“My Dad wants to host a Passover seder,” my husband said as I packed for our family’s recent trip to Los Angeles to see the sights, glimpse celebrities, and tour colleges for my son. I continued folding my beach gear, too excited to worry about the stress of Passover and Easter falling so close together this year. “We should host rather than drive to Long Island because the kids have school,” he said.
I dropped my cover-up. A pit formed in my stomach as it does each year when the holidays coincide, and we host. It’s so much work, and neither holiday ends up feeling special.
When the kids were younger, demands came from the grandparents who wanted the children to be fully immersed in their cultures and religious traditions. My mother wooed them with elaborate goody-stuffed Easter baskets, while their other grandma showered them with Passover plague finger puppets and seder coloring books. We shuttled them from New Jersey to Long Island, to New Jersey, to Staten Island, and back to New Jersey again.
As my children grow, additional stress stems from getting my oldest home from college, fitting celebrations in with school schedules, and knowing that as we reach new milestones, things will continue to change.
This year, with the bitter-sweet reminder that my middle child is poised to fly the nest hovering in my mind, I’ll channel a laid-back West Coast vibe, take a deep breath, and figure out how to make it all work — without losing sight of what’s important.
Passover and Easter are so opposite that sometimes it’s comical
When you’re part of a religiously mixed family, onlookers can’t see the differences, but you can certainly feel them. I mean, what do Easter and Passover have in common besides eggs? Not much. There is the ritual of hiding Easter eggs and hiding the afikomen (matzoh) for the kids to hunt. But, I swear that’s the only commonality I’ve found over the years.
The author said she does her best to honor traditions from her husband’s Jewish faith and her Italian-Catholic upbringing.
Courtesy of Holly Rizzuto Palker.
Fluffy bunnies and frogs (one of the ten plagues represented during the seder) aren’t even the same species. But since they’re happy little spring critters that take center stage during Easter and Passover, when my kids were youngsters, we leaned heavily into filling the week with chocolate rabbits and googly-eyed stuffed frogs because they’re fun.
Matzoh balls versus meatballs: now those are difficult spheres to reconcile. I mean, my Italian family gorges on carbs during Easter weekend, and the Jewish side abstains from grain for the whole week. To bridge the two, I’ve devised a meal called “Erev Passover Marinara,” during which I serve meatballs the night before the Passover seder begins. It satisfies a few traditions at once for us.
We bend the rules
This year, as we roast an egg in the oven, to represent the circle of life on our symbolic seder plate, we’ll color Easter eggs, too. My husband will make time for it, even if that means abridging the Haggadah during the first night of seder. Why? He understands that since we’ve decided to raise our children in his Jewish faith, I hold Catholic holiday traditions even more dear as a link to my heritage.
Matzoh brei, the morning-after-seder sugar-covered, breadless version of French toast, is a no-brainer. Does it mean, however, we won’t eat semolina on Easter Sunday even if it falls during the week of Passover? No. A number of years ago, my husband conceded that it wasn’t practical to keep things grain-free for the entire week of Passover when Easter overlapped.
And for me, although attending Catholic School embedded strict rules in my mind, the edicts can be impossible to follow during Passover. For instance, if Good Friday falls during a seder meal, I’ll repent and eat meat, refusing to believe I’ll be punished. And so we go.
We’ve gained perspective on how to make it work for our family
It took many years for us to tune out the extended family noise and focus on our kids’ holiday celebrations. Knowing the grandparents meant well, but rising above the underlying push-and-pull when Easter and Passover coincided wasn’t easy. Bunnies, church, matzoh, seder — it was dizzying. We learned to improvise.
This year, as I lay plague finger puppet on each Passover plate, I’ll try to concentrate on being lucky enough to have all three of my kids and three of the grandparents (unfortunately, my mother-in-law has passed) with us to celebrate both magical holidays. Who knows where my son will go to college once he graduates? I hope he’ll be able to join us. After all, being together as a family is what matters most.
On a recent trip to France, Dr. Meghan Garcia-Webb was struck by an age-old paradox.
Everywhere she looked, she saw people enjoying cheese, wine, and bread — yet the average person seemed much healthier than the typical American.
In France, despite their reputation for rich cuisine, the obesity rate is a fraction of what we see in the United States, for all our calorie-counting and protein maxxing.
