Meghan Markle Has to Cut a Food from Her Diet When She Travels as a Royal

Now that she's a royal, Meghan Markle has to follow a lot of strange, longstanding rules. One of them is that she can't eat garlic while traveling on royal visits—a rule put in place to guard against royals being caught with bad breath.

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Now that she's a member of the royal family, Meghan Markle is subject to a whole host of strange, sometimes archaic rules and etiquette guidelines. One of those will change how the self-declared foodie eats when she's traveling to new countries.

As a royal, Meghan is not allowed to eat garlic while traveling—at least not while she's on official royal visits anyway. Why? Pretty much for the obvious reason.

Per Sunday Express"Garlic is banned from being included in foods eaten by royal family members. With many meetings between official visitors, it is thought to be advised against to prevent any awkward bad breath."

The rule doesn't seem likely to change any time soon, since Queen Elizabeth II notoriously hates garlic.

"We can never serve anything with garlic or too much onions," Darren McGrady, royal chef at Buckingham Palace, explained to RecipesPlus. "The Queen would never have garlic on the menu."

Members of the royal family are also not allowed to eat shellfish while traveling for royal visits, due to the high risk of food poisoning associated with the dish. This also makes logical sense—royal visits are scheduled down to the minute and a sick day due to food poisoning could cause a royal to miss an important event.

Meghan and Prince Harry's first official trip as a married couple will be to Dublin, followed by a Commonwealth tour of Australia, according to Sunday Express. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex's tour of Australia will include visits to Fiji, the Kingdom of Tonga, and New Zealand. The tour has been planned to coincide with the Invictus Games, which will be held in Sydney from October 20 to 27.

Kayleigh Roberts
Weekend Editor

Kayleigh Roberts is a freelance writer and editor with more than 10 years of professional experience. Her byline has appeared in Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, The Atlantic, Allure, Entertainment Weekly, MTV, Bustle, Refinery29, Girls’ Life Magazine, Just Jared, and Tiger Beat, among other publications. She's a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.