Billy Bob Thornton’s extreme dietary restrictions have inspired him to get creative with his snacking, which is how he found his new favorite unlikely pairing: grapes dipped in dijon mustard.
The 70-year-old actor opened up about his health problems during a recent appearance on the Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast.
“My diet’s very restricted,” he said on the May 5 episode. “Well, I’m allergic to wheat, dairy. I have type AB negative blood, which is the rarest type in the world. It’s like less than one percent of the population of the world has it.”
The Bad Santa star said that his blood type means that he has a harder time digesting certain foods. In addition to wheat and dairy, he cannot eat shellfish or any meat, including “pork or beef or any of that stuff.”
He went on to say that at a recent green room before a press event for Landman, Taylor Sheridan’s Western drama in which he stars as oil executive Tommy Morris, he was disappointed to find a platter full of food that he could not eat, including deli meats, cheeses and crackers.
However, Thornton said that he found some white grapes that he could eat, but quickly became bored with the snack and looked for a way to jazz it up.
“Then I saw some spicy Dijon mustard, and I thought, I wonder…” he explained, as Mandel exclaimed, “No!”
Thornton continued: “I dipped this grape in the Dijon mustard. It was one of the best things I ever had in my lifetime. So now it’s become a thing for me.”
Thornton said that although he had allergies while growing up in Arkansas and Texas, he still “ate everything.”
“I just assumed everybody felt like s*** after they ate. I didn’t know,” he said.
The actor said that before filming the episode with Mandel, he had a bowl of blueberries and some decaf coffee for breakfast.
“But when I get home, it’s, like, wide open,” he said. “I’m going to have some gluten-free chips with some dairy-free cream cheese. So, I’m really looking forward to that… Every now and then I’ll mix a little ketchup into it.”
Earlier in the episode, Thornton admitted to feeding Mandel’s son, who is friends with his own son, a “hillbilly bagel,” which consisted of a bagel, cream cheese and ketchup.
“I make all kinds of junk like that because I don’t know how to cook,” he said.
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