Warning: Discussion of restrictive eating.

Gwyneth Paltrow shared her changing attitudes toward her diet after facing huge backlash in previous years.

If you cast your mind back to 2023, Gwyneth went viral for her appearance on The Art of Being Well podcast with Dr. Will Cole. She said that her typical diet will consist of coffee, bone broth for lunch, and then an early paleo dinner.

Paleo is often dubbed the caveman diet and tries to re-create what humans ate during the Paleolithic era, although there’s considerable debate as to what exactly that entails. According to UC Davis Health, paleo has the potential for health risks including heart disease, osteoporosis, rickets, and bone fractures.

Her words proved extremely controversial, with one dietician telling BuzzFeed that it “screams disordered eating.” In response to the criticism, Gwyneth said, “This was a transparent look at a conversation between me and my doctor. It’s not meant to be advice for anybody else. It’s really just what has worked for me.” It’s worth noting that Will Cole is not a medical doctor.

Well, in a new episode of The Goop Podcast, Gwyneth said that it was her father’s throat cancer diagnosis when she was 26 that fundamentally altered how she saw food. Surgery and radiation meant that he had a “very difficult time eating,” and she explained, “It was at that time that I started wondering, through trying to see if there was anything we could do to help my father, if there was any kind of intersection between wellness and food.”

Bruce Paltrow died in 2002.

She then started “to research environmental toxins” and “tried to convince him to stop putting sugar in his coffee in the morning” and “to make him go gluten-free, which was a hilarious endeavor.” The actor continued, “I got met with comments like, ‘I’d rather be dead.’”

“So no, I did not convert him to eat a more healthy diet in hopes that it would translate into longevity. But through the process, I did start to kind of experiment on myself,” she added, calling herself a “guinea pig” before talking about “detoxes,” “heavy metals,” and “inflammation.”

The Goop founder further said that she has “genetic mutations” that affect her detoxing, continuing, “When I tried to eliminate [certain] things, my vitality spiked, my energy levels, clarity, etcetera. So that’s what I was trying to bring into the life of my father as he was healing, to no avail.”

Cooking food for her father further spawned her interest in certain food, and she noted, “I went into hardcore macrobiotics for a certain time, that was an interesting chapter where I got kind of obsessed with eating very, very healthily. I think I was really trying to heal my dad by proxy and he just didn’t really want anything to do with it… I might have gotten a little didactic about it, but I think I just felt so good.”

“I was sort of intoxicated by that idea, and I still feel that way to this day. I mean, things have gotten a little more complicated with me and longer-term inflammation and health stuff,” Gwyneth added. “But it’s the reason Brad [Falchuk] and I became paleo a few years ago now, although I’m a little sick of it, if I’m honest, and getting back into eating some sourdough bread and some cheese. There, I said it. A little pasta after being strict with it for so long.”

You can read more about what dieticians had to say about Gwyneth’s diet here.

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, The National Alliance for Eating Disorder helpline can be reached at 866-662-1235 in the US. The helpline is run by clinicians and offers emotional support for individuals and their family, as well as referrals for all levels of eating disorder care.