Back in 2011, Gwyneth Paltrow released a cookbook called "My Father's Daughter" which has a lot of delicious family-friendly recipes (based on reviews).
She released a new book (that I may have mentioned before) entitled "It's All Good" (Which I have heard is great for allergy sufferers)
I came across an article written by a woman who tried Gwyneth's foods from It's All Good for 10 days and she said she got a rash on her face- but read to the end to find out why.
"Day 1:
Every day on the Gwyneth diet starts with a heaping helping of something called "The Best Green Juice." Like lots of other green juices, it is a mixture of kale, apple, lemon, mint, and ginger. I imagine it would be much easier to make this juice if you have a juicer, but I don't have one of those. Gwyneth says it is equally fine to make with a blender and a "fine mesh strainer" which I also don't think I have. Since I literally cannot spend any more money for a year, I will have to do without. I put the ingredients in the blender and blend them together. It tastes much like regular kale juice except has large pieces of kale still in it. This is breakfast.
After breakfast I decided to do the first DVD of the Tracy Anderson method. It's difficult, actually. Essentially you hold tiny weights in your hand and then flap your arms wildly like a person in a Victorian insane asylum having an epileptic fit. You do this for an hour. At the end, I was so tired I lay on the floor.
After my workout, I decide to eat my morning snack — raw almonds soaked in water. Wet almonds are better than dry almonds because according to old Gwen, regular almonds are "hard to digest.” Wet almonds sound gross but are actually really delicious. The almonds have a kind of vanilla flavor to them once you soak them. I never really liked almonds before this. Is this diet actually going to be okay?
After a hearty lunch of a beet-greens soup (A soup made of the green leaves attached to a beet? This was weirdly delicious even though it sounded gross) and an afternoon smoothie that combined both avocado and cocoa powder (this is sort of like ice cream if ice cream tastes like avocados), I invited my friend over for Gwyneth's version of BBQ chicken. My friend is usually quite skeptical of my diet experiments, but is an incredibly good sport. I once made her eat green risotto, for example, and we are still friends today. This time, however, I shocked her. "This is really good!" she said, almost taken aback. It was true. It was really good chicken. It was juicy and had an interesting flavor from the paprika Gwyneth had me use. I had eaten so healthily the entire day, it was all super-delicious, and I was not even hungry. I was starting to feel slightly superior. "You should soak raw almonds in water," I said to my friend.
Day 2:
Flush off of last night's success, I decide to hold a dinner party at my home and fixed on making Gwyneth's meatballs, which do not have bread, eggs, red meat, or milk in them. My mother makes very good meatballs and those four things are basically the only ingredients in them, so I found this recipe suspect, but I pressed on. I thought wet almonds would be terrible, but I was completely wrong about that. I don't know how to live!
While making the meatballs, however, I can tell something is up. No. 1: They are green (they are made of arugula and turkey). No. 2: I can't put them in tomato sauce because I have eliminated tomatoes from my diet. Instead, I am serving them with a broccoli soup that tastes mostly like water. What is going on? Yesterday was so amazing! When my guests arrive and I feed them the meatballs, I can tell that they hate them. One of them pulls out a huge bag of chips and starts eating them in front of me. Another one leaves to "actually eat dinner." I am about to have a panic attack when I suddenly remember when Gwyneth went to a dinner party in America and someone asked her what kind of jeans she was wearing and she thought to herself, "I have to get back to Europe." America is the worst. I say nothing about anyone's jeans, even though I was literally just going to ask everyone about their jeans.
Day 3 and 4:
This diet is much harder on the weekends. This city is stupid because everyone is obsessed with gluten-filled brunch and what even is it? Just an empty parade! I have to get back to Europe. On Sunday, I get to go to a pancake place that also sells kale juice and I silently watch my friend eat a pancake as I sip on some kale juice. Later, however, I roast a whole fish and serve it with anchovy salsa verde. It's absolutely delicious. "I would like to meet Gwyneth Paltrow," says an unnamed friend, eating the fish with a large spoonful of anchovy sauce. "She sounds really fun." I enthuse: "She's so fun. She smokes one cigarette a week!"
