Gluten-Free Stars

“What the hell can you eat? Bark?” an interviewer once asked Zooey Deschanel. The indie darling went gluten-free because of an allergy to the protein. And as if removing gluten from her diet wasn’t enough, she was also a vegan for many years. Deschanel veganized an episode of Top Chef, during which she challenged contestants to cater to her veganism and gluten-restrictive diet. (On the menu? Quinoa pasta.) Deschanel recently abandoned her veganism, saying that, coupled with her gluten-free diet, it limited her dietary options too heavily. “I gave it a good try, but sometimes you just need a little something, a little meat,” she told Bust magazine.

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View co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck has celiac disease, an autoimmune disease that leaves one of every 133 people unable to digest gluten. Of her gluten-free diet, she told Good Morning America, “You’re not deprived… You’re more energized. I honestly couldn’t live without this diet.” She later released a gluten-free cookbook, The G-Free Diet.

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Funny girl Jenny McCarthy’s son, Evan, is autistic, a disorder McCarthy blames on the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. McCarthy credits a gluten-free diet as part of a regimen that helped her son “recover” from autism. In an article she wrote in conjunction with then main squeeze Jim Carrey and published on CNN.com, McCarthy wrote: “We believe what helped Evan recover was starting a gluten-free, casein-free diet, vitamin supplementation, detox of metals, and antifungals for yeast overgrowth that plagued his intestines.”

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Gwyneth Paltrow, an ardent “clean” eating fan who has never publicly addressed having celiac disease or any gluten allergies, endorsed the gluten-free lifestyle on her website, Goop.com. Paltrow adopted the diet on the advice of a doctor to help her lose holiday weight gain, and posted gluten-free recipes on her site to promote Dr. Alejandro Junger’s detox cleanse.

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Aniston praised going gluten-free in plugging the baby-food diet, in which full-grown adult stars subsist on, yes, tiny pots of baby food to stay thin. According to Marie Claire magazine, Aniston loves the “purer, nutrient-packed, gluten-free” pots of nutrition for infants because they’re figure-friendly.

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It’s a wonder how the Countdown host sustains such consistent liberal rage on a gluten-free diet. Olbermann has celiac disease, which he’s discussed on his program several times. “The bottom line here, for somebody with celiac, even the slightest amount of wheat can be like poison, as you mentioned, all the things that can go wrong, internal bleeding, bone density loss, organ disorders, malnutrition, digestive problems of every kind,” he once said.

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The notoriously skinny former Spice Girl claims to have an allergy to dairy, but also went gluten-free for the heck of it.

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Gluten-Free Stars

Gwyneth’s used it to shed pounds, Elisabeth Hasselbeck says it’s invigorating‚ even Oprah’s talked it up. And there’s science behind gluten-free living—though the regime leaves precious little regular food to eat.