This Is What Oprah Eats

Oprah Winfrey eats plenty of fruits. She considers them to be good fuel for the body, saying on Oprah.com that she is "passionate about breakfast," listing some of the fruits she chooses to start her day with. Her favorites include passion fruit, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and bananas, often served in smoothies or with breakfast staples like pancakes, oatmeal, quinoa, and baked goods.

Oprah's high opinion of fruit has a sound basis in science. Fruits and vegetables have been shown to not only be diet-friendly foods, but can also work as preventative medicines. People who eat an average of eight or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day have a significantly reduced risk of having a heart attack or stroke. Citrus fruits are especially beneficial. Other health benefits of eating a lot of fruit include a reduced risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure, and lower risks of other illnesses including diabetes and digestive issues. It looks like Oprah is putting plenty of good fuel into her body, which will likely help her live a long, healthy life.

Even those who pay no attention to Oprah Winfrey and her food journey know this little tidbit — it's the one fact that makes her more relatable than anything else. Oprah's love for bread has become infamous, thanks to a Weight Watchers commercial in which the talk show host professes her love for it. "This is the joy for me," she said. "I love bread. I love bread. I now just manage it, so I don't deny myself bread, I have bread every day." We can all empathize with you on that one, Oprah. 

She also told Us Weekly that she has a weakness for bread, particularly "a seeded bread...from South Africa" and that she has even been known to bring her own bread to hotels, asking the hotel staff to toast it for her. Now that's bread love! At breakfast, Oprah says that her bread preference is "multigrain, double toasted."

Bread is often viewed as a high-carb food that should be avoided when you're trying to lose weight, but a little bread won't hurt you. Women's Health pointed out that there are a lot of foods we think of as healthy, like apples and soy milk, that have even more carbs than a slice of bread, so if you love bread like Oprah does, toast away!

Pasta is another delicious food that people tend to avoid when they are trying to eat healthy, but Oprah Winfrey finds healthy ways of incorporating it into her diet. For lunch she will sometimes have cacio e pepe pasta with sautéed shrimp. The low-fat shrimp offsets the carb-filled pasta (which means she can get by with a little less pasta on her plate), so it doesn't cost her too many points on her Weight Watchers' diet.

Oprah loves her pasta, and has a brilliant (and sneaky) way of making herself think she's eating more of it. Spaghetti squash is a pasta alternative that is often used when people are cutting back on carbs, but there is definitely a difference in taste and texture between squash and actual pasta. In order to get around those differences, Oprah adds something extra to her spaghetti squash. She mixes a bit of real pasta in with the veggie pasta. This mixture still provides a healthier alternative to pure pasta, but it also tastes more like the real deal than plain spaghetti squash.

When Oprah Winfrey is in the mood for a snack, she tries to choose a healthy option that will indulge her craving without being unhealthy. One of her favorite healthy snack options is a root vegetable you may have never heard of, called jicama. "I love jicama because you get a crunch," Oprah said in a Weight Watchers members call (via Today.) In addition to being crunchy, the veggie also has a sweet and nutty taste, making it ideal for snacking, and great replacement for chips.

Jicama, which is also called yam bean, Mexican turnip, and Mexican potato, is native to Mexico. It can be tricky to find in the United States as it isn't locally grown, but can usually be found in larger supermarkets or in Mexican, Latin American, or Asian specialty stores. The Kitchn described the vegetable's flavor as that of a savory apple. It's a root vegetable with brown skin that does look a bit like a potato — but it's something very different. The vegetable can be cooked while retaining its crisp, or eaten raw for extra crunch.

Oprah Winfrey may hate water, but she loves hot drinks like tea and cappuccino. She brews herself a cup of one of these beverages daily, and uses the time her drink takes to brew to get mentally prepared for the day. While waiting for her drink, Oprah reads inspirational quotes. 

"When I'm standing in the kitchen and waiting on my tea to brew, I'll read one [quote] for every minute it takes to finish brewing," she told Hollywood Reporter (via Owaves.com). "Everything from Gandhi to Thoreau."

She also enjoys visiting Starbucks. You'd think that someone as famous as Oprah would immediately be recognized and walk out of the shop with her name correctly spelled on her cup, but it turns out that this isn't the case. Oprah revealed to E! News that she had to spell her name out on a coffee run. "Oh my god, I just went two days ago," she said. "And the woman said 'name?', and I said 'Oprah', and she said 'how do you spell that?'" It's great to know we're not the only ones that happens to....

Oprah Winfrey's love of gift giving is legendary. Over the years, she has given quite generously to her audiences, surprising them with vacations, cash, and even cars. Her neighbors are regular receivers of Oprah's generosity, too, although what they get isn't quite as exciting as a trip to Disney World. Still, who can say no to freshly grown vegetables, especially knowing how good they are for you?

Regularly eating vegetables has several health benefits, and can reduce the risk of heart disease, lower your blood pressure, and may even prevent certain cancers. The most benefit comes from eating a wide variety of vegetables as part of a healthy diet. Oprah takes advantage of all of the nutrients in veggies by eating plenty of them, and grows her own in her garden so she can always have fresh produce on hand. 

She sometimes ends up with more than she needs, which is when she spreads the wealth by distributing the extras to her lucky neighbors.

If there is one thing we can all learn from what Oprah Winfrey eats, it's that healthy eating doesn't have to be boring. In fact, if you're doing it right, it shouldn't be boring at all. We often associate healthy eating and diets with sacrifice, and assume that we have to give up things we love in order to reap the benefits. This is why typical diets don't usually work in the long run.

The solution is to eat what you want in moderation, and to allow yourself to indulge once in a while, a theory that many of us, including Oprah, can get behind. Even Oprah really lets loose at least once a year, throwing out her carefully regulated eating plan on her birthday. That one day of the year is reserved for indulging her cravings. She said in her cookbook Food, Health and Happiness, "I don't do it often, and I never do it mindlessly; the goal is to make my indulgences intentional... I plan for decadence."