Our fascination with what celebrities eat

What’s with movie stars surviving on grilled asparagus and ‘a side of protein’? Why do we ‘normal’ folks feel guilty for eating a proper dinner? Should we all now give up coffee and switch to organic coconut water?

Jennifer Lopez doesn’t drink coffee. Caffeine, she says, wrecks the skin as you age. She stays away from other drinks too. Hmm.

Dan Da Vinci Code Brown drinks coffee — with butter and coconut oil and calls it bulletproof coffee for how it sharpens your mind. He told The New York Times the added butter and coconut oil changes “the way your brain processes the caffeine.”

After I read that piece, I too flung some coconut butter into a mug, and allowed a machine-made long black to drown the coco (not cocoa). I stirred the elixir and waited for the circuits in my brain to light up. Tasted fine. But then I’m familiar with the taste as I

have been slugging coconut oil of late because people keep talking about good fats and lining the stomach, how it helps absorb nutrients you pack in the rest of the day, etc, etc. I felt it was the most urgent thing, to stock up on virgin, cold pressed coconut oil.

How’s the mind doing on coco-coffee? I don’t know. Is the brain sharper? Don’t know. If mixing up Kramer vs Kramer and calling it Framer vs Framer is any indication, I need a higher dose. Right after I swill my giant glass of chia seeds soaked-overnight.

So, this is an old affliction: I follow what people eat. I like to know what new Mayan superfood is in the news and flooding the aisles of Carrefour and Spinneys. I like hanging in the supermarket aisles reading the ingredients list. And I like reading about what food trend celebs spend money on. If you’re in the business of looking good, you have nutritionists round the clock who you can call and confess to if you have a bite extra of key lime pie or gajar ka halwa or whatever your weakness, your perceived downfall. I don’t have a dietician or a personal trainer, but surely that’s how information works, no? Absorb, examine, customise, apply. All on the cheap.

Look at Joaquin Phoenix. He takes my theory further. Which is that you can’t read a piece on anyone these days — film star, author, these start-up types — without gleaning something about what they put into their bodies. And some of us impressionable types take a big bloody bite out of that. Anytime I see coconut water now I think oh, Madonna chugs it after her workouts, maybe I should also drink some. Let’s pick up some tetrapacks. Dh 80?! Yiikes! You make a choice. Your life, they tell you, is a product of the choices you make. A former editor of mine, who likes to order grilled fish at restaurants and run 10 kms every morning, yammers on about that—choices.

Joaquin Phoenix, I recently learnt, has been vegan since age three. Say what? Age of three?! Much I don’t understand in this world. But when I read that, I even felt chuffed because of my present fad of laying off milk. I go through phases. Gluten, given that it’s the festive season, is kind of back into my life after some months of lying low. Tweak some, lose some.

I also like to read the pieces on Indian filmstars and what they eat, or don’t eat. How is everyone having salad, roti, ‘lean meat’, and eating before 8 pm and snacking only on dried fruits?

I read something on — who w it? Alia Bhatt? — that said she has one chapatti for dinner with some grilled veggies. One chapatti? Never do these pieces talk about what these people do when the distant rumbles start, when there is a downpour of midnight hunger pangs? Years ago, I read about how Elizabeth Hurley — remember her? — goes to sleep early to avoid being hungry later. My god, people. My god! I don’t know whether to sympathise or judge. I do this too. I hate it. But I do it. Not all the time. But yea.

On Kareena Kapoor’s sometime-in-September birthday, I liked an Insta-post of the nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar. She posted a picture of the actor saying, “A very happy birthday to the girl who glammed up dal chawal ghee and ghar ka khana in general…” (18,954 likes — so at least some other poor impressionable souls — 18 thousand is not bad — must have got the message to not just survive on fraud food). It was an important thing to put out there. Eat normal stuff. Unlike the ghastly ‘organic cocoa nibs’ that I spat out the other day.

Last week, I saw a picture of Jennifer Garner picking what (must have been) organic lettuce. She was at a farmer’s market wielding those salad tongs. Everyone, all these celebs, seem so healthy. Is it a uniform fear? Are they all terrified of ageing badly, looking fat, looking old, feeling unloved, losing out to the woman 10 years younger, scared of having to retreat into the shadows where no one can see their sagging necks? What is it?

A celeb chef last fortnight told the world that Gwyneth Paltrow and her former husband Christ Martin “ate nothing”. The chef said, “I had a brief from their assistants... they eat nothing. They are very strict. They avoided any sugars, anything sweet, no dairy, just more vegetables.”

Cabbage soup, baby food, apple cider vinegar — what all are these people eating?? While some of us vain, conflicted souls, semi-disciplined eaters dream about breaking of the flattened crunchy corner of samosas with pudhina chutney. Which I’m telling myself is fine once in a while. And to shut up with the vapid diet stuff. And just start believing those internet memes (I know, I know) you don’t know who came up with. This one, that even Anthony Hopkins is advocating: ‘None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after thought. Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you’re carrying in your heart like hidden treasure. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. There’s no time for anything else.’

You can’t read a piece on anyone these days — film star, author, these start-up types — without gleaning something about what they put into their bodies