Gwyneth Paltrow Once Said Water Could Sense Negative Feelings
In the past few years, Gwyneth Paltrow has been slowly moving away from filming movies in order to focus more time on her lifestyle business, Goop. However, Goop is a controversial brand that has been hit with criticism left and right.
One such criticism thrown towards Goop happened in 2014 when Paltrow said water could sense people’s negative feelings. The claim has been met with an outcry from fans and experts. Read on below to find out what happened.
Gwyneth Paltrow said water could be affected by negative words
In a Goop newsletter sent out in May 2014, Paltrow talked about Masaru Emoto, an author known for publishing works about how human emotions can affect the molecular structure of water.
Paltrow wrote, as reported by Vox: “I am fascinated by the growing science behind the energy of consciousness and its effects on matter. I have long had Dr. Emoto’s coffee table book on how negativity changes the structure of water, how the molecules behave differently depending on the words or music being expressed around it.”
The newsletter went on to describe an experiment done by Emoto in the 1990s in which he placed water into two separate vials. One vial was labeled with negative phrases while the other was labeled with positive ones. Emoto claimed the water in the negative vial became frozen after 24 hours. Meanwhile, the water in the positive vial “produced gleaming, perfectly hexagonal crystals.”
As Vox pointed out, many scientists do not think Emoto’s experiment has any scientific basis at all. As such, there has also been little interest in replicating it.
Gwyneth Paltrow has been criticized for making health claims based on pseudoscience
While Paltrow’s post about water and emotions mostly act as an inspiration for people to be kinder to the world around them, a lot of critics fear Goop’s promotion of pseudoscience can cause serious harm in the long run.
For example, in 2018, Goop started selling a vitamin regimen for pregnant women called The Mother Load. Selling for $75.00, the product claims its vitamin regimen is “a top-of-the-line natal protocol.” However, as reported by The Independent, a UK nonprofit called The Good Thinking Society pointed out The Mother Load allegedly contains more than the recommended daily amount of vitamin A for adults. Yet, both the UK’s National Health Service as well as the World Health Organization have advised for pregnant women to avoid vitamin A supplements.
Meanwhile, gynecologist Dr. Jen Gunter once did a review of many Goop products and found a shocking number of them to not be based on real science at all. Dr. Gunter wrote on her website: “Of 110 products that made health claims or could be considered a health-related product only 10 had any kind of valid claim, meaning 10% of products were not pseudoscience.”
What has Gwyneth Paltrow say about all her critics?
Paltrow’s brand has been slammed numerous times, but it does not seem like she has let the critics bring her down.
“It doesn’t mean anything to me, because it’s not about me. It’s about what I represent, and that’s about you,” she told Town & Country in April 2020. “You can keep resisting it, but I’m on the right side of this. I’m watching the market. I’m watching what’s happening. I think what this wellness movement is really about is listening to yourself, tuning into what interests you, and trying things.”
