What to know about the Paleo diet: Gwyneth Paltrow quits the strict eating plan “I’m a little sick of it if I’m honest”
Gwyneth Paltrow “became Paleo” after she found that she could have an elevated risk of Alzheimer’s but has now given up the restrictive Stone Age diet.
Founder of lifestyle brand Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow, says she’s tossed in the towel when it comes to following her strict Stone Age diet. She “became Paleo” a few years back for health reasons and to avoid “longer-term inflammation” after she realized due to her genes she had an elevated risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
However, Paltrow shared on The goop Podcast in April that “after being strict with [the Paleo diet] for so long… I’m a little sick of it if I’m honest.” She said that she was letting dairy and carbs back into her diet.
“I’m getting back into eating some sourdough bread and some cheese,” Paltrow explained on her podcast. “There, I said it. A little pasta.”
The 52-year-old actress had been criticized by Meghan McCain when she revealed that she had taken up a highly restrictive diet. The TV personality called her eating regime, which included a lunch of bone broth and dinner consisting of a Paleolithic diet, a “starvation diet.”
What to know about the Paleo diet
A Paleolithic diet, also known as a Stone Age diet, hunter-gatherer diet and cave man diet, is based on foods that would have been available to humans before farming began roughly 10,000 years ago. The modern-day incarnation includes “fruits, vegetables, lean meats, fish, eggs, nuts and seeds,” according to the Mayo Clinic.
People following a paleo diet abstain from grains, legumes and dairy products as well as sugars, starchy vegetables and processed foods. The idea being that the human body hasn’t fully evolved to properly digest these foods since they became available through the advent of agriculture.
People follow a paleo diet generally to lose or maintain a healthy weight and reduce risk factors for heart disease. While this type of diet does include many features recommended in healthy diets some people are concerned that it cuts out foods that are valuable sources of recommended nutrients.
For example, whole grains and legumes provide fiber, vitamins, proteins and other nutrients. Meanwhile, low-fat dairy products have protein, calcium, vitamins and other nutrients that are part of a healthy diet.
Furthermore, there are concerns that a paleo diet can be too costly for many people to follow and thus they may unintentionally not consume enough food to get the essential nutrients that they need.
As far as medical studies into the benefits of a paleo diet, there simply isn’t enough data. One large study from Spain found that a Paleolithic diet was linked to lower heart disease, or cardiovascular, risk factors but that mainly came from avoiding highly processed foods and consuming large quantities of fruits and vegetables.
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