“There isn’t this pervasive diet culture of going to a restaurant and seeing how many calories are in this and how many carbs,” Garcia-Webb told Business Insider. “I do find it is refreshing in the sense that there’s not this fear around food, and the food is very satisfying.”
It’s just one example of how stressing less about your diet can lead to better weight loss and long-term health, she said.
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In her concierge medicine practice, Garcia-Webb specializes in helping high achievers, such as CEOs and attorneys, manage their weight. A lot of her job is pushing back on extreme diet fads, including the trend of tracking everything.
“I really enjoy food and the more I do this work, the more compelled I feel to show people that it actually is possible to be healthy and really like to eat,” she said.
Garcia-Webb said her favorite food hack makes it easy to eat well without turning your food journal into a full-time job. Here’s how to try it at home for more nutritious meals.
A stress-free guide to healthy eating
Everyone loves a food hack, and Garcia-Webb said hers is simple: when you prepare a meal, start by making half the plate fruits and non-starchy vegetables.
Filling half your plate with produce is a simple way to eat well without measuring each bite, calorie, or gram of protein.
Magda Tymczyj/Getty Images
“It’s actually very easy,” she said. “You don’t even have to cook them if you don’t want to.”
Think carrots, cucumbers, peppers, greens, tomatoes, berries, grapes, citrus — anything you’d find in the produce aisle (except potatoes). To make it even easier, opt for pre-cut options that are ready to eat or frozen produce, which is as healthy as fresh.
From there, Garcia-Webb builds a full meal by adding a source of protein, like lean meats or fish, to fill another quarter of the plate. The last quarter of the plate is for starchy foods like whole grains, pasta, rice, or potatoes.
The strategy makes it simple to get five servings a day of fruits and veggies. Each serving is about a handful when you’re eyeballing it.
As you fill up on produce, the high-volume, high-fiber food keeps you full and satisfied after eating, so you’re less likely to reach for junk food later. That means you’ll find yourself eating healthier without having to count a single calorie or even measure a portion.
When to track your food for weight loss
There’s nothing inherently wrong with tracking your eating habits, and calculating every gram of protein is fine if that works for you.
Still, for most people, too much tracking can be a burden, taking away the enjoyment of food and making you less likely to stick to your healthy habits long-term.
Instead of trying to track everything you eat forever, Garcia-Webb recommends keeping a food log for a few days: it can give you a baseline sense of your current habits and what you can change to move toward your goals.
“You build this intuitive knowledge, and then you have a rough sense of what it looks like for you,” she said.
A temporary habit of food tracking can be helpful if you feel like you’re doing everything right and wonder why you aren’t losing weight.
Food labels can mislead you by making a processed snack seem healthy because of added protein, but sneaking in extra sugars.
Luke Chan/Getty Images
Garcia-Webb said if you’ve never tracked your habits, it’s common to eat more and exercise less than you realize.
These days, plenty of convenience foods disguise ultra-processed junk with a “health halo” of added protein or other nutrients to make you believe you’re making a nutritious choice.
“People think that they’re eating healthier than they are,” Garcia-Webb said. “Something that we can all fall prey to is very good marketing.”
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Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl shirt has led to lookalikes appearing on resale sites such as eBay and Vinted.
Some of the Zara-designed shirts are being listed for thousands of dollars.
The shirts were reportedly given to employees at Zara’s parent company and weren’t intended for sale.
Shirts inspired by Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl outfit are fetching high price tags on resale sites.
The Puerto Rican singer wore an ensemble designed by retail giant Zara during his Super Bowl LX performance on Sunday. In the days following the show, similar T-shirts have popped up on resale platforms such as eBay and Vinted.
They’ve appeared in listings that feature a thank-you card from Bad Bunny, whose name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, and tags that state that the garment is not intended for sale.
A limited number of the tops were given to some employees at Zara’s parent company, Inditex, to commemorate the performance, multiple outlets reported. In the thank-you note, the pop star praised the time, talent, and heart that went into the project.
Zara and Inditex did not immediately respond to requests for comment by Business Insider.
Sellers posted the T-shirts along with a thank-you card from Bad Bunny.
Vinted
As of Tuesday afternoon, the shirts were being listed for between 500 euros ($595) and thousands of dollars on eBay and Vinted, with at least one Vinted post asking for nearly $10,000.
Some of the cheaper options came without the thank-you note.
“This garment has been created as a special gift from Benito to Puerto Rico,” read the tag on one shirt, which was listed without the thank-you note.
