WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama wants to set the record straight: He doesn’t really eat exactly seven almonds each night.
Obama tells NBC’s “Today Show” that the legend of his disciplined eating habits grew out of a joke that Michelle Obama told former White House chef Sam Kass.
Kass was quoted recently in a New York Times story saying Obama’s only late night snack is seven lightly salted almonds. Kass said he and Michelle joke that it’s “not six. Not eight. Always seven almonds.”
But Obama said friends called him up after the story appeared to say “this is a little weird” and that he had to explain it was really a joke.
Obama says he’s careful about avoiding sodas, chips and cake, but he’s not obsessive enough to count his almonds.
“A lot of people were interested to learn that you have a late-night snack every night of exactly seven almonds,” NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie said in an interview with Obama.
“Well, this is an example of the weird way that the press works,” Obama said. “So Michelle and Sam Kass, who was our chef here, one night they were talking about me and teasing me about how disciplined I was, that I didn’t have potato chips or I didn’t have a piece of cake. And this is when Michelle said, ‘Yes, and he just has seven almonds. That’s it.’ To really drive home the point that I needed to loosen up a little bit. And Sam relayed this joke to The New York Times in the article and somehow it was relayed as if I was counting out ... the seven almonds.”
He said he got phone calls from people about it. ‘You know, this seems a little anal. This is kind of weird,’“ he recalled. ”And I had to explain to them, no, this was a joke,” Obama added.
Epoch Times contributed to this report.
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