RealGM Wiretap
Allen Campbell is the personal chef of Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen.
Campbell previously was a chef at the Boston Harbor Hotel, the Bay Tower Room and Mistral. Campbell met the couple while working in Miami.
"Around the time I met them, I had started really focusing on plant-based diets, because that’s where all the nutrition is. Their previous chef came from a very similar perspective, and they wanted something similar to their old chef. Even from the start, it was just such a great match between what they wanted and my philosophy.
"In the beginning, I just picked their brains as much as I could. I was trying to pull feedback from them, saying “You need to tell me if something isn’t good.” And then I just started making food. They were just really laid back—that’s how they are."
Campbell is a believer in a plant-based diet.
"My philosophy starts in my own life, and with my own lifestyle and eating habits. I make conscious decisions to buy local and organic, and to stay away from GMOs, and to think about the future of the planet and the future of humans.
"I took a plant-based nutrition course earlier this year. It was an online course through Cornell, and it’s taught by a doctor named T. Colin Campbell, who’s behind “The China Study.”
"My philosophy is that a plant-based diet has the power to reverse and prevent disease."
Brady and Bundchen primarily eat vegetables.
"So, 80 percent of what they eat is vegetables. [I buy] the freshest vegetables. If it’s not organic, I don’t use it. And whole grains: brown rice, quinoa, millet, beans. The other 20 percent is lean meats: grass-fed organic steak, duck every now and then, and chicken. As for fish, I mostly cook wild salmon.
"It’s very different than a traditional American diet. But if you just eat sugar and carbs—which a lot of people do—your body is so acidic, and that causes disease. Tom recently outed Frosted Flakes and Coca-Cola on WEEI. I love that he did that. Sugar is the death of people."
Brady's diet is fairly restrictive.
"No white sugar. No white flour. No MSG. I’ll use raw olive oil, but I never cook with olive oil. I only cook with coconut oil. Fats like canola oil turn into trans fats. ... I use Himalayan pink salt as the sodium. I never use iodized salt.
"[Tom] doesn’t eat nightshades, because they’re not anti-inflammatory. So no tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, or eggplants. Tomatoes trickle in every now and then, but just maybe once a month. I’m very cautious about tomatoes. They cause inflammation.
"What else? No coffee. No caffeine. No fungus. No dairy.
"The kids eat fruit. Tom, not so much. He will eat bananas in a smoothie. But otherwise, he prefers not to eat fruits."