What did Einstein eat? Inside the diet of the famed physicist

Scientists have long known that the human body, including the brain, needs food to function optimally. A diet high in proteins, vitamins, and minerals may have helped Einstein's brain function optimally.

ompared to breakfast, lunch was much less of a regular occurrence in Einstein’s daily life. In 1915, he wrote a letter to his second son, Hans Albert Einstein, in which he says, “I am often so engrossed in my work that I forget to eat lunch.”

• Even when someone else was doing the cooking, Einstein had a relatively simple, if not terribly healthy diet.
• Some of Einstein’s scientist friends would regularly get together to discuss physics and other academic pursuits. In his biography of Einstein, Walter Isaacson writes that Einstein's dinners “were frugal repasts of sausage, Gruyère cheese, fruit, and tea.”

So while it's impossible to tell if Einstein’s diet contributed to his tremendous brainpower, the famed physicist was, unfortunately, plagued by chronic gastrointestinal issues throughout his life. These included both stomach ulcers and jaundice.

The physician diagnosed him with a “chronic stomach malady” and mandated a four-week diet of rice, macaroni, and zwieback bread, which is a dry, crunchy German bread similar to Melba toast.

In April of 1955, Einstein died from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Although his diet likely isn’t to blame, his lifestyle habits may have been. According to the Mayo Clinic, tobacco use is the biggest risk factor for developing an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

So is a diet of beans, eggs, and mushrooms the secret to cracking science’s toughest questions? Of course not. But eating those kinds of nutrient-dense foods may give you the energy to try.