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 think e issue is that certain foods can be habit forming.....and cause blood sugar spikes which result in increased insulin production. This is behind the obesity epidemic in this country.
A LOW carb(ie not NO carb) diet prevents these insulin surges and stops many food cravings which is why people following it lose weight.....no hunger, no cravings just three meals a day and satisfaction in between meaning you have less need or desire to snack.
This is why I have lost weight.....no my diet wasn't balanced before...it was too carb heavy because that's what this and every Govt has recommended. Reducing that carb load has made a massive difference to my weight and my health.....and yes DS is now eating this way too. Having said that he also enjoys the tasty carbs and he isn't denied them....he just doesn't have them everyday.

Could it be that we are all different and have different requirements? I follow the work of Dr Briffa regarding food now....but he says "if every Friday night is pizza night then keep it that way, it's what you do MOST of the time which matters".

So tis okay word, you can still eat pizza

You can feed your kids a healthy diet, without having so many RULES about it.
I grew up on brown rice and lentils, and very little meat, and this had probably contributed to my kick ass immune system, but we still had the odd Arctic Roll, or Supermousse.
You can eat mostly good fibrous brown things and green veggies, and if you do, a bit of trash won't harm you.
The human body is not so delicate and vulnerable it can't process a hot cross bun from time to time.

Self-discipline is one thing, having masses of superfluous-to-requirements self-imposed rules in order to feel more perfect and more superior to other mere mortals who don't have them is quite another...

jake I think reducing carbs and increasing protein can be hugely helpful if one wants to lose weight.

Certainly it's what I do when I feel the need.

And if my DC were getting overweight I would gently reduce their carb intake and increase their exercise.

But imposing a carb free diet en famille when as far as I can see the Paltrow clan have no weight issues seems draconian and joyless.

The idea that one should spend ones life in battle against illness and death is alien to me. By all means look after yourself, of course. But to deny yourself pleasure and comfort? What's the point?

We are certainly split on this thread. I don't find the foods I eat are joyless in any way at all and I don't eat sweets or chocolate and don't find my life lacking in joy because I don't just as I don't feel my life lacks joy because I don't take cocaine or smoke cigarettes or have a bottle of wine a night.

What you need is a healthy lovely diet for life which plenty of vegetarians have and those who only eat whole foods but eat brown carb and meat have and also those who eat few carbs except in veg/fruit. Then you have the other camp - which sadly these days is most people, a diet loaded with junk day in day out which is why 60% of British people are fat.

I have a fantastically healthy diet - fresh food from the market cooked at home, with masses of variety and loads of fruit and vegetables. It just doesn't exclude lovely white carbohydrate. Brown bread, rice etc makes me ill anyway! I love musli but have to limit my consumption as it upsets my digestion.

Kids aside, no-one worried about husband Chris Whathisface coping with this 'specific hunger'? He already looks like - in the words of my late granny - he needs a good hot dinner and a few pints of blood. Deny the poor chap the occasional pasta twist and his songs risk getting even more miserable than they already are.

This thread is making me hungry. I'm in Le Pain Quotidien having a quick snack while shopping and eyeing up some sweet carb laden desserts...

This is the sort of thread that would have my French and Italian friends laughing. Unless there is a medical reason/allergy, everything in moderation! Why does it have to be all or nimbyism nothing at all. There are people who eat too much rubbish, but let's face it, they're not eating homemade tarte tatin/apple pie, but the bought rubbish. I think home economics back in schools would help hugely, but there are some people who actually like crap or can't be arsed to cook. You can lead a horse to water.....

Cogito . I am worried about the poor man, I am.

I don't eat grains, and rarely est sugar. I am gradually reducing the grains I cook for my kids. If we go out for a meal they can eat what we like, and I get them cakes from the school cake stall etc, but at home they have to suffer through such dull, joyless wholesome food as burgers with guacamole and sweet potato chips.

