Hollywood star-turned-lifestyle-guru Gwyneth Paltrow is renowned for her healthy eating, and now the actress has tried a new eating regime – she announced last Thursday that she was going to live for the week on just $29 worth of food (just under £20) as part of a charity challenge.
The amount she had to spend on a week's shopping was the same amount families on food stamps have to spend in the United States.
With her budget, the 42-year-old bought items she may usually buy for her own cooking. Foods included seven limes, an avocado, a handful of coriander and kale, black beans, peas, whole grain brown rice, gluten-free tortillas and a dozen eggs. Lettuce, an onion and a sweet potato completed the purchase. "This is what $29 gets you at the grocery store—what families on SNAP (i.e. food stamps) have to live on for a week," she wrote alongside a photograph of her buys.
When the blonde beauty received criticism for the items she had bought, her representative said: "Now the point of the challenge is to show just how impossible it is to live on 29 dollars a week which is why most families run out of money 2/3 into the week at least."
Not long after completing the New York Food Bank Challenge, it was back to reality for Gwyneth, as she stepped out for a lavish dinner at famous Los Angeles restaurant Animal where she was accompanied by Glee writer Brad Falchuk.
"It was a prefixed menu, and the tickets were $80," a source told E! Online of Gwyneth's attendance at Austin Midnight Dinner, a promotional event for her friend Jon Favreau’s new film, Chef, as well as his and Roy Choi's pop up Cubano restaurant El Jefe.
"Some of the items on the menu was various types of barbeque, potato salad and beans."