Gwyneth Paltrow

The actress Gwyneth Paltrow has become quite prominent in the food and lifestyle industry. She co-hosted with Mario Batali a PBS food show on Spanish food; published a cookbook (My Father's Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness); and set up a lifestyle website at goop.com. (This latter website raised a lot of eyebrows when it was calculated that her wardrobe of "spring essentials" would cost more than $450,000.)

But it is her second cookbook, just published, that has raised a firestorm of controversy. Called It's All Good, she sets out to describe the healthy eating she was encouraged to follow after experiencing a period of high stress and fatigue. Her doctor prescribed an elimination diet that meant no coffee, no alcohol, no dairy, no eggs, no sugar, no shellfish, no deep-water fish, no wheat, no meat, no soy, and nothing processed at all. This book describes the recipes she developed to make this diet tasty.

The book received a number of critical reviews, especially on Amazon, but it was Mark Bittman who created a widespread reaction to the book. In his article, Healthy Eating on Just $300 a Day, he takes her to task not only for the quack science the book espouses but the implication that only the very wealthy can afford a healthy diet. Yahoo calculated that following Paltrow's diet (which includes duck eggs and rare Hawaiian honey as staples) would cost $300/day.

Others have piled on with the criticism, including Eater, which had a field day with The Best Lines From Gwyneth Paltrow's New Cookbook.  So far we haven't found any good reviews - if any of you are familiar with the book, we'd love to hear your sentiments regarding whether there's an argument to be made for adding it to a cookbook library.