Sarah Jessica Parker Avoids 1 Type of Healthy Food: ‘It Breaks My Heart’
Sarah Jessica Parker has made a name for herself as an actor and a style icon. For better or worse, reaching icon status without adhering to the industry’s strict guidelines about women’s bodies is challenging. The Sex and the City actor has spoken with candor about her diet and exercise routine. Interestingly, Parker avoids one type of healthy food.
Sarah Jessica Parker admits her privilege makes staying healthy easier
The now-57-year-old And Just Like That… star puts considerable time and effort into maintaining her preferred figure. She told Good Housekeeping in 2006 that she works with a personal trainer and regularly does yoga to stay fit.
The results of Parker’s regimen are apparent, but the actor stresses how unattainable her lifestyle is for the average person.
“I want to say something about that, which is that no real woman should look to any woman in this industry as an example. It’s simply not applicable because of the enormous number of advantages we have,” she said. “Women in this country should be reminded to be healthy rather than to be a size zero. I’m not going to kid you: Money changes everything. I’m fortunate enough to have things like private trainers and yoga classes. I realize that.”
Having those resources is great, but being a professional actor also means getting every inch of your body scrutinized and objectified, especially if you’re a woman with Parker’s distinct features. She confirms that people have tried to persuade her to get a nose job, but she remains committed to being herself and not changing her appearance for anyone else’s benefit.
“I’m not an idiot, and I understood that there was a standard of beauty and that I didn’t fit into it. But I’ve always thought of myself as an actor who is on a journey, and part of that journey is finding good work, regardless of my appearance,” she said. “I’ve never wanted to homogenize myself in the way that was expected in the past. And now, I’ve surrounded myself with the sort of people who support me just the way I am.”
Sarah Jessica Parker’s diet doesn’t include nonfat foods
In 2021, Sarah Jessica Parker revealed her weekly eating habits to Grub Street.
Her experiences as a kid deeply inform her relationship with food. She grew up poor in Ohio as one of eight children. As a result, Parker equates food with success.
Eggs, especially hard-boiled, are one of her favorites. The Sex and the City actor gets them from her business manager, George Malkemus, who owns the Arethusa farm in Litchfield, Connecticut. She also enjoys soft-boiled eggs on the rare occasions when she eats breakfast. (Parker mentions she has a morning meal only when she’s filming.)
In addition, she loves tomatoes with cottage cheese, preferably Breakstone’s 2% fat version. Parker revealed she has tried the nonfat variety, but eating it doesn’t appeal to her. “What’s the point? It breaks my heart,” she admitted.
Parker also adores her husband Matthew Broderick’s cooking. He takes his kitchen exploits seriously. According to Parker, he makes pasta Bolognese weekly using different recipes.
“He’s done Rachael Ray’s, he’s done Ina Garten’s, and he’s been doing a good old-fashioned Bon Appétit recipe, which is the one that cooks for three and a half hours,” she tells Grub Street. “He’s determined to find the best recipe. We’re all quizzed about it. We’re all basically given a report card: What do you like about this one? It’s like he’s looking for the holy grail in Bolognese.”
Parker especially likes Broderick’s Bolognese served with romaine lettuce, sliced baby cucumber, and a homemade dressing of red-wine vinegar, olive oil, shallots, kosher salt, and freshly ground pepper.
The ‘Sex and the City’ star doesn’t stick to only low-fat foods
As fit as her job requires her to be, Parker still has a taste for snacks and splurges. During a “73 Questions” video for Vogue several years ago, she answered the following food-related questions:
- Favorite pizza toppings? (sausage, peppers, and onions)
- Favorite drink? (Coca-Cola)
- Milk chocolate or dark chocolate? (milk chocolate)
- Favorite dessert? (her sister’s brownies)
Parker also adores lemon potatoes. In the Grub Street interview, she expounded on what she finds so delicious about them and how eating them transports her taste buds to another continent.
“When you have them in Greece, or you have them in Astoria, they taste a certain way. It’s almost like they were maybe boiled and then baked because there’s a smoothness inside to the potato. It’s not that you want it crisp, necessarily, because true Greek lemon potatoes have the skin on the exterior that’s not the actual jacket of the potato. It’s a very specific thing,” Parker explained. “Lemon potatoes are me trying to get to Greece. It’s all so … ahhh.”
