ERLING HAALAND has lifted Norway over Brazil and through to the quarter finals of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The striker bagged both of his team’s goals in their 2-1 victory over the heavily favoured Brazil. And while football is undoubtedly a team game, this win certainly felt like it came from one man’s performance.
Haaland has scored 62 goals in 54 games for Norway. In case you need us to do the math, that’s more than a goal per game. During qualification he scored in all eight games, tallying 16 total goals. He’s scored in every game he’s played at this world cup, too, totalling seven goals in four games. Few things are inevitable in football, but Haaland scoring has become one of them.
That goal-scoring record would be newsworthy on its own, but the fact that it belongs to a player with the dietary eccentricities of Haaland means it’s of particular interest to us here at Men’s Health. Haaland has a diet that most would deem strange. It’s best described as ancestral, and it’s not the kind of nutrition plan most modern dietiticians would put you on. Could it be the key to Haaland’s success?
Erling Haaland's diet
The first thing of note with Haaland’s diet is the sheer quantity of food he eats. He consumes a staggering 6,000 calories a day, almost triple the average person. It’s not unheard of for professional athletes to eat a lot – we’d expect most of them to consume far more than the average person – but 6,000 calories per day is pushing the upper limits of what’s humanly possible. 3,000 calories is typically considered the maximum amount for a healthy adult to have daily. Taking into consideration Haaland’s 6ft5 frame and likely very high number of calories burnt, 6,000 per day is still a mind boggling amount.
Despite the high calorie count, you won’t find much processed food in Haaland’s diet. He mostly eats cow hearts, livers, steaks, raw honey, sea bass, asparagus, egg fried rice and raw milk.
“You [other people] don’t eat this… I care about taking care of my body,” he said in his documentary Haaland: The Big Decision in 2022. “I think eating quality food that’s as local as possible is the most important thing. People say meat is bad, but… which one? The meat you buy at McDonald’s? Or the local cow that eats grass right there?”
Organ meats were once a prized delicacy (we’re talking thousands of years ago here, not a few decades back). Once agriculture developed and access to more palatable cuts of meat became more attainable, they fell out of favour.
The heart and liver that Haaland eats are nutrient-rich and have been called super foods. They’re high in vitamin B and folate and contain minerals such as iron, phosphorus and magnesium. They are also a great source of protein. They’re a fair bit cheaper than your typical sirloin or prime rib, too.
Not keen on the organ meats? Haaland says his father regularly prepares lasagne for him before games. “I’ve had it before every home game now and that turns out fairly well, so there has to be something special he adds to it,” Haaland said in his documentary. “I help out very little. I mostly lie on the couch watching him. That’s the way it works.”
The documentary also gives some insights into the habits that help Haaland perform at an elite level. “I think it is quite important to have good routines,” Haaland says. “Whether it is the first thing you do in the morning, that is to get some daylight in my eyes. It is good for my circadian rhythm.”
Haaland’s diet might not be to everyone’s tastes, but it’s hard to argue with the results. The Striker seems certain to continue to smash records as he attempts to carry Norway to a fairytale world cup final.
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