"Revenge of the Food Fascists"

A new film starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Calgary Avansino and Inga Dirzuite!!!

(or at least a couple of books, where they make loads of money)

 

 

The papers are full of the food fascists today. Probably a good ten years after dear old Gillian McKeith urged us to embrace spelt and agave, the big new food thing is eating raw with no carbs at all, no cow's milk and no wheat  (makes sign of the Devil).  

 

The Mail today has someone called Inga Dirziute clainming that her family's ailments have cleared up since she imposed a raw food diet on them. And it does sound quite tasty, the lunch of chilled soup, salad, stuffed tomatoes and "burgers" made from walnuts and mushrooms. How does today's harried working mum find the time to either learn how to cook like this, or shop for the ingredients? Dirziute spent £4,500, as you do, on a month-long residential course in the US to learn how to do it.

 

Calgary

Meanwhile, the Sunday Times offers up someone called Calgary Avansino, who boasts about her breakfast smoothie for all the family which contains in excess of 20 ingredients. And some days, the children only take a sip! You need to be Croesus himself to dine like this. No wonder they're all writing diet books.

 

I wonder about the substantiation for the lies perpetuated about cow's milk and wheat. I'm sure a few people are intolerant. But not many mums can afford coconut water or milk, almond milk, coconut yoghurt - all the things Avansino trots out.

 

Some of her advice is good. Parents should educate their kids about balance. When Avinsino's children go to the parties of mortal children, they eat ordinary (ie bad) food, but expect to have raw vegetables as a penance for tea.

 

Gwynneth

The goddess of fascist food is actress Gwyneth Paltrow, and the Mail today includes more of her recipes day from new book It's All Good.

 

I'm a bit disappointed with Gwyneth.  I honestly thought that with her website Goop, her personal trainer and macrobiotic diet, she'd been living clean and healthy for years.

 

But in last week's intro in the paper, she said that a fainting exercise not so long ago, where she thought she was going to die, led her to create the recipes (no doubt with a nutritionist and personal chef). Hmmm. I remember a book by someone else called "Spent" where Gwyneth babbled on about how she had felt completely exhausted, nay spent! And promptly changed her diet. That was a few years ago. To mix my metaphors, I suspect Gwyneth has not been eating her own dog food.

 

A good message from all these pious utterings would be to try to make a few small changes.

 

But really, the facts are thin on the ground about the dangers of cow's milk and wheat. And for most of us, life really is too short to source coconut water, frozen kale, chia seeds,  green powder, baobab powder, lacuma powder and maca powder -- just a few of the ingredients in the Avansino smoothie.  I very much doubt if they are all available at Holland and Barrett!

 

I leave you with one sobering thought. Remember all the fuss about aloe vera juice and how cleansing it is?  Clinical trials were halted when it was found to give rats cancer.  Chew on that!