5 foods millionaires never eat—and the surprising reason why

Let’s clear one thing up quick.

This isn’t a purity take a look at.

I’m not claiming each millionaire lives on chia pudding and kale chips whereas meditating in a salt cave.

What I’ve observed—throughout interviews, journey, and a complete lot of studying on determination science—is that this: individuals who win long run shield their vitality, consideration, and identification with ruthless consistency.

Meals is among the most sensible methods they do it.

It’s not about fancy eating places. It’s about defaults that compound.

Listed here are 5 meals they virtually by no means contact, and the counterintuitive motive why.

Spoiler: it has much less to do with “clear consuming” and extra to do with clear decision-making.

1) Extremely-processed snacks

Suppose chips that soften into nothing in your tongue.

Brightly packed cookies engineered to fade by row three.

“Snack mixes” the place the mud is the purpose.

I grew up round studios and rehearsal areas the place bowls of these items sat subsequent to the amps. I used to eat by the handful whereas enhancing a monitor, then marvel why my focus fell off a cliff at 3 p.m.

Individuals who shield their edge skip it.

Why? As a result of ultra-processed snacks hijack the precise methods excessive performers can’t afford handy over: dopamine, satiety indicators, and impulse management. They’re not simply excessive in salt, sugar, and refined fat—they’re designed to be frictionless to eat. Which implies you’re outsourcing willpower to a brightly coloured bag.

Millionaires don’t need meals that negotiates with them.

They need meals that solutions questions upstream: Will I’ve secure vitality at 2 p.m.? Will I nonetheless be calm in a boardroom at 4? Will I be artistic at 7 after I sit down to write down?

The “shocking motive” right here isn’t vainness.

It’s bandwidth.

Take away the snack chaos and also you regain an hour of clear thinking. That hour compounds into higher calls, cleaner writing, kinder parenting. That’s the actual return on funding.

My repair: pre-commit to low-drama swaps I really like—salted nuts, fruit, air-popped popcorn, roasted chickpeas. Nothing heroic. Simply snacks that don’t eat me again.

2) Sugary drinks

In case you’re nonetheless cracking a soda at lunch, your afternoon already stated goodbye.

Cans, bottles, “vitality” drinks, even these tea-lemonade hybrids that learn as wholesome.

Liquid sugar spikes, then crashes.

Crashes result in uneven considering, quick fuses, and low you didn’t want 5 minutes in the past.

In case you’ve ever needed to make a six-figure determination at 2:30 p.m., you recognize why that issues.

I’ve talked about this earlier than however the level of consuming like a professional isn’t to be good. It’s to maintain your glucose extra like mild waves than tidal surges. Secure blood sugar equals a secure temper. Secure temper equals higher conferences. Higher conferences equal higher months.

Millionaires assume in months, not minutes.

Additionally they love methods. In order that they construct a beverage system that by no means asks for willpower: water bottle on the desk, glowing water stocked at eye degree, unsweetened tea within the fridge, a default espresso order that isn’t a milkshake in disguise.

Is that this about physique fats?

Generally.

Extra typically, it’s about avoiding what psychologists name “ego depletion.” Each crash taxes your capacity to decide on nicely later. Good folks take away the crash.

Another reason they cross on sugary drinks: the optics are altering. In 2025, signaling management seems to be cooler than signaling “deal with your self.” A visual can of soda reads careless in sure rooms the best way a visual cigarette used to.

Unfair?

Possibly.

However technique pays. Optics are a part of technique.

3) Manufacturing facility-farmed animal merchandise

This one would possibly shock you.

Not as a result of each rich individual is plant-based.

As a result of a rising quantity quietly pattern that means, a minimum of Monday to Friday, for a really sensible motive: danger administration.

Animal-heavy comfort meals—particularly a budget, industrial sort—carry a cluster of dangers that don’t present up on a receipt: irritation, foodborne sickness, antibiotic publicity, and the gradual, refined drag of meals that sit heavy and steal vitality.

Millionaires don’t get pleasure from meals comas.

