Gwyneth Paltrow shares dietary struggle Gwyneth Paltrow's forthcoming cookbook, It's All Good, reveals both the dramatic incident that led her to a severe elimination diet -- and the fact that she brought the strict-eating regimen home to her family.
Elimination diets, trendy in the food allergy community, rely on lists of "can't haves" -- in Paltrow's case, an anemia diagnosis and Vitamin D deficiency prompted her doctor to remove the following from her everyday eating: sugar, shellfish, potatoes, wheat, red meat, coffee, and eggs.
Sounds like a blast.
It's All Good is Paltrow's creative solution to her impossible restrictions, but its pages reveal an anecdote befitting of an Oscar-winning actress.
"One sunny afternoon in London, in the spring of 2011, I thought - without sounding overly dramatic - that I was going to die," she writes, according to the Daily Mail.
"I had just served lunch in the garden at home ... I had a vague feeling that I was going to faint, and I wasn't forming thoughts correctly ... I got a searing pain in my head, I couldn't speak, and I felt as if I couldn't breathe. I thought I was having a stroke," she continues.
This scare led to the big list of food no-no's, and she's even brought husband Chris Martin and their children, 8-year-old Apple and 6-year-old Moses in on it.
"Sometimes when my family is not eating pasta, bread or processed grains like white rice, we’re left with that specific hunger that comes with avoiding carbs," she writes.
The Mail spoke with nutrition experts who contradicted Paltrow's methods.
"Kids need carbohydrate[s] because it gives them glycogen which keeps your brain going. Without it they won’t be able to think straight as their brain won’t be functioning and their thinking patterns will be slow," one such expert alleged.
That's some pretty heavy finger-pointing at the parenting-obsessed Paltrow. Then again, Gwyneth said "when" the family decides not to enjoy carbs.
She's also previously noted that Apple decided to go vegetarian independently, forcing her to make meatless options for her daughter's school meals.
On which side of the dietary divide do you stand? Tell us in comments.
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