Day 5:
Deep in the annals of my kitchen, I find something amazing. It is called a fine mesh strainer! I must have bought it when I was in a coma. Now my kale juice tastes just like kale juice. The homemade horchata I make for a mid-morning snack is deeply improved. You really need raw honey for it, actually. It tastes much better and is non-alkaline forming. What has become of me?
Day 6 and 7:
On the days when you are not waving your arms like a loon, Tracy Anderson has another DVD called Dance Cardio Workout. It’s so incredibly hard that I can only do twenty minutes of it. From what I can gather, it is completely unexplained jumping to the dulcet beeping of late Madonna. You have to jump for a whole hour. I’m so tired afterward I actually have to go to sleep.
For dinner the next night, I make salt-roasted fish. You take a fish, cover it with herbs, and literally pour an entire container of salt on it. It's okay. I think the whole thing would have been better if I really loved Thai chiles, but I don't really like them that much. Sometimes, when I am cooking these recipes, I talk to my Gwyneth book like it is her incarnate. For example, I will say, "That's a lot of salt, Gwyneth," or "Goji berries ARE better when they are soaked in water. Thanks buddy!”
This was the last day of my detox and I have to say, it was kind of the best! I was never hungry, I loved almost all of the food I cooked, and I was actually much less swollen under my eyes than usual. I even feel slightly more alert, probably because I am not eating any tomatoes.
Day 8:
Today, I try out Gwyneth's vegan food. Her vegan sesame pancakes are a delight. They taste like regular sesame pancakes except they have no gluten or dairy. Gwyneth’s version of veganism is not much different for her detox diet. It just has absolutely no meat or animal stuff. Did you know that Gwyneth had a vegan-themed party for her daughter Apple's birthday? The more you know.
Day 9:
One time Gwyneth told the New York Daily News that she would "rather die than let my kid eat Cup-a-Soup." This lead to me ask the question: Would it be fun to eat like a child of Gwyneth? Guess what? It's really fun! For breakfast, I make her "buttermilk" (they are vegan, gluten-free, and have lemon juice and soy milk instead of buttermilk) pancakes. They are actually quite delicious, if slightly gummy. Her tuna salad with Vegenaise and dijon mustard is decent and respectable! It is good, so far, to be Apple and Moses, and not just because they pick avocados all the time and eat wood-grilled pizza.
For dinner, I decide to redeem myself and hold a dinner party again, this time making tacos the main event. Who doesn't like tacos? I also decide to make an eggless and dairyless cake. The tacos are a stunning success. Her recipe for homemade chipotle salsa is as good as what I would eat at the actual Chipotle. I am very proud of Gwyneth and I cannot hide it. When people compliment the tacos, I say things like, "It's Gwyneth!" or "This cookbook is really great. I don’t know how she does it.” I don't ask one person about their jeans. The cake however, is another matter. Its crumbly and tastes like a prune, but this is probably my fault. "I like the tacos," one of my friends says, after I ask about the cake.
Day 10:
I break the diet! I have lost four pounds and have much more defined arms from having hysterical fits everyday. It is definitely fun to eat bread, dairy, and eggs again, but when I finally have all those things for the first time after ten days without them, I wake up with a huge rash down the side of my face, like The Phantom of the Opera. Have I always actually been allergic to these foods? The rash goes away eventually, but I do feel suddenly distrustful of bread.
What have I learned from Gwyneth's diet? It's an awesome way to live! If I wasn't going to go bankrupt to do it, I would follow the Gwyneth diet to the letter every day. The food is healthy, delicious, and filling, the recipes are not particularly complicated, and you avoid a huge rash on your face that you apparently just lived with before. If this is the way the other half lives, I want to live it! Let’s all appreciate that she shares her awesome tips with the world."
I found it very interesting that she suddenly started eating her old foods and got a rash. The downside is that eating her way can get well, expensive. I still want the book so that I can review it in more detail than most of the reviews on Amazon.
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