The bizarre eating habits of Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was as brilliant as he was bizarre, and as anyone who’s spent too long on the internet will tell you, he was brilliant in a way no one of his day was ready for.
By this time, anyone who has spent much time on this fair site has the life of Nikola Tesla down pat, at least the basics of it. Born in what we now know as Austria. Moved to America just in time to be royally screwed over by Thomas Edison. Created the alternating current electricity supply system, and with the absurd amount of money that came with that, spent the rest of his life as a roving inventor.
Tragically, he was never quite able to capitalise on his incredible inventions, reportedly years ahead of their time, before dying penniless in New York City at the age of 86. That part has passed into myth and legend, with possibly tall tales of designing a worldwide, wireless electric power system following him long after his death. However, just as infamous as his inventions are his peculiarities.
He was obsessed with pigeons, with some going so far as to say he fell in love with one later in life. Despite his love of birds regularly (and falsely) called “flying rats”, he was an obsessive germaphobe. He had a lifelong obsession with doing things in threes, rarely returning home without walking around the block he was living in three times before entering. Perhaps his biggest obsession, certainly the one that he could get the most heated about, was his diet.
Tesla, like most things in his life, was obsessive about the things he ate. However, while most of the time he was able to glide through polite society as a witty, eccentric and charming presence, he had a tendency to become a hectoring bore whenever the subject of food came up. Something we can see in a lot of his letters.
What was the diet of Nikola Tesla?
Tesla saw food as nothing more than fuel for the body. The idea of enjoying it, savouring it, and in particular, indulging in it wasn’t just alien to him, but outright offensive.
In his words, he put it as “Why overburden the bodies that serve us? I eat but two meals a day, and I avoid all acid-producing foods. Almost everyone eats too many peas and beans and other foods containing uric acid and other poisons. I partake liberally of fresh vegetables, fish and meat sparingly, and rarely.”
Breakfast was pretty much always a small portion of lightly scrambled eggs and a glass of milk, the latter of which he considered to be nature’s most perfect food. That was meal number one of two, and the second would be dinner 12 human hours later, a small portion of soup, with celery broth being a particular favourite, served with potatoes or, very occasionally, a side of lean chicken or fish. If a desert was had, and it was rarely had, it was basically never more than an apple.
I mean, people aren’t meant to live on that little, but live your joy, I guess. The tough part to take is the frankly horrible things he had to say about fat people in his private letters and memoirs. It really does seem like we’ve learned all the wrong lessons from Nikola Tesla in 2025, with modern culture’s abhorrence of fat people being one of them and the other being… well, the most famous way that Tesla’s name is invoked these days. Some fascist geek’s attempt to run the world.
We could have learned so much from an imperfect, yet brilliant man, yet this is what I’ve got. Depressing stuff.