LaLanne ate a mostly vegetarian diet, with the exception of fish. He also cut out all sugary desserts in 1929, after hearing a lecture by Paul Bragg, a pioneering nutritionist who advocated a diet rich in vegetables, brown rice and whole wheat. "He got me so enthused," LaLanne said. "After the lecture I went to his dressing room and spent an hour and a half with him. He said, 'Jack, you're a walking garbage can.'"
Despite his focus on eating right, LaLanne never got on the organic-food bandwagon. He called organics a "bunch of bull." He told an interviewer five years ago:
How do you know what's really organic? Today, there's all these impurities in the water and the air. The water for the fruits and vegetables has junk in it. If you get enough vitamins and minerals out of normal food and whole grains, and you get enough proteins and exercise (that's the key) then nature builds up a tolerance to all of these things. It's survival of the fittest. You can't have everything perfect, that's impossible, but the fit survive. The fit can handle the impurities in the air and in the water, but the poor people who are sick, it really affects them more.