Another day, another story about Gwyneth Paltrow doing something extremely silly but somehow fascinating. This time the 50-year-old mastermind has revealed her favourite brand of bread. It’s made by a baker from Ireland, allegedly cures IBS and costs £22 per loaf. Oh, and you can’t actually buy it in shops; it’s exclusively ‘bake-to-order’. If you live in London, it will be delivered to you via bicycle of course. The Happy Tummy Loaf , as it’s named, was created by Karen O’Donoghue in 2015. The baker spent her childhood and early adulthood – and I’m sorry if this is too scatological for your liking, but it’s just what she says on her website – ‘a constipated mess’. She claims that she fixed her IBS through food and specifically developed the Happy Tummy Loaf over an 18-month period to ‘alleviate’ her symptoms.
So, what’s in it? Well, according to the Happy Tummy Loaf website, the ingredient list includes:
- Water
- Wholegrain teff flour
- Wholegrain buckwheat flour
- Ground almonds
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Ground linseed
- Chia seeds
- Flaked brazil nuts
- Flaked walnuts
- Regeneratively farmed egg
- Lemon juice
- Cinnamon
- Apple cider vinegar
- Irish orchard syrup
- Achill sea salt
Don’t worry – I have questions too. Teff flour? An ancient gluten-free grain native to Eritrea and Ethiopia. Achill sea salt? Salt from an island near County Mayo. Irish orchard syrup? Syrup from an orchard in Ireland… I think. Regeneratively farmed egg? No idea, sorry.
Paltrow calls the bread ‘legendary’. Some doctors aren’t so certain. The Happy Loaf contains 10g of fibre per piece, while a standard slice of supermarket stuff only has about 3g. Fibre is good for digestion, yes, but that doesn’t make the bread a solve-all for digestive problems. ‘I have looked at the links to claims made for these breads and they consist of the weasel words of marketeers and are not based on robust science,’ Tom Sanders, professor emeritus of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London, told The Times. Sanders didn’t stop his sourdough crusade there. ‘For some people sourdough bread may cause IBS. Anecdotally, I know of cases where it causes excruciating wind.’
Source: The Mail Plus
