Why Gen Z eats like Gwyneth Paltrow

I first knew Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, the polished assistant in “Iron Man.” But even before I learned her name through Marvel movies, I knew her as something else: the original clean-girl influencer. By the time I was a preteen, Goop was already in the cultural ether—equal parts punchline and aspiration, its bone broth, jade eggs, and “conscious uncoupling” shaping conversations about how women eat, live, and perform wellness.

The older I got, the harder it was to dismiss her. Goop’s coffee enemas and bee sting facials felt absurd in 2018 (and don’t get me started on those jade eggs), but the food Paltrow championed—matcha, oysters, sardines, gluten-free everything—has become everyday Gen Z currency.

What once seemed laughably detached from reality is now embedded in Instagram feeds and TikTok fridges.

Paltrow was one of the first mainstream voices to promote gluten-free, sugar-free, additive-free, everything-free meals and diets. When she published her second cookbook, “It’s All Good,” in 2013, The Atlantic called it the “Bible of Laughable Hollywood Neuroticism” and said she “had gone over the edge.”

The New York Post’s Hailey Eber wrote, “The book reads like the manifesto to some sort of creepy healthy-girl sorority with members who use beet juice rather than permanent marker to circle the ‘problem areas’ on each other’s bodies.”

Ouch.

“It’s All Good” recommends cutting coffee, sugar, wheat, eggs, meat, shellfish, potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant and corn. It sounds extreme — but Paltrow said she developed the plan to manage migraines and panic attacks, under her doctor’s guidance.

The restrictions mostly make sense: coffee can spike stress, eggs and wheat affect blood sugar, meat can inflame, and some fruits and vegetables irritate sensitive stomachs. Shellfish and deepwater fish? That’s mostly about heavy metals — and very rare concerns. Most doctors wouldn’t cut everything at once, but they’d likely advise similar tweaks for anyone watching gut health, stress or cholesterol.

When Goop launched in 2008 as an email newsletter many quickly dismissed it as just another one of those celebrity projects, putting your name on something to make an extra dollar.

“When Goop first came out, no one took it seriously. Everyone thought it was a big joke,” food and culture writer Alicia Kennedy told me when I asked her about the brand, “Certainly not that it would have the longevity it’s had.”

Kennedy argued that although Goop may be past its prime, the aesthetic Gwyneth cultivated has only grown stronger. “That clean-girl, almond-mom thing? She’s shouldering a lot of blame for how people understand the role of food in wellness,” Kennedy said. “Even though Goop stuff kind of went out of style, the lifestyle it was preaching has only grown.”

It’s worth remembering: Goop never pretended to be realistic. Its ethos was aspirational — the $15,000 gold dildo was the point, not the punchline. What felt absurd in 2013 looks uncannily familiar now: the obsession with purity, the conflation of wellness with luxury, the belief that food is never just food but a lifestyle choice, a status symbol, a moral performance.

And if you scroll Instagram or Tik-Tok today, you start to notice a lot of things that feel inherently “Goop-y,” especially in the food space. Stuff that we would’ve made fun of Paltrow for doing in the 2010s are now the latest trends that everyone wants a piece of.

Food is no longer just nourishment — it’s presentation. Grain bowls, martini-and-oyster chic, matcha after Pilates: every bite signals style, wellness, and taste. What once felt niche on Goop’s website is now everywhere on Instagram and TikTok. Girl dinner has evolved into curated dinner parties with Pinterest-worthy tablescapes.

Dr. Corey Seemiller, researcher and author of “Generation Z: A Century in the Making,” told me this is partly about performance. “When I was younger, I’d eat a cucumber because my friends had one,” she explained. “Now, there’s a third level: do I want to show people I’m eating a cucumber so I look healthy? There’s a pressure to post things that make you look good.”

Posting a well-lit spritz, matcha or sardines signals leisure, affluence and wellness — conspicuous consumption, Goop-style.

Oysters might be the perfect symbol of this shift. “Just like lobsters, oysters started out as food for the poor, then became luxury delicacies,” Kennedy pointed out. What makes them perfect for Gen Z is that they’re both relatively accessible (cheaper than a Miu Miu bag) and performative (ideal for a social media post).

“Gen-Z might not be able to buy a house,” Kennedy said, “but they can go to Pilates, drink matcha every day, and order $40 oysters.”

Food is a uniquely aspirational object: ephemeral and accessible. You can’t buy a Birkin, but you can order oysters. Skip the Hamptons house — get the $15 froyo Gwyneth would approve of after reformer Pilates. Luxury food becomes a bite-sized status signal in a world where traditional markers of adulthood feel out of reach.

Gen Z wants to feel unique in a world of “no original experiences,” projecting perfection even when reality is messy. They’ll down organic cucumbers and chase it with a Monster energy drink, invest in eight-step skincare routines, and still get three hours of sleep. Sardines are chic, matcha is both ritual and accessory, and “clean girl” aesthetics coexist with espresso martinis and late-night oysters.

Seemiller sums it up: “If I can just look better, if I can just feel better, maybe I’ll be better.”

When Goop debuted, it sometimes felt like snake oil. But Kennedy notes that its rise tapped real anxieties: “People were right to ask what’s in our food, what doctors are prescribing us. That curiosity is healthy. But without real journalism and fact-checking, people went off the rails into diets and wellness snake oil.”

TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest have supercharged this culture. Where Paltrow once had to get you onto her website, now the algorithm feeds influencers making bone broth or hand-whipping oat milk. The products are still aspirational, but the methods are now everyday. That’s the Goop-ification: the normalization of food as performance.

The timing matters. We are living through staggering inequality. Wages are flat, housing is inaccessible, yet online we’re more exposed than ever to extreme wealth. “Everyone is exposed to such extreme wealth right now online where you wouldn’t be before,” Kennedy told me. “Because we’re so overexposed to people actually living that 1% lifestyle, I think everyone is trying to make up the difference.”

We can’t replicate Gwyneth’s Malibu estate, but we can replicate her matcha. No San Tropez trip? Stage a $40 oyster tower at happy hour. Food has become a coping mechanism, a bridge between aspiration and reality — luxury we can (sort of) afford. What was once punchline-level absurdity, like Paltrow’s vagina candle, now lives across TikTok, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Everyone is Goop now: the trad wife showing off her sourdough starter, the “clean girl” sipping matcha before Pilates, the Gen Z dinner party host perfecting a Pinterest-worthy tablescape. Even me, sipping bone broth when I was sick, only for my roommate to ask, “Who are you, Gwyneth Paltrow?” Maybe that’s the most Goop thing of all — her “ridiculous” lifestyle has become our reality, not because we believe in jade eggs, but because we can’t stop believing in the fantasy of aspirational food.