Gwyneth Paltrow’s New Cookbook Sparks Controversy

Is her diet way too restrictive?

Oh, Gwyneth. Although I’ve no doubt that her intentions were righteous (Look at that angelic face! Look at it!), the 40-year-old star has caused quite the hubbub with her latest cookbook, It’s All Good, due out April 2nd. While the media response may not be all bad, it certainly ain’t sunshine and rainbows, either, with some outlets worrying aloud that the diet Paltrow advocates—namely, one without coffee, alcohol, dairy, eggs, sugar, shellfish, deep-water fish, wheat, meat, soy and processed foods—is too dang restrictive. Like, laughably so. Writeth the New York Post:

…With her second cookbook, she is once again promoting herself as a foodie and a health guru, despite a weird obsession that treats eating with a greater sense of restriction than relish.

The book reads like the manifesto to some sort of creepy healthy-girl sorority with members who use beet juice rather than permanent marker to circle the “problem areas” on each other’s bodies. “Mealtimes should always feel happy. Not like a punishment,” Paltrow assures us in the introduction, leaving us to wonder just what dinnertime torture she’s previously endured.

Of course, not everyone is laughing. Paltrow apparently admits in the book that she keeps her kids on the same über-restructive diet, causing some to worry that they might not be getting all the nutrients they need.

When she goes on to write that “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,” it’s hard not to feel a bit concerned for her daughter, Apple, 8, and son Moses, 6.

So has she gone too far? The Guardian’s food writer Joanna Blythman, perhaps the sole voice of dissent on this front, says no—it’s fine. Kids, she says, don’t need carbs, anyway. What do you think?