Royal insider lays bare reason for Firm's seafood ban - 'Very sensible'
A FORMER Royal butler has discussed how seafood is strictly prohibited from menus.
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Grant Harold shared an insight into their unique dietary plans. He told Woman & Home magazine royals are banned from eating any seafood, especially while on tours or visits, due to the risk of food poisoning.
He said: "It is a very sensible move to abandon having seafood when out and about on public duties.
“We don’t want a member of the Royal family having a serious reaction to food poisoning, especially if she is on an overseas tour."
Prince Charles has been known to break this rule, but Queen Elizabeth II has stuck faithfully by the seafood ban.
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In the book ‘Dinner at Buckingham Palace’, former royal servant Charles Oliver says: “Inevitably there are one or two things the Queen and her husband do not like, and the hosts are duly warned in advance.
“The palace instruction states only: 'Neither the Queen nor the Duke of Edinburgh like oysters.’
“The Queen often drinks a glass of red or white wine with her meals as well as orange juice.
“His Royal Highness prefers gin and tonic or lager to champagne before meals or during the day."
Darren McGrady, former royal chef, once told HELLO Magazine Her Majesty is not much of a “foodie”, while Prince Philip had a more adventurous palette.
He said: “She always ate to live rather than live to eat.
“Prince Philip was the foodie. He'd want to try any new dishes all the time and got excited about new ingredients whereas the Queen, if we had a new recipe, she'd have to look at the whole recipe before saying, 'Yes ok let's try it.'
“But for the most part she stuck to the same dishes week in week out."
Meghan Markle, before she joined the Royal Family, confessed that seafood would feature in her “ideal food day”.
In 2013, she told New Potato magazine that her perfect meal would be: "A leisurely dinner of seafood and pasta, and a negroni to cap off the night."
In addition to seafood, Mr Harold shared “it would also be quite appropriate for foods such as foie gras to be avoided”.
Andrew Farquharson, Deputy Master at Clarence House, once told the Telegraph: “The Prince of Wales has a policy that his chefs should not buy foie gras.”