Bill Clinton's 'scary' diet that meant White House chefs always had to 'be ready'

Former president Bill Clinton served in office between 1993 and 2001, and although his inclination for cheeseburgers is well documented, the 79-year-old now eats a largely vegan diet.

During his tenure as Commander-in-Chief, Clinton would famously employ McDonald’s to solve his beef cravings, while enjoying chicken and enchiladas cooked by the White House kitchen staff.

“He had a big appetite, scary,” former house pastry chef Roland Mesnier once told the Washingtonian.

“He could eat five or six pork chops,” he continued, adding that the employees ‘had to be ready’ and on hand to appease his stomach.

Mesnier, who died in August 2022, revealed in the 2012 interview that the former President made his life ‘difficult’ due to being allergic to chocolate and flour, but still having a penchant for dessert.

Bill Clinton used to buy his cheeseburgers from McDonald's, rather than get the White House kitchen to cook one up (JOYCE NALTCHAYAN/AFP via Getty Images)

He recalled an episode where Clinton devoured half of a strawberry cake one night, and woke up the next day demanding more.

“No one could find the cake,” the culinary expert added. “Clinton was pounding on the table and shouting, ‘I want my goddamned cake.'"

Unfortunately, the cake wasn’t able to be found and it was jokingly decided that Vice President Al Gore must have eaten the other half.

Meanwhile, John Moeller, who worked at the White House between 1992 and 2005, told Page Six that Clinton’s favourite dishes included a ‘pretty healthy’ chicken pot pie, salmon, and snapper.

For special occasions, the First Family would sometimes be served a rack of lamb.

However, things changed after he left the Oval Office.

In February 2010, his cardiologist brought him into New York-Presbyterian Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery to insert a pair of stents, as per US-based nonprofit, nonpartisan organisation AARP.

It’s understood that one of his veins had given out, a complication of a quadruple-bypass surgery he had undergone in 2004.

The former President now eats a plant-based diet (AL DRAGO/American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. via Getty Images)

This led Clinton to wake up and ‘pick a diet that [he] thought would maximise [his] chances of long-term survival’.

Over the years, the politician has shifted towards a vegan lifestyle, revealing that he drinks a protein-rich smoothie every morning, as well as limiting dairy, meat and processed foods.

“I did it because after I had this stent put in I realisedd that even though it happens quite often that after you have bypasses, you lose the veins because they’re thinner and weaker than arteries the truth is that it clogged up, which means that the cholesterol was still causing buildup in my vein that was part of my bypass, and thank God I could take the stents. I didn’t want it to happen again,” he said, as per Vegan.com.