They get pleasure from being 5 % sharper than the room.

I went vegan years in the past for moral causes, then stayed as a result of my mind favored the improve. Lighter lunches, cleaner afternoons. After I’m taking pictures photographs or deep right into a draft, I need a float, not a fog.

There’s additionally the model layer no person likes to speak about. The folks writing the longer term care about sustainability. Those funding it more and more do, too. Passing on factory-farmed meat and dairy is a straightforward alignment transfer—fewer contradictions to elucidate later.

What takes its place?

Plant-forward bowls, legumes, entire grains, tofu, tempeh, nuts, seeds, veggies dressed like they matter. If somebody does eat animal merchandise, they select the high-quality, low-frequency route and maintain parts small. The throughline isn’t dogma. It’s management.

Management of vitality.

Management of values.

Management of what tomorrow’s headline may say about them.

4) Deep-fried quick meals

Quick, low-cost, crunchy, sizzling.

The right lure.

I’m not moralizing fried meals. I’m mentioning physics. Deep-fried quick meals is often a triple hit of refined carbs, broken fat, and salt. The spike-crash is spectacular. The nap you don’t have time for is assured.

In case your day relies on making good calls late—negotiations, artistic critiques, investor check-ins—you possibly can’t afford a lunch that steals the again half of your afternoon.

That’s the actual motive this class is a no from the folks you consider as disciplined.

They’re no more virtuous than the remainder of us.

They’re extra protecting.

Additionally they perceive surroundings design. Discover their workplaces and houses. You’ll not often discover them inside straightforward placing distance of a drive-thru. Their commute routes keep away from it. Their calendars shield a 20-minute window to eat one thing that received’t punish them later.

Right here’s my transfer on journey days: I map a grocery retailer close to the airport and seize a whole-grain wrap, hummus, veggies, fruit, water. Sounds boring till you land with a steady brain and an honest temper.

Boring wins.

Again and again.

5) Late-night takeout

Sure, it’s technically a “when,” but it surely’s additionally a definite meals class: the heavy, salty, overly sauced meals we solely order after 9 p.m. as a result of the day acquired away from us.

Really rich folks engineer their lives to keep away from this one.

Not as a result of they don’t love noodles. As a result of late-night takeout steals tomorrow.

Sleep high quality tanks.

Coronary heart price stays elevated.

Deep sleep shrinks.

Your morning turns into a salvage operation as an alternative of a launch.

Ask anybody who does actual creative or strategic work what that prices over 1 / 4.

It’s not small.

What replaces it? A brief listing of “last-resort dinners” that prepare dinner themselves. Frozen grain bowls. Soup and toast. Dealer Joe’s stir-fry greens plus tofu and pre-cooked rice. A giant salad with beans, nuts, and no matter is left within the fridge. You’re not attempting to win a culinary award at 9:30. You’re attempting to guard sleep.

In the event that they do order in, they go mild and early, then they cease. Guardrails, not guilt.

That’s the sample throughout each meals on this listing.

Do that for one week

You don’t want a biography rewrite.

Run a tiny experiment.

• Change ultra-processed snacks with a jar of nuts and a fruit bowl in your desk.
• Swap sugary drinks for glowing water with a squeeze of lime.
• Go plant-forward for weekday lunches—grain bowl, beans, roasted veggies, avocado.
• Drive previous the deep-fried choices. Seize a deli hummus wrap as an alternative.
• Set a no-order window after 8 p.m. Hold two “emergency dinners” in your freezer.

Then watch the downstream results.

Power evens out.

Choices get cleaner.

Your evenings really feel longer.

You don’t grow to be a monk. You grow to be an individual who stopped letting their meals funds steal from their attention budget.

That’s the millionaire transfer.

Remaining takeaway

The purpose isn’t to impress anybody at a farmer’s market.

It’s to guard the a part of you that does the actual work.

Skip the 5 meals that tax your mind and your sleep, not since you’re chasing a gold star, however since you’re chasing a life that compounds.

That’s the quiet weight loss program no person talks about.

It’s not fancy.

It’s efficient.