Bill Clinton's Now Meat-Free Diet Has Changed A Lot Over The Years

While he was president, Bill Clinton wasn't known as the healthiest eater. In fact, he enjoyed his share of fast food. (Like Trump, McDonald's was reportedly one of his favorite places to grab a quick bite.)

However, Clinton's diet has changed dramatically in more than two decades. Today, he enjoys mainly vegan fare. In an AARP interview from 2013, he explained, "I've stopped eating meat, cheese, milk, even fish. No dairy at all." He noted that he also tries to avoid overly processed carbohydrates.

What sparked the change for Clinton was the realization that nutrition held the key to overcoming a serious cardiovascular condition he faced. According to Politico, heart disease runs in Clinton's family. However, he admitted to ABC in 2004 that he overlooked warning signs of heart disease, which led to him undergoing a quadruple bypass surgery that year.

(Clinton's not the only White House member to have the procedure, though. Former vice president Dick Cheney survived a staggering number of heart attacks during his life, at least one of which required a quadruple bypass.)

Clinton noted that he was "insufficiently vigilant" about correctly interpreting symptoms he had, like shortness of breath. One piece of advice he gave to people in his situation was to make dietary changes.

A 2023 study in the European Heart Journal found that adopting a plant-based lifestyle (such as the one Clinton follows) could reduce a person's risk of developing heart disease. In fact, the study revealed that veganism and vegetarianism were linked to a reduction in cholesterol levels in human subjects. "This corresponds to a third of the effect of taking cholesterol-lowering medications such as statins, and would result in a 7% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease in someone who maintained a plant-based diet for five years," study author Dr. Frikke-Schmidt explained to CNN.

Interestingly, Clinton's willingness to make a dietary shift after a health scare isn't as common a reaction as you might imagine. According to The Columbus Dispatch, a 2013 survey found that about a quarter of men who have had a heart-related event don't change habits like what they eat or how much they exercise.

Going meat-free isn't the only way to potentially improve your cardiovascular system. The American Heart Association suggests trying the Mediterranean diet, which features Mediterranean diet foods that Clinton avoids (e.g., fish, dairy, poultry, and eggs.)

Research supports a possible cardioprotective benefit of the Mediterranean diet. For instance, a 2017 clinical trial in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research revealed a link between eating a Mediterranean diet and lowered low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease. Likewise, a 2020 study in Endocrinology and Metabolism noted a 25% decrease in LDL among individuals with elevated cholesterol who ate a soy-free and nut-free Mediterranean diet for about two months.

Even after his diet transformation, Clinton still needed a follow-up surgical heart treatment to place two stents in his veins in 2010. The cardiologist who performed the angiography and stent placement, Dr. Allan Schwartz, emphasized that Clinton hadn't had a heart attack and should recover well (via NPR). Though no other heart incidents have been reported about Clinton since that time, he was seen traveling in 2025 with what appeared to be a defibrillator.