The jersey features the name Ocasio across the back and the number 64, in honor of his late uncle, representatives for Bad Bunny told Complex.
In a charged political climate where even small missteps can spark a brand backlash, many of this year’s Super Bowl advertisers are sticking with the safest bet in the playbook: comedy and celebrities.
Much like last year’s Super Bowl, the vast majority of the big game ads released so far are playing it safe. Advertisers hope that A-list stars will be a shortcut to attention in the crowded field of commercials, and that humor will leave audiences feeling uplifted and warm toward their brand.
“In general, advertisers want to play it safe,” said Peter Daboll, head of North America at the creative testing platform DAIVID. “There’s a high anxiety level here in the US, and people are probably very afraid of triggering anything.”
Viewers aren’t in the mood to be preached to, he added, and even heartwarming ads that might have performed well in Super Bowls past could come across as too “syrupy” and fall flat.
Of the Super Bowl LX trailers and teasers the TV measurement platform iSpot has tested with its consumer panel so far, 63% triggered “funny” reactions from viewers. The highest “funny” score right now goes to Bud Light for its “Keg” ad, which features Shane Gillis, Post Malone, and Peyton Manning flailing down a hill in an attempt to catch up with a runaway beer keg.
Other ads hoping to raise a chuckle:
Andy Samberg stars as “Meal Diamond” for Hellmann’s, performing a “Sweet Caroline” parody in a deli to customers, including Elle Fanning.
Fanatics Sportsbook tapped a self-deprecating Kendall Jenner to mock the “Kardashian Curse,” the internet conspiracy that dating members of the family ruins an athlete’s game.
Instacart’s vintage-style ad features actor Ben Stiller and singer Benson Boone in a high-energy— and ultimately calamitous — musical performance about choosing the perfect banana.
Novartis is making itself the butt of Super Bowl joke ads, with NFL players telling viewers to “relax your tight end” and get a blood test for prostate cancer.
Comcast’s Xfinity reunites some of the original “Jurassic Park” cast to suggest that many of the famous dinosaur park’s problems could have been avoided with better WiFi.
Anthropic is taking a swipe at OpenAI over its decision to bring ads to ChatGPT.
Even the heartwarming story of a Budweiser Clydesdale horse helping a bald eagle learn how to fly ends with a joke about getting misty-eyed.
The cast of celebrities in the commercial breaks will range from Sabrina Carpenter for Pringles to Emma Stone for Squarespace and Guy Fieri for Bosch.
Mark Gross, cofounder of the ad agency Highdive, which has produced several Super Bowl campaigns over the years, said the Hollywood landscape had changed and that celebrities are now more open to appearing in commercials than in previous years.
“It’s the job of us at ad agencies and marketers to tell great, original stories that stand out without just hiring the celebrity first and expecting that to do the work for you,” he added.
Highdive worked on a Super Bowl commercial for Lay’s this year.
Money talks
There’s a lot at stake.
The Super Bowl remains one of the last mass-reach media advertising destinations. Last year’s Super Bowl averaged a record-high US audience of 127.7 million viewers, per Nielsen, the TV ratings company.
The average price for 30 seconds of airtime during Super Bowl LX was $8 million, with some spots selling for more than $10 million, according to this year’s big game broadcaster, NBCUniversal. Then there are the millions of dollars spent on talent fees, production, and media buys to amplify the ad after the game ends.
“CMOs are under so much pressure,” said Kerry Benson, SVP of creative strategy at the data and analytics company Kantar.
“They have to prove ROI in these ads,” she said, referring to return on investment.
The rewards can be handsome if brands play their Super Bowl strategies right.
In 2024, Kantar found that Super Bowl ads delivered an average return on investment of $8.60 for every $1 spent, making them 20 times more effective than regular TV ads. Benson said this reflects the size of the audience during the game and all the supporting activity and discussion around a Super Bowl campaign.
A different approach
Not every brand is adopting the comedy-and-celebrity playbook.
Rocket and Redfin’s ad amplifies the emotion with a stirring Lady Gaga cover of Mr. Rogers’ “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” The spot leans into a moment of heightened division in many US communities, highlighting the importance of small acts of kindness and human connection.
Elsewhere, Hims & Hers’ “Rich People Live Longer” spot strikes a provocative tone about US healthcare inequality, featuring a couple of characters that resemble Jeff Bezos and the biohacker Bryan Johnson.
