Gwyneth Paltrow and avoiding carbs for kids - what do you think?

[JaneGMumsnet]

Hi,

You may have read news stories today about Gwynneth Paltrow avoiding carbs for the whole family, including her children aged eight and six:

"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."

We'd be interested to hear what you think about this story.

Does your own diet influence the way you feed your children?

Thanks,

MNHQ

I was highly surprised by the statement that Italians don't eat pasta as a main course Cote-not my experience when visiting Italy.
Of course you can run without eating carbs-it depends on the person. I ran in a 10K race a couple of weeks ago and since it started at 11am I ate a bigger breakfast than usual and the added part was carbs. I don't eat eggs, meat or fish for breakfast-I don't like it at that time of day.
The first thing you need to do if you are changing your diet for life is to make sure that it is things you like eating and build it in-or it won't work. I have porridge in the winter and muesli in the summer -purely because I love both and don't get bored with them. I only alter if staying in a hotel.

So we're supposed to buy a cookery/diet/lifestyle book from someone who collapsed (in 2011 I believe) with a migraine and panic attack and was subsequently found to be severely anaemic and deficient in vitamin D, and who also starves her growing children of brain-food carbs?

I don't think so...

Who is that, Twitter?

And as long as we are on the topic of diet gurus and their own lives, here is how long they have lived: (From July '12 issue of Wired US)

Stuart Berger, The Southampton Diet, Immune Power Diet, 40 years.

Judy Mazel, the Beverly Hills diet, 63 years.

Paavo Airola, Juice Fasting, 64 years.

Michel Montignac, Eat Yourself Slim, 65 years.

Adelle Davis, Nutrition and Unprocessed Food Oracle, 70 years.

Elie Metchnikoff, Yogurt, 71 years.

J.I. Rodale, Organic Food, 72 years.

Robert Atkins, Atkins Low Carb diet, 72 years.

George Ohsawa, Macrobiotics, 73 years.

Average U.S. life expectancy, 78.7 years.

Roy Walford, 120-Year Diet, 79 years.

John Harvey Kellogg, Corn Flakes (and Kellogg Health Sanitorium) 91 years.

Linus Pauling, Vitamin C, 93 years.

Ancel Keys, Mediterranean Diet, 100 years

So going by the 3 who properly beat the life expectancy - regular bowels, Vitamin C , a splash of wine and oodles of olive oil (with pasta!) it is then! :-)

It says a lot for the Mediterranean diet!

Since when were carbohydrates brain food, Twitter? My brain functions extremely well - possibly better - on a diet of very few carbs.

Kellogg was mostly about eating breakfast cereal to stop the urge to masturbate, though. I'm not sure he had a quality of life we'd all wish to emulate.

There are all kinds of foods which help the brani and curb dementia risk and they are not potatoes, rice, pasta.

Have you ever heard that correlation is not causation?

You may have also heard about the longevity of Mediterranean people.

There are many studies on this. Here's one.

Was that directed at my post Cote? If so, yes of course I have, and I also know my sample size of one is prone to accusations of selection bias

Still doesn't make carbs brain food though.

Cote, yes the med diet is seen as very healthy. However I think many people in the UK interpret it incorrectly. They think a huge thick pizza or huge bowlful of pasta, eaten with garlic bread and finished with a sugary pudding is ok. The balance is all wrong.

Afaik the med diet should be lots of meat, fish, cheeses, salads and veg with a small helping of bread or pasta.

Sorry, think I cross posted, ignore me.

Quick, I agree.

tea - No, it was for Starfish.

Well, in parts of the Mediterranean I'm familiar with (Italy & France) pizza isn't thick at all. Italian pizza is very thin, actually.

One important feature of Med cooking is that it is mostly based on slow cooking with olive oil (as opposed to frying or cooking with butter).

Cote Gwyneth Paltrow - clearly you have better things to do than read the rubbish that is horribly addictive in the Daily Mail...

I'm not saying children need white bread, potatoes, rice ad nauseum but kids do need a healthy, mixed diet. And apart from anything else, what happens if child's best friend has a pizza party? Some 'junk' food is surely part of childhood.

Starfish is right.

Well some families do not have junk food. They also may well mix with other children whose children don't either. It is probably a class thing for a lot of us. The lower your class the worse you eat and the fatter you are in the UK sadly.

Pizza is not junk food.

Thanks, twitter, I didn't know that she was found to be Vit D deficient. I had heard that she had osteopenia some years ago, though.

Cote, Pizza is junk food if you eat it somewhere like Pizza Hut or buy one of from the supermarket which has a crust an inch and a half thick, has been deep fried and has very little veg on the top of it!

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