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Giada de Laurentiis is known for her dazzling smile, her cookbooks — including “Super-Italian” and “Eat Better, Feel Better” — and for making beautifully plated, Italian-inspired meals on her TikTok and Instagram channels. As an Italian-American, she uses a wide variety of produce in her recipes, and watching her cook is often an inspiration to try new ingredients. However, she is only human, and, of course, she has a few foods that you won’t find on her personal dinner plan, even if she cooks them for other people.
With most of these items, it is not about being fussy or unadventurous. Instead, Giada listens to her body and avoids foods that she believes aren’t a good fit. Of course, in some cases, she just has a downright and quite aggressive dislike for them — hello, cauliflower rice.
From bell peppers to store-bought salad dressings, there are a few food items that you should never take along if you are lucky enough to get invited to Giada’s for dinner. Let’s take a look at six foods that Giada de Laurentiis refuses to eat.
Bell peppers
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Given her Mediterranean heritage, it may surprise you to find out that one of the main foods on Giada De Laurentiis’ no-go list is bell peppers. While many of us dislike bitter green peppers, but enjoy the much sweeter, red, yellow, and orange peppers, Giada admits that she just doesn’t eat them in any form, period.
Like a few of the foods on this list, the main reason Giada avoids them isn’t so much that she dislikes them, but, as she explains in an interview with Eating Well, “I stay away from peppers partly because they don’t like me.” Luckily for Giada, other similar fruits and veggies that are members of the nightshade family, such as Italian favorites zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes, don’t seem to disagree with her, so bell peppers are the only ones that need to stay off her plate.
Her issues with bell peppers, fortunately, don’t prevent her from preparing them for those around her to eat. Many of her recipes include roasted, grilled, or raw peppers, meaning that this classic Italian ingredient still features in her life. It is simply that, for health reasons, she chooses to avoid them in her own meals.
Cauliflower rice
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In the last decade or so, cauliflower rice has become the go-to low-carb option that many people use in place of the real thing. If you assumed that Giada De Laurentiis fits into that same super-healthy category, then you’d be mistaken. In fact, Giada names cauliflower rice as one of the few foods that she intensely dislikes. In an interview with Milk Street, she makes her feelings on the rice substitute extremely clear. “I don’t like cauliflower rice. Okay? Leave me alone.”
That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t enjoy this healthy and delicious vegetable on its own – her recipes often feature it, from cauliflower pasta to delicious cauliflower steaks coated in Parmigiano Reggiano. The issue only arises when the vegetable is ground up and masquerading as something it isn’t.
One of the main reasons for the popularity of cauliflower rice is its low carb count, with it featuring on weight-loss programs as a substitute for grains such as rice. Giada is often asked in interviews how she can eat so much delicious Italian food and still stay so slim, and her answer is that she eats everything in moderation and doesn’t overdo any one ingredient. It seems, then, that Giada would prefer to eat some real rice on her plate, just a smaller portion, rather than replacing it with her hated cauliflower-based alternative.
Coconut
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Giada De Laurentiis is very keen on looking after her health, particularly in recent years. So, you may assume that she would be into the latest trend of having coconut … well, everything. However, that’s not the case, as Giada names coconut as one of the few foods that she doesn’t enjoy. In this instance, it’s not a case of Giada having digestive issues or disagreeing with the concept of coconut as a healthy food: she simply doesn’t like it. “I don’t eat coconut,” she said in an interview with Bravo TV. “I don’t like anything with coconut. Not [coconut] water. Just no coconut — at all. In anything.”
Fortunately for her fans, Giada has put her personal feelings on the tropical fruit aside and includes coconut as an ingredient in many of her popular dishes on her website, from her chocolate coconut cake, which is covered entirely in shredded coconut, to her chocolate chip cookies, which use coconut flour to keep them gluten-free. Giada understands the popularity of coconut and its usefulness in both savory dishes and sweet treats. But, while the coconut water, milk, and oil trend continues to thrive, this is one particular health train Giada won’t be jumping on.
Pastries for breakfast
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In Italy, a sit-down breakfast can often be a very sweet affair. One common Italian breakfast pastry is a custard-filled donut known as a bomboloni, and since Giada De Laurentiis probably grew up eating this, it would be safe to assume that she still enjoys a pastry with a cup of coffee first thing in the morning. While a sweet croissant may have been part of her morning routine in the past, Giada has recently admitted that since turning 50, she’s had to make some extreme changes to the way she begins her day. “I used to start my day with a sweet pastry like a chocolate croissant dipped into espresso,” she explained in an interview with The Kitchn. “When I turned 50, I realized I couldn’t handle the sugar spike anymore.”
Since then, she has given up all sugary treats in the morning and likes to start with her breakfast full of protein and healthy fats. Bone broth, avocado, and almonds are now much more likely to feature in her first meal of the day, as these foods are all known for keeping blood sugars stable and providing consistent energy throughout the morning. The shift away from pastries and other sugary treats for breakfast is a testament to Giada’s attitude toward food in general. If something is not working for her, she will experiment until she finds an equally delicious option that keeps her whole body — not just her taste buds — happy.
Store bought salad dressing
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As a home cook, even with the best of intentions, it can be difficult to find time to make absolutely everything from scratch, and that’s where store-bought items can make a huge difference in terms of saving time. Many of us work hard to prepare a delicious salad full of fresh produce, only to scupper our health-conscious attempts by drizzling a store-bought dressing over the top. This is a mistake that Giada De Laurentiis no longer makes since she found out that the bottled versions of her supposedly healthy bottled salad dressings were anything but.
“I used to take shortcuts by buying pre-grated cheese or a bottle of salad dressing,” she told La Cucina Italia. “But I’ve realized how many stabilizers, sugars, and additives are in those products, which make them way harder for my body to digest.” While it may seem like a step too far on a weeknight after a long day, the reality is that making a fresh dressing can be done in literally two minutes, allowing you to create an authentic, delicious salad topping without any of the hidden additives that Giada now avoids.
Using whole, unprocessed ingredients fits with the culinary philosophy of her home country. In Italy, most items for the main meal of the day are prepared from fresh ingredients, meaning they are filled with love and care, as well as being healthier and utterly delicious.
Refined carbs
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Giada De Laurentiis is generally a believer in having a little bit of what you like, as long as you keep it in moderation. However, in recent years, she has made an attempt to remove most refined carbs and refined sugars from her diet to try to improve her health. Even supposedly healthy foods can often contain more refined sugars than you would expect, as Giada herself realized fairly recently. “It took me years to figure out that my so-called healthy muffin — actually full of refined carbs and sugar — wasn’t really doing me any favors,” she admitted in a post on her Giadzy blog.
Giada explains that the point at which this pitfall catches many of us out is first thing in the morning, when our brains aren’t quite firing on all cylinders yet. Most of us are guilty of grabbing a cereal bar as an emergency breakfast from time to time, without realizing just how many refined carbs it contains. Instead of the glucose-spiking snacks that she used to rely on, Giada now focuses on healthy items when hunger pangs take hold, such as almonds or granola, as well as drinking plenty of water.
Giada’s motivation to switch from refined carbs to a diet rich in whole foods was a prolonged period of poor health, and making simple switches to reduce sugar has led to her thriving now in her 50s. Her focus on nutrient-dense ingredients means she can enjoy delicious snacks without being concerned about the effect this will have on her long-term health.
Dining and Cooking