Exclusive diet of limes
Dubious that I could complete the week, I donated to the Food Bank at the outset, and all of us at the goop office began the challenge. Modern iterations of alkaline eating, however—like the recipes and methods advocated by Natasha Corrett and Vicki Edgson, the gourmet chef and nutrition expert behind Honestly Healthy —offer a refinement of the homoeopathy behind the idea. As I suspected, we only made it through about four days, when I personally broke and had some chicken and fresh vegetables (and in full transparency, half a bag of black licorice). How you strike that balance, however, is largely up to you. Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Hudson are all said to be huge fans of alkaline eating too, along with Kirsten Dunst, Alicia Silverstone and Giselle, whose husband, American football star Tom Brady, has said he also eats an 80% alkaline diet. Lemons and limes, for example, seem highly acidic but actually produce an alkaline ash. And that means making it an issue that we all talk about. A few takeaways from the week were that vegetarian staples liked dried beans and rice go a long way—and we were able to come up with a few recipes on a super tight budget. The food system in our beautiful country needs to be subjected to a heavy revision—it is a cyclical problem, with repercussions that we all feel. They are currently rallying awareness and action around the Paycheck Fairness Act, something we all need to get behind.
And if women were paid an equal wage, families might have more of a choice in the grocery aisles, not to mention in the rest of their lives. Keep scrolling for our guide to the anti-ageing benefits of the A-lister alkaline diet. Some foods produce an alkaline ash, others an acidic one. Plenty of skin issues, including inflammation, extreme dryness, eczema and psoriasis, can be traced back to problems with the toxicity levels of the gut and digestive system. After trying to complete this challenge (I would give myself a C-), I am even more outraged that there is still not equal pay in the workplace. After this week, I am even more grateful that I am able to provide high-quality food for my kids. (Think you might not be receiving equal pay for equal work. The eighties had its own version too, known as the Food Combining Diet. Sorry to go on a tangent, but many hardworking mothers are being asked to do the impossible: Feed their families on a budget which can only support food businesses that provide low-quality food. My perspective has been forever altered by how difficult it was to eat wholesome, nutritious food on that budget, even for just a few days—a challenge that 47 million Americans face every day, week, and year.
