Warren Buffett eats in a way few would consider healthy. From hamburger lunches to ice cream
breakfasts, his diet surely stands in contrast to most other ninety-year-old world-beaters.
Buffett has his reasons for what he eats, and we're here to dish them out for you.
Warren Buffett's close friend, billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates,
says Buffett mostly subsists on a diet of hamburgers, ice cream,
and Coke. Celebrating 25 years of their friendship in 2016, Gates wrote in his blog, Gates Notes:
"One thing that was surprising to learn about Warren is that he has
basically stuck to eating what he liked when he was six years old."
He recalled a time when Buffett stayed at his and his now ex-wife Melinda Gates' house,
and opened a package of Oreo cookies for breakfast. Gates mused:
"Our kids immediately demanded they have some too. He may set a poor example for young people,
but it's a diet that somehow works for him."
Yes, Buffett eats like a kindergartener whose parents are away.
"I drink probably five twelve ounce cokes a day, and that's about 700 calories."
For breakfast, he may have a bowl of ice cream,
or potato chips. Buffett's logic? He reasoned with Fortune:
"I checked the actuarial tables, and the lowest death rate is among 6-year-olds,
so I decided to eat like a 6-year-old. It's the safest course I can take."
During his off time from managing a $509 billion company, Warren Buffett makes time for his
grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Buffett's daughter, Susie, told People:
"He could tell you everything about what they're all doing.
He knows every one of those kids and he knows about their lives."
Once a month, Buffett takes his grandchildren and
great-grandchildren to Dairy Queen. He told Yahoo Finance:
"What I usually get is a small sundae for the ice cream and the extra large sundae for the topping.
I just smother in the cherry topping and then pour a lot of nuts on it."
Buffett also enjoys vanilla orange bars and vanilla soft-serve ice cream
topped with chocolate syrup and malted milk powder.
Buffett's history with Dairy Queen goes back a long way.
John Gainor, then-Dairy Queen CEO, told Fox Business:
"Warren tells this story that, when he was young, he took a young lady to Dairy Queen.
She had a great experience, and he said that if he ever had the opportunity,
he would buy the business. So he did."
Berkshire Hathaway — Buffett's company — bought Dairy Queen for $585 million in 1997.
Buffett told CNBC that he has a McDonald's card that allows him to eat for free
at any of the fast food chain's Omaha restaurants. There's no expiration date on the gold card — not
that it matters. Buffett's company has enough money to buy McDonald's outright.
But the very modest billionaire told CNBC that the card is the reason,
quote, "why the Buffett family has Christmas dinner at McDonald's."
Buffett has always been careful in how he spends his money.
He sticks to his hard-and-fast rule of investing:
"Don't lose [money]."
This involves saving every penny that can be saved, even if that means using coupons.
In Bill and Melinda Gates' 2017 annual letter, Bill recounted a time when he and
Buffett traveled to Hong Kong and Buffett whipped out coupons to pay at McDonald's.
Yes, Buffett seems to appreciate a good deal — no matter how small. The market's
highs and lows even affect what he eats. In the documentary "Becoming Warren Buffett",
he explained how he decides which of three breakfast options to order at McDonald's.
"When I'm not feeling quite so prosperous, I might go with the $2.61, which is two sausage patties,
and then I put them together and pour myself a Coke. $3.17 is a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit,
but the market's down this morning, so I'll pass up the $3.17 and go with the $2.95."
Warren Buffett doesn't need much to keep him happy. He has been going to the same
office for over half a century and residing in the same house that he purchased in 1958 for
$31,500. He told Financial Times in 2019:
"I'm having a vacation every day. If there was someplace else I wanted to go,
I'd go there. This is the pleasure palace here — you're sitting in it now.
I have more fun here than I think any 88-year-old is having, virtually, in the world."
What he eats, therefore, is also solely based on the happiness test. Buffett said:
"My diet, though far from standard, is somewhat better than usually portrayed.
I have a wonderful doctor who nudges me in your direction every time I see him.
All in all, I've enjoyed remarkably good health — largely because of genes,
of course — but also, I think, because I enjoy life so much every day."
Although Buffett may eat McDonald's every day, he sometimes eats at
non-fast food restaurants. One of Buffett's favorite Omaha eateries is Gorat's Steakhouse,
where he always orders the same thing: a salad with blue cheese,
a 22-ounce steak with a double order of hash browns, and a tall glass of cherry Coke.
Cauliflower makes Warren Buffett sick and rhubarb makes him
retch. He doesn't like sweet potatoes, but he will reluctantly nosh on some carrots.
Buffett is vocal about his disdain for vegetables in the book "The Snowball:
Warren Buffett and the Business of Life." Buffett's biographer, Alice Schroeder, wrote:
"He had despised everything green from birth, except money."
Buffett once told his chef:
"Broccoli, asparagus, and Brussels sprouts look to me like Chinese food crawling around on a plate."
The billionaire also has a particularly unique way in which he eats his meals. Schroeder wrote:
"He ate his foods in sequence, one at a time, and did not like the individual foods to touch.
If a stalk of broccoli brushed his steak, he recoiled in horror."
At the 50th annual Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders meeting in Omaha, he even took a dig at a popular
grocery store for their vegan offerings. The Daily Mail reported that he said:
"I don't see smiles on the faces of people at Whole Foods."
No matter which part of the world he travels to, Warren Buffett sticks with the meals he
knows, usually a hamburger or a hotdog. In Buffett's biography, he is quoted as saying:
"I like eating the same thing over and over and over again.
I could eat a ham sandwich every day for fifty days in a row for breakfast."
Some have tried to change his deep-set ways. Buffett's first wife, Susan Thompson,
in an attempt to broaden her husband's exposure to international cuisine, had them join a gourmet
cooking club in which couples, quote, "dined on Swedish meatballs one month and French crêpes the
next." Nonetheless, Buffett would always ask the hostess to make him a hamburger.
CNBC's Becky Quick, who'd once traveled with Buffett to China and South Korea, learned that
Buffett liked to travel, but did not like to try the local food. In her video diary, she said:
"He made a joke and said that he'd eat anything that he ate at his fifth
birthday party and that's about it. He likes hamburgers, he likes hot dogs,
and he was pretty much dead set that he wasn't going to be eating much of the local cuisine."
A Business Insider reporter attempted to try Buffett's diet and realized that by drinking
soda like the billionaire, he was flooding his body with a whopping 252 grams of sugar per day,
on average. Note that the American Heart Association
recommends that men consume no more than 36 grams of added sugar per day.
Buffett's diet is not just high in sugar. After having a meal with Buffett in 2014,
Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, commented on the amount of
salt that Buffett generously showered on his food. Stumpf told Bloomberg:
"When the food comes, Warren grabs a salt shaker
in his left hand and one in his right, and it's a snowstorm."
Consuming too much salt can increase your blood pressure,
and make you more prone to heart failure.
Buffett probably knows his diet is unhealthy, but he has no plans to change it.
Bloomberg reported that he revealed at his company's annual meeting in 2016:
"I elect to get my 2,600 or 2,700 calories a day from things that
make me feel good when I eat them. I have not seen evidence that convinces
me that it'll be more likely I reach 100 if I suddenly switched to water and broccoli."
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