Beatles legend Ringo Starr, now 86, has kept the same bare-bones sandwich in his rotation for years, goat cheese on bread, and his stated reason for ditching cow dairy has more to do with animal size than actual nutrition.
Starr laid out his culinary philosophy during a 2021 appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." When Colbert asked him a simple question, "What is the best sandwich?", the drummer's answer was anything but conventional.
"I don't have a lot of them anymore, but cheese," Starr said. Then he added a condition: "But it has to be goat cheese now."
His reasoning turned heads. Starr told Colbert he avoids all cow-derived food, and his explanation leaned on a theory about molecular size that no nutritionist would recognize from a textbook.
"I don't eat anything from the cow because the molecules are so big. Have you seen a cow? The molecules are so big. And that's why if you drink a glass of milk, you're full. With a goat, it's a good size for our bodies."
The logic, as the New York Post noted, does not hold up under scrutiny. Starr appears to believe the physical size of a cow somehow determines the size of molecules in its milk. Research has found that goat milk generally contains a higher proportion of smaller fat globules than cow milk, a real difference, but one rooted in biology, not in the height of the animal at the barn door.
Instagram content creator @domenicskitchen brought Starr's minimalist sandwich to life as part of a video series recreating musicians' favorite meals. The preparation was about as simple as the ingredient list: two slices of bread toasted in butter in a pan, spread with soft goat cheese, then topped with grated goat cheddar.
That's it. No lettuce. No tomato. No condiments.
Fans in the comments had opinions. One suggested dressing it up: "Imagine it with a salt and pepper, tomato and some thin slices shallot." Another kept it short: "This looks awesome." A third wondered why Starr had cut back on sandwiches at all: "Why doesn't he have a lot of them anymore? Go for it, Ringo!"
And at least one commenter captured the broader sentiment: "I wonder if Ringo will ever do or enjoy one normal thing in his life."
The @domenicskitchen series has tackled other musicians' preferred sandwiches, and Starr's is far from the only oddball entry. Rock 'n' roll pioneer Little Richard favored peanut butter, banana, and honey on white bread fried in butter. Country star Alan Jackson went with pineapple and mayonnaise on white bread. Country music icon Dolly Parton stuck with pimento cheese on white bread, the most traditional of the bunch, and still a choice that would raise an eyebrow north of the Mason-Dixon line.
One Instagram commenter tried to back up Starr's molecular theory: "Goat milk fat molecules are smaller and finer than cow's milk, makes it easier to digest." That claim at least has a kernel of truth, the smaller fat globules in goat milk can make it easier for some people to break down. But that has nothing to do with looking at a cow and concluding its size dictates the size of its milk molecules.
Starr has never been known for following the crowd. He marched to his own beat behind the drum kit for the most famous band in history, and at 86 he is still doing it at the lunch counter. His sandwich is simple, his reasoning is his own, and nobody is going to talk him out of either one.
In a world full of people who overthink everything, there is something refreshing about a man who just wants goat cheese on toast, even if his science needs work.