“When you are challenging a system that has been broken for generations, the work cannot feel familiar or safe,” said Hims & Hers chief design officer, Dan Kenger. “The creative has to feel disruptive because that’s what is needed to change the status quo of healthcare.”
Anselmo Ramos, creative chairman at the advertising agency GUT, is nostalgic for ads that didn’t lean on celebrity as a shortcut to success — Apple’s “1984,” Budweiser’s frogs, the Geico caveman, and the E-Trade baby. He’s also hoping to see more bold, anthemic spots in the sea of comedic commercials.
“I’m missing executions with a brand purpose, with a clear point of view,” Ramos said. “We need them more than ever.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
Do you remember what you were doing on this day 20 years ago? If you were an avid Disney Channel viewer, chances are, the answer is living and breathing “High School Musical.”
In January 2006, a direct-to-TV movie musical starring a cast of largely unknown teenagers set a single-night audience record on the Disney Channel. It was such a hit that the house of mouse promptly doubled down with repeat screenings, sing-along versions, piles of merchandise, and a live concert tour that packed arenas across the country. By the time the year was out, the soundtrack had become the top-selling album of 2006.
No one could have known that a Disney Channel Original Movie would eventually become a hit trilogy and multibillion-dollar franchise, but director Kenny Ortega was never in the business of half-heartedness. He’d already made a name for himself as a choreographer (“Dirty Dancing,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” Madonna’s “Material Girl”) and a director (“Newsies,” “Hocus Pocus”). He’d signed on to choreograph and direct “High School Musical” because he recognized his younger self in the story — but also because he saw potential for an ambitious production, complete with original songs and colorful dance sequences.
Ortega successfully won support from Disney Channel executives to turn the original script into a “full-on musical,” which, at the time, was not a popular format for the network.
“The musical was dead, according to the industry,” Ortega told Business Insider. “The budget came in, and I was like, how the heck am I going to be able to do this?”
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With only about a month to shoot and a few million dollars to spend, it was crucial to ensure that each piece to the puzzle fit perfectly.
“We made every dollar stretch and every minute mean something,” Ortega said. “We didn’t waste any time. Nothing ended up on the cutting room floor.”
Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleu, Lucas Grabeel, Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron, and Monique Coleman on the set of “The Today Show” on March 30, 2006.
Jemal Countess/Getty Images
Ortega and his team eventually landed on Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens to play Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez, a basketball star and a whiz kid who discover an unlikely love for theater. The high schoolers resolve to follow their dreams and, of course, fall in love in the process. Offscreen, Efron and Hudgens followed suit, dating for several years.
As “High School Musical” celebrates its 20th anniversary this week, Business Insider spoke with Ortega about the movie’s key casting decisions, the actors’ real-life relationships, and the potential for another sequel.
The sibling dynamic between Ashley Tisdale and Lucas Grabeel led Ortega to make their characters siblings
Lucas Grabeel and Ashley Tisdale as Ryan and Sharpay in “High School Musical.”
Disney
Is it true that you wanted to run the auditions for “High School Musical” like Broadway auditions?
I did. And I got in a little trouble for that in the beginning.
I remember Judy Taylor, who I adore, who was head of casting at Disney Channel for many, many years, came to me during our big final testing. We had about 25 and 30 kids for the finals. And then we narrowed it down to about 18. And I had them in the room for about six hours — they were playing basketball, they were dancing, they were singing, they were improvising. I was flipping them around and switching them around and looking at the chemistry that was in the room and looking at the promise that was in front of me.
The next day, Judy came back and said, “The agents are flipping out. They want to know what the heck’s going on over here. These kids have other auditions, other people to meet, and you’re holding them ransom.”
But then the next day, Judy came back to me and said that Zac Efron’s agent called her and said, “Zac said it’s the best audition he’s ever been to.” And that even if he didn’t get the part, it was worth being a part of the auditioning.
It was such fun. The kids in that room with me were having an absolute ball. I don’t think they’d ever been put through any kind of an audition like that, being West Coast actors and not East Coast theater actors. I put them through the mill.
Were any of the main cast members almost passed over because there were concerns about their stamina, or their singing and dancing abilities?
There were questions. I mean, I think everybody saw the chemistry between Zac and Vanessa from the very, very beginning and knew that it was palpable and that that was going to be hard to top, but there were also concerns about whether they could handle the responsibility. They were young. Vanessa was 15, Zac was 16, and we were putting them in a full-on musical that they had to carry.
