Melania Trump's Favorite Drink Completely Defies Her Clean-Eating Reputation

Melania Trump is one of the most enigmatic first ladies to grace the White House. During Michelle Obama's time as first lady from 2009 through 2017, she graced magazine covers, gave many interviews, and spearheaded the "Let's Move!" project, which aimed to improve the health and activity levels of America's children. While Melania Trump did work on her "Be Best" campaign (which also focused on the well being of children) in her first turn as first lady in 2017, she had a reputation of being, well, barely there from a visibility perspective.

Though she does carry on some duties in her work as first lady, she is perhaps best known for her clean-eating lifestyle, which includes lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. This is in stark contrast to President Donald Trump's dining preferences, which includes quite a bit of McDonald's (as to whether he prefers McDonald's old beef tallow fries to its current vegetable oil fries, that remains a mystery). However, even with her penchant for unprocessed foods, Melania Trump has a sweet spot for one not-so-antioxident-filled beverage: Diet Coke. Specifically, she prefers the sugar-free soda in the glass bottle. This may seem like a small detail, but any Diet Coke lover can tell you that the container a Diet Coke is served in changes its flavor profile.

Melania Trump isn't the only resident of the White House to have a penchant for Diet Coke — Donald Trump has a rather infamous fixation on the bubbly beverage. In his first term, Donald Trump had a Diet Coke button installed at the historic Resolute Desk so he could simply press it and be presented with a fresh, cold soda if he ever craved the drink while busy. For his second term, Trump had this button reinstalled, a move that certainly indicates his resolute love for the sugar-free drink.

The Trumps aren't the only presidential family to have well-publicized food and drink preferences. Contrasting with Trump, former President Joe Biden apparently had a love for orange Gatorade while in office. Hey, governing is hard business; it's always a good idea to get some electrolytes in for efficient hydration. Biden is also well-known for his love of ice cream; Biden even made himself a regular at one Delaware diner where he often orders milkshakes served just to his liking. For what it's worth, Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States and well-known McDonald's fan in his own right, also had a sweet spot for Coca-Cola. Only, his preference was more edible; Clinton enjoyed a dessert called Coca-Cola salad, a Jell-O concoction that fuses the sparkling soda with gelatin and black cherries.

The intersection of presidents and first families with soda doesn't end with what you can find in their fridge (or at their desk). Turns out, soda is pretty integral to politics both foreign and domestic. Take President Richard Nixon's illustrious (if not scandalous) career. Though the food Richard Nixon is most often associated with is Watergate salad, which has no actual ties to the politician, he was very closely linked with Coca-Cola's biggest competitor, Pepsi-Cola, through his friendship with Donald Kendall, who served several high profile roles within the soda company. It's even speculated that Nixon may have been Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination target since Nixon was in Dallas, Texas, attending a Pepsi-Cola board meeting on the day of Kennedy's death.

The alignment between Richard Nixon and Pepsi-Cola through his connection to Kendall even led to a bit of a sparkling coup during the Cold War. In 1959, Kendall, then president of Pepsi-Cola's overseas operations, asked Nixon, then vice president, to arrange for Nikita Khrushchev to sample American- and Soviet-made Pepsi products during an upcoming exhibition in the USSR. Nixon famously attended this taste test and both he and Khrushchev were photographed drinking Pepsi, which bolstered its reputation as a global player. While this didn't exactly settle the Cold War, it certainly cemented the power that food and drink companies can have in the political sphere. Maybe the Trump family's penchant for Diet Coke may yet yield some global impact.