From Queen's love for chocolates to William-Harry eating fast food: Chef reveals the royals' dining habits

Ever wondered what are the dining habits of the royals? Royal chef Darren McGrady, who cooked for the noble family, gives an insight into the eating habits of Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philips, Prince Charles, Princess Diana, Prince William and Prince Harry.

McGrady told MarieClaire.com that Queen loves chocolate, especially dark chocolates, and has Kellogg's for breakfast. McGrady worked in the Buckingham Palace for 11 years.

Here are a few details of the Royals' eating habits, as revealed by McGrady to MarieClaire.com

Queen Elizabeth's love for chocolate

He said that dark chocolates are Queen's favourite. "But of course, she loves chocolate. That was her favourite, and it has to be dark chocolate. The darker the chocolate, the better," he said.

She doesn't like garlic and hates the smell and taste of it. He also clarified that the Queen would eat fruits from a Tupperware container. "People always say, 'Oh, the Queen must eat off gold plates with gold knives and forks.' Yes, sometimes...but at Balmoral, she'd eat fruit from a plastic yellow Tupperware container."

"Breakfast was very simple for Her Majesty. Some Kellogg's cereal from a plastic container, which she'd serve herself. And some Darjeeling tea."

Princess Diana's diet post Bulimia

McGrady revealed how he got into making healthy food when Princess Diana asked him to "take care of all the fats."

"One day she said to me, 'Darren I want you to take care of all the fats, and I'll take care of the carbs at the gym.' We changed everything, I threw out my Buckingham Palace recipe book and got into healthy eating. When she was at Buckingham Palace, her bulimia was definitely a hidden thing. We didn't know about it. It wasn't until she confronted it, and everyone put two and two together, that she started really healthy eating...she liked dishes like stuffed bell peppers and stuffed eggplant—she loved fish."

Harry and William's love for fast food

Like most of the children, Prince William and Prince Harry also loved eating fast food, especially from McDonald's. Once, Diana asked McGrady to not make lunch for them because they wanted to eat burgers.

"I remember the Princess came into the kitchen one day and said, 'Cancel lunch for the boys I'm taking them out, we're going to McDonald's. And I said, 'Oh my god your royal highness, I can do that, I can do burgers.' And she said, 'No, it's the toy they want.' Yeah, the boys loved McDonald's, and going out to pizza, and having potato skins—sort of the American foods. They were royal princes but had children's palates."

Prince Philip swapped food with staff food

Apparently, staff food tempted Prince Philip more than the food that was cooked for him. Once when McGrady told him what was cooked for him, Philip decided to exchange the food with the staff.

"He looked and said, 'What's that—what are they?' And I said, 'Oh, those are chops, Your Highness.' He wanted to know who they were for, and I said, 'staff.' And he said, 'Oh, can't we have those?' I ended up giving him these big meatier pieces, and the staff had the other pieces."

A menu book for Queen Elizabeth

The chefs at the Buckingham Palace used to send menu book to the Queen and she would select the food from that.

"At Buckingham Palace, we'd do a menu book that we'd send up to the Queen and she could choose the dishes she wanted. The book would come back to the kitchen and we'd prepare them. The Queen's menus are done three or more days ahead and she sticks with them religiously."