Foodie Pseudery (20)

It is time to deal with the problem of Gwyneth Paltrow. Not Gwyneth Paltrow the actress, but Gwyneth Paltrow the lifestyle and food guru who dispenses advice on cooking, fashion, travel, and ‘being’ (whatever that may be). There is part of me which agrees with Viv Groskop’s view that her daft website Goop is simply a ‘drop of demented sunshine’. That however much its recommendations that its readers invest in designer clothes, stay at boutique hotels, and employ celebrity aerobics teachers may demonstrate the extent to which she is truly part of the 0.01%, essentially she means well.

So much of the website is pseudery of the highest order (my particular favourite is an account of a typical ‘busy day‘ for her) that I could devote a whole series to it, but what concerns me is Paltrow’s enthusiasm for daft diets. In one newsletter, she opines on detoxes:

I like to do fasts and detoxes a couple of times during the year, the most hardcore one being the Master Cleanse I did last spring. It was not what you would characterize as pretty. Or easy. It did work, however. As I do not wish to subsist on lemon water in the middle of winter, I asked my doctor, a detox diet specialist, for the guidelines he uses to achieve a good detox that is not as hallucinogenic (in a bad way) as the Master Cleanse. He actually thinks that the Master Cleanse can be dangerous because the liver is not supported by the nutrients it needs.

‘the liver is not supported by the nutrients it needs’. Priceless.

This is bad writing, but it’s also monumentally bad advice. There is no evidence to show that detoxes do anything beneficial for our bodies. They ‘work’ (they cause us to lose weight) because they contain fewer calories than our normal diets. The ‘dizzines’ she reports is caused by hunger – not toxins leaving her body. She now markets a detox pack, the efficacy of which is based on no scientific evidence whatsoever. In fact, its effects haven’t been properly examined either.

Stick to acting, sweetie.