Marion Nestle doesn’t like to be asked what she eats in a day, but it’s easy to see why people are fascinated.
At 89, she’s been a leading nutrition expert for decades, exploring food’s impact on health and how the food industry influences what people eat.
She’s still working and writing, giving advice about a healthy diet in her latest book, “What to Eat Now: The Indispensable Guide to Good Food, How to Find It, and Why It Matters.”
Nestle credits good nutrition and healthy habits for her own longevity, noting genetics probably didn’t play a big role. She says her father was “very overweight,” smoked three packs a day and died of a heart attack at 47.
Her simple tips for healthy eating include avoiding ultraprocessed foods with artificial ingredients, eating plants as often as possible and consuming everything in moderation.
So what does Nestle eat in a day? She’s not a fan of the question.
“First of all, it seems just immensely personal,” Nestle, Ph.D., a retired professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, tells TODAY.com.
“And then also, because my diet varies so much from day to day, it’s really hard to say.”
Another reason: “You’re talking to somebody who doesn’t eat much,” she says. “I’m not hungry very often.”
Marion Nestle, 89, says the secret of healthy nutrition is to vary foods as much as possible and keep them as minimally processed as possible.Courtesy Peter Menzel
Still, Nestle shared an outline of her daily menu as well as some of her favorite foods.
Breakfast
Nestle is not a breakfast eater in the traditional sense because she doesn’t get hungry until late in the morning, so she usually doesn’t have her first meal until 11 o’clock or later.
She then typically eats cereal and fruit. Her preference is spoon-size shredded wheat since it has only one ingredient, whole grain wheat, and she can add her own sugar and berries. Nestle has a sweet tooth and likes sprinkling raw turbinado sugar on cereal or yogurt, though she’s careful about how much she uses.
“People should eat when they’re hungry,” she says, adding that a lot of research that proclaims breakfast the most important meal of the day has been sponsored by cereal companies.
Most ready-to-eat breakfast cereals have so much sugar and so many additives that “they might as well be cookies,” she writes in her book. But the unprocessed options are still healthy, she adds.
Lunch
Nestle’s midday meal consists of a sandwich or a salad. She typically eats a largely plant-based diet.
Dinner
She often finishes the day with a salad.
Homemade meals are generally best. “If someone else prepares the food, you have no idea what is in it,” Nestle writes in her book. “Even salads and vegetables from takeout places will almost certainly have more calories, fat, sugar and salt than you would use at home.”
Still, Nestle likes eating out so when she’s at a restaurant, she simply tries to avoid overeating.
What’s in Her Grocery Cart
Nestle buys real, unprocessed food with one ingredient or just a few — “I prefer organic if I can get it, and I’m fortunate in being able to afford it,” she says.
Her grocery list includes berries, vegetables for a salad such as lettuce, carrots and peppers; cereal, eggs, cheese, milk and yogurt. “I view cheese as one of life’s greatest pleasures,” she writes in her book. Cheese is high in fat and calories, so she pays attention to portion sizes.
Nestle eats meat, but not very much.
She stays out of the snack food aisle, noting fruit, carrot sticks and nuts make the perfect snacks. If she does buy something prepackaged, she looks for snacks that have short ingredient lists with recognizable foods and contain as little salt and sugar as possible.
Favorite Treats
She enjoys full-fat ice cream with the fewest number of ingredients — “I like vanilla because I like adding things to it,” she says.
Nestle occasionally eats Oreo cookies and likes thick potato chips fried in olive oil and seasoned with rosemary. “If I am going to eat potato chips at all, I would rather eat ones I like — just not too many at once,” she writes in her book.
Her advice to people who love “junky snack foods” is to eat and enjoy them, but in small quantities and not too often.
Her Exercise Routine
“I live in New York — that’s it. I don’t do anything else. I don’t go to gyms. I take the subway. If you take the subway, you have to be able to walk upstairs,” Nestle says.
“A physical therapist once told me, ‘If you can do it today, you can do it tomorrow.’ And I thought that was amazing advice. So I just keep doing it.”