I completely agree with you LAB, but unfortunately for people who have developed too much of a reliance on processed carbs in the form of wheat based products or things loaded with sugar then 'moderation' can be very hard to do. I think GP just doesn't want her children to get too much of a taste for those things as part of an everyday diet, so that they are capable of doing moderation later on, and don't live their lives at the mercy of cravings.

Do you think that when Coldplay tour, Chris goes wild sometimes drinking, y'know, three pints and then staggers to the chippy for a battered sausage?

no i don't think so either

I think the idea that there are only two types of diets (one that resembles GP's and the other some stereotypical junk-food laden monstrosity eaten by overweight people who are dooming their children to a life of obesity (cue sad faces as we all ponder the fate of the ickle children) is just ridiculous. There are lots of different ways to eat and Every Single One of them has both advantages and disadvantages. Some will suit some people more than others.

So many people just seem to be desperate to see themselves as superior to others. It's depressing.

My kids get a lower carb diet - they do not throw themselves uncontrollably at sugar when given the opportunity, other kids I know who have a high carb diet do - does that anedote prove anything? Thought not - you believe what you want to.

What I truly don't understand is why people are so extreme. It's as though the one thing which we cannot be is balanced. Either we mainline white flour and white sugar until we are barely mobile or we build up an increasing list of forbidden foods and get that manic evangelical gleam in our eyes.

The key thing is to eat a variety of foods and not too much of any one of them. Anyone can be healthy and the right weight if they eat plenty of fruit and veg, and enough protein and carbs but never over or undereat for their body type and activity levels. But that's too boring and obvious. People prefer the high drama of creating lists of forbidden foods or giving themselves sugar rushes.

Well it's hard to tell anything from that Huff Post article, it's so badly written.

This is interesting by Joanna Blythman

I agree racing

the key is to stay at a healthy weight, eat fruit and veg every day.There's no magic ingredient or recipe for health - just don't overeat. make sure you have a balance of nutrients.

Stopping carbs is just another way of cutting calorie intake unless it's medically indicated.

Actually that's not true. If you follow a low (not 'no') carb diet, you are more than likely to be eating more calories. But without gaining weight.

I don't think healthy diets are joyless, but let's face it, I bet Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't really include tasty whole foods like avocado, seeds and real butter in her diet. She looks like she exists off a diet of raw vegetables. I was all skinny like that when I went through a raw vegan phase. For some reason I imagine her having something like an organic tofu and spirulina smoothie for dinner! Sorry, but she comes across as being so twee.

Someone like Jillian Michaels looks fit and healthy, she eats a natural diet, isn't scared of good fats and her recipes are very tasty! She certainly doesn't look hungry, but she does look lean and strong.

We don't eat much in the way of refined carbs in this house, but we do enjoy good quality food. I don't shun carbs, but I limit them to sweet potato and that kind of thing. We have pudding once a week etc. Humans are kind of pre-programmed to seek out high sugar and fatty foods, I don't see the harm in the occasional indulgence. Drinking alcohol all the time isn't healthy, but there's nothing wrong with a glass or two of wine as a treat.

I find it astonishing that people consider food like risotto, or a piece of cake unhealthy.

Of course they're not unhealthy. Eating too much of them is unhealthy but the food stuffs themselves are just part and parcel of the celebration that is food and life .

"Do you think that when Coldplay tour, Chris goes wild sometimes drinking, y'know, three pints and then staggers to the chippy for a battered sausage?"

I think the entire Paltrow/Whatshisname clan actually have a secret tunnel to their local posh version of Greggs through which they get regular deliveries of ^'patisseries saucisse' that they sit happily munching while dreaming up yet more daft suggestions to press-release out to the unsuspecting public.

"Have we told them we brine the kids' tofu in organic yak piss yet Chris?"
"That's a good one Gwynnie love. Pass the Sauce Papa I feel a song coming on"

I read a brilliant Italian diet book once (bought in desperation for something to read when on holiday in Naples) which said that the best way to eat cake was instead of another meal, and then proceeded to analyse the nutritional benefits of cake and compare them with other meals. Cake didn't turn out too badly at all and have since followed that advice quite a lot