to become MM. Marilyn Monroe took great care of her appearance. She looked at her body as her temple. She believed that living a healthy lifestyle was important. Yeah the way she died was tragic, I personally believe she died by the hands of another person.
Normand Hodges CIA Agent killed Marilyn Monroe for the government and confessed to it on his deathbed.
Healthy diet? Thats really unhealthy, no wonder why she has so many health problems, poor marilyn
Actually in 1952 Marilyn would have had no money of her own, she earned $750 a week because she hadn’t yet gone through the battle with her studio for a contract which gave her what she was worth. Most of that money went straight away on paying for her mother’s psychiatric care, her acting coach and her hotel fees. She basically relied on friends to keep her afloat. Also, some time in the late 50s, when she desperately didn’t want to have to do Some Like It Hot, she started gorging on meat and burgers and really unhealthy amounts of high cal, high carb, greasy food – she thought that if she got ‘fat’ no one would want to put her in a film! That period didn’t last too long, though.
Does how much money she had really make a difference, she still had a healthy diet and a beautiful figure.
II just read on another site that her diet when trying to lose weight did include a cracker twice a day with a beverage (milk I believe) and she did eat bread with butter and she did have other fruits in her diet.
or maybe she just liked carrots!
you won’t know cause you never knew her personally.
celebrity-obsession is so funny…GET OVER IT!
also she had endometriosis
I have read that MM had Endometriosis and that was the reason for her not being able to carry to full term. This apparently was also the reason why she started taking pain killers which in the end caused her death. Who knows? One of the things I do find interesting is the mention of her eating raw carrot which is well known to help wash access estrogen out of the body so maybe there is some truth in her having Endo.
It was actually sleeping pills that killed her.
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