The French pediatrician got an idea: develop a sweet, high-calorie, peanut-based spread that is fortified with vitamins and minerals, and then use it to alleviate starvation in Africa. Briend called his spread Plumpy'nut, and it was credited for saving 1.9 million lives.

Yet this was a habit he brought from his home state of Arkansas.  As governor of the state, Clinton's giant-sized appetite was so well known among the state's press corps that journalists would crack jokes such as: “Is the forklift with the governor’s lunch here yet?"

The governor’s staffers went to surprising lengths to try to curb their boss’ eating. During one meeting, a Clinton staffer literally snatched a cupcake out of the governor’s hand.

Jay Leno

During her appearance on the show, Mrs. Obama convinced the TV icon to snack on an apple and sweet potato fries and then she presented him with a whole wheat-crust pizza. "That does smell very good," Leno said, eyeing the pizza. "I assume this is sausage-pepperoni." But it was not. This pizza was topped with a healthy assortment of veggies: eggplant, green peppers and zucchini. Leno took a bite.

Do you have an appetite for boxing?  Then consider some of the strange things that a few famous boxers ate:

* When Joe Louis was living in Chicago, his trainer would take him to the city's stockyards, where the boxer drank blood fresh from the slaughterhouse.

* Early in his boxing career, Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) converted to Islam.  A Muslim mentor recalled that Ali had no problem adjusting to the dietary rules of his new religious. "We used to eat together at the Famous Chef Cafe," said Abdul Rahaman. "And when I first sat down with Cassius, no one had taught him about not eating pork. But it wasn't hard to get him to change."

* Robert De Niro was an actor, not a boxer, but he played a prize-fighter in the highly acclaimed 1980 movie "Raging Bull".  De Niro packed on at least 50 pounds in order to portray the boxer Jake LaMotta.  To gain the weight, De Niro said he ate "three square meals a day . . . y'know, pancakes, milk, beer."

Our book includes a strange story involving Clemente and food.  In 1969, while in San Diego for a ballgame, the outfielder left a restaurant with a box of takeout fried chicken when a carload of men approached and ordered him into the vehicle at gunpoint.  The men drove him to an isolated part of the city, demanded he strip down to his underwear and then took his All-Star ring and wallet.

Clemente pleaded for his life and finally told the men who he was.  The bandits then allowed Clemente to leave the car with his clothes and personal items, and then drove away.  Moments later, Clemente heard the same car approaching at a high speed and feared that the gunmen might have decided to kill him after all.  But they were only returning his box of chicken.

Vaclav Havel

Writing from his prison cell in 1980, Havel asked his wife, Olga, to send him several items, including a toohbrush and a razor. "But [send] nothing at the expense of cigarettes, tea and chocolate," he implored his wife.  Tea and chocolate, he wrote, were among "the whims that give me inner comfort."

Gable blamed his weight problem on actress Sophia Loren, whom, he insisted, had encouraged him to eat too much pasta during an extended visit to Italy.