Fortunately, we also had the support of Ashley Tisdale and all the other brilliant [actors], Corbin Bleu and Lucas Grabeel and Monique Coleman. And beyond that, with people like Alyson Reed and Bart Johnson. And so we had them surrounded with a lot of great energy and intelligence, and we did it.
But no, I don’t think anyone really was averse to any of the choices that we made. It was hard for me to get Ashley because she was already a big star for Disney Channel, and I think they were priming her for her own movie. And I was like, “Please!” I was crazy in love with what I knew she could do with this role, and she was delicious to work with.
Ashley Tisdale as Sharpay in “High School Musical.”
Disney
I can’t imagine anyone else playing Sharpay.
Honestly, every day she brought something to the party, to the game. There were days where she would come in and she would say to me, “Don’t say anything! Don’t say anything! Can I show you something?” She was just really an improvisational genius, and she really had her arms wrapped around Sharpay, and we had the most fun developing that role together and working with [screenwriter] Peter Barsocchini, of course.
You know, in the beginning, Ryan and Sharpay weren’t brother and sister. They weren’t twins. They were just two characters in the high school that were both in the theater department. But the chemistry that they had together in the auditions, I said, “I think we should make them twins.” I said, “They’ve got something here that I think we could have a heck of a lot of fun with.” And everybody agreed, and we moved forward with that idea.
This is an interesting point, because Ryan and Sharpay are auditioning to play a couple in the musical, are they not?
Yes. [Laughs.] We didn’t change that. I don’t think we thought it through. I think we were a little busy.
Did any of the actors butt heads behind the scenes?
No. I mean, there was some really fun rapport between Lucas and Ashley that they incorporated into their work.
There was this wonderful kind of tug of war between the two of them. And then when the lights came on, and the cameras were rolling, it was just like they were onstage. They put it on.
We felt that. We saw that. We saw them bickering or challenging one another, and we just found it to be really great. And I didn’t have to ask them to be anything. All I had to do was just turn on the camera and get out of the way.
I was there to guide and direct and suggest and mold, but these kids brought a lot. They really did that. They studied, they cared. Day one, Zac said, “Don’t worry about time. Don’t worry about working us, Kenny. We all committed to do this. Let’s make it worth something. Let’s make this worth us all being here.”
Zac was initially really helpful in me sort of raising the bar on what I could expect from these young people. Because before that, other than “Newsies,” I hadn’t been really experienced in working with kids that young.
Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens lobbied for their characters to kiss in the first movie
“High School Musical” won outstanding children’s program at the 2006 Emmys.
Mathew Imaging/FilmMagic for Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
Was there any concern about Zac and Vanessa potentially breaking up during the trilogy?
Well, I think you quietly have concern because you know that that could impact a kind of energy and comfort. And especially with younger kids, you want to make sure that it doesn’t change the sort of climate and ease that we walk into every day. But it didn’t weigh heavily on me. They were all friendly. They all got along. They all enjoyed each other’s company. There was no one that was over here and everybody over here. They really all enjoyed each other’s company. They were a tight-knit group of kids all through it. They were serving of one another, helpful to one another. And I don’t remember that weighing on me.
Certainly, no one said, “Hey, be careful.” No one really brought it up. And I wasn’t aware that they even had a kind of romance, a kind of care for one another in that capacity, until almost the end of the first movie. And I thought it was so silly that I didn’t pick up on it, but I was a little busy.
Was there a version of the movie in which Troy and Gabriella do kiss at the end?
I don’t think at the end of one, no. I don’t think we wanted that. And not because we knew that there would be a two. I just think that we felt that that was something that we could all hope and wish for, but that it wasn’t time for it.
I think Zac and Vanessa wanted it, if I’m not mistaken. I think both of them were like, “We could do a little kiss. I think that it would end the movie in a really lovely place.” And we said, “You already have. You’ve already ended the movie in a really, really lovely place. There’s all kinds of promise about where these two kids are going.”
Troy Bolton’s voice was originally a mix of Zac Efron’s and Drew Seeley’s, but Efron did all his own singing for the sequels
Zac Efron as Troy in “High School Musical.”
Disney
Zac has gone on to do other musicals like “Hairspray” and “The Greatest Showman,” which is maybe a surprise, given that he didn’t do all his vocals in the first movie.
