This two-time Academy Award-winning actor has received eight Academy Award nominations in six different categories and has been a long-time fan-favorite actor, film producer, director, and activist. Many celebrities are known for their strict dieting, so it’s fair to wonder if Clooney might be one of them.
George Clooney is not vegan, nor is he vegetarian. In the past, Clooney didn’t follow any kind of diet, since it constantly changed so that he could be the right weight for his roles, but in recent years he and his family have been focusing on eating healthier.
Read on to find out more about Clooney’s diet and how it’s changed in the past years, as well as some misguided attempts at promoting vegan and vegetarian options featuring Clooney.
All in Moderation
Clooney doesn’t follow a specific diet, but tends to opt for a sustainable approach to eating, focusing on having mainly healthy meals while also being able to indulge when he wants to. The star has been spotted at fast-food restaurants, only to go back to fairly clean eating the next day.
Amal Clooney, a human rights lawyer who married Clooney in 2014, shares the goal of eating in moderation. She’s talked about how she followed the Mediterranean diet after having kids, which Clooney partially followed as well.
The Mediterranean diet involves eating primarily plant-based foods, like a lot of other diets, using olive oil or other healthy fats instead of butter, focusing on herbs and spices instead of salt, and limiting red meat intake while eating more fish and poultry. Seafood is a main part of the diet, as is eating poultry, eggs, yogurt, and cheese in moderation.
The Clooneys also include some meat and “junk food” in moderation, which explains George Clooney’s non-diet based meals.
This is a big change from how Clooney used to view dieting back when he had to fit his appearance to every role he played. Back in a 2006 interview with Larry King, Clooney talked about his fluctuating weight, putting on or dropping pounds for the next role.
“I finished ‘Ocean’s Twelve’ August 1st, finished shooting, and then September 1st started shooting ‘Syriana,’ so I had 30 days to put on 35 pounds… I did it the old-fashioned way. I ate. I went to Italy and ate until I couldn’t… It was like a pie-eating contest though, you know. It wasn’t fun jamming food down your throat.”
PETA’s CloFu
With the fluctuations in Clooney’s diet, where did rumors about his vegan or vegetarian eating come from?
Back in 2009, PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, was looking for ways to promote more plant-based diets to fight meat consumption. Their plan? To make a George Clooney flavored tofu called CloFu.
The idea was to get more people to eat tofu and fight the belief that tofu is bland or flavorless. Tofu “can absorb any taste–so CloFu could make your taste buds and your heart melt,” as PETA explained in a blog post about the invention.
Somehow, they got a towel soaked with his sweat from the gym, which is already a bad start. Then, they pick out individual components to his odor, replicate the flavor, and add that to some tofu.
In a letter to Clooney, they explained that it would be like making chicken flavoring for gravy, and that the CloFu “would attract many people who don’t try tofu because they worry that it would be bland or that they wouldn’t know how to cook it.”
In response, Clooney joked, “As a mammal, I am offended.” Many fans were also less than excited about the prospect of CloFu, tweeting things like this, which reads, “I am a little concerned that PETA thought George Clooney’s sweat in tofu was a good idea to turn people Vegetarian…”
Watch the YouTube video below to learn more about PETA’s CloFu plan.