He did part of it. A lot of people don’t know that. A lot of people think that he was lip-syncing the whole movie. He wasn’t.
Drew [Seeley] did an incredible job. Drew’s an amazing composer and lyricist and performer and actor and singer, and he helped us. But because the music for one was written before we had Zac, the music wasn’t written for Zac. And so there was some of the music there that was just out of his range. But he did a lot of it. And then Drew filled in some of the higher-register parts. But “High School Musical 2” and three is all Zac.
Whose decision was that? Was it Zac coming to you, saying, “I want to do the singing now,” or was it your call?
We all wanted him to do it because we all wanted everybody to be doing their own work. And it was hard for him. It was a challenge, but God bless him, he accepted the role, and he went along with us, and he sang all through all those scenes where you see him, he’s singing along with the track.
When we knew that we were going to make a second, it was on everybody’s plate. We’re going to write the songs now, knowing Zac’s voice, knowing Zac’s range and register, so he can deliver all the music for the next movie.
Ortega would sign on to do a fourth ‘High School Musical’ if the cast and crew were all in this together
The cast of “High School Musical” performs “We’re All in This Together.”
Disney
In your mind, would Troy and Gabriella have made it as a couple? Twenty years later, are they still together?
Well, that would be unfair of me. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of Peter Barsocchini being able to write a fourth movie, if that’s the plan. So I wouldn’t want to throw anything out there, because as a director, I would want to be open to either way, whether they stayed together or whether they didn’t stay together, that if I was fortunate enough to be invited to come back and do it again and everyone wanted to, that I would be open to looking at whatever Peter wanted to put in front of us as what he would think the future brought for those characters.
I think all of us hope that they would be together, but maybe not necessarily as a couple, maybe just connected in some kind of wonderful, soulful, spiritual way. Friends, even. Who knows? We’ll see. I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but it’s been talked about.
So you’re not connected to a fourth movie right now?
No, no, I’m not. No one has reached out to me and said, “We’re doing it.” But I know that the fans have been asking, could we do some kind of coming back together, some kind of a reunion show? And hey, I’d just be happy with a nice dinner with everybody present and with no rush to get out after dessert.
But for the fans, I hope we could do something. I think that would be lovely. They’re deserving. They’ve been amazing. They’ve changed all of our lives.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Matt Damon, 55, says one diet change left him lighter than he has been in years.
During an appearance on Wednesday’s episode of the “New Heights” podcast, Damon spoke about how he prepared for his latest role in “The Odyssey.”
“I was in really good shape. I lost a lot of weight. He said he wanted me like lean but strong. It’s a weird thing,” Damon told hosts Jason and Travis Kelce, referring to the film’s director, Christopher Nolan.
To achieve that physique, Damon said he cut one thing out of his diet.
“I literally, just because of this other thing I did with my doctor, stopped eating gluten,” Damon said. “I used to walk around between 185 and 200. I did that whole movie at 167. And I haven’t been that light since high school. So it was a lot of training and a really strict diet.”
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The actor said he works with a trainer, and compared the physical preparation to how the Kelce siblings would gear up for a football season, with training becoming part of his daily routine.
“You know, it’s like just part of your day. It’s part of your job, right? And it’s like yeah, you get really routinized about it and really kind of build your day around all that stuff,” Damon said.
The actor added that he hasn’t had gluten since. “I’m done. I’m done. I’m gluten-free everything,” Damon said.
A gluten-free diet eliminates gluten, a protein found in grains such as wheat, barley, and rye. It is often adopted for medical or digestive reasons, including to manage symptoms of celiac disease.
For most people, gluten isn’t necessarily harmful.
“Evidence suggests that, for general health, the emphasis should be on a whole, minimally processed, plant-based diet, which can include gluten-containing grains,” Grace Fjeldberg, a registered dietician with the Mayo Clinic Health System, told Business Insider in 2021.
Despite its popularity, a gluten-free diet doesn’t necessarily result in weight loss and isn’t a universal approach to better health.
Damon is no stranger to getting into peak shape for a role.
In a 2016 BBC interview, Damon said that getting back into shape for his return to the Bourne franchise was “brutal,” after his last appearance in 2007’s “The Bourne Ultimatum.”
“For the first Bourne movie I was 29 and I thought that was hard work getting into shape,” Damon said.
“Now I’m 45 and it’s just brutal. We shot this bare-knuckle fighting scene on my 45th birthday and it was a lot of work to get there,” he added.
