Published Tuesday, 12 March 2013
The Hollywood actress was serving lunch to friends in her garden in 2011 when she suddenly fell ill, and Paltrow admits she feared the worst.
In her new cook book, she writes: "One sunny afternoon in London, in the spring of 2011, I thought - without sounding overly dramatic - that I was going to die. I had just served lunch in the garden at home... I had a vague feeling that I was going to faint, and I wasn't forming thoughts correctly... I got a searing pain in my head, I couldn't speak, and I felt as if I couldn't breathe. I thought I was having a stroke."
Doctors later found Paltrow had suffered a migraine and a panic attack, and she was subsequently told she was "severely anaemic" and "vitamin D deficient" - so she was ordered to change her diet.
The Iron Man star was ordered to cut out coffee, eggs, sugar, shellfish, potatoes, wheat and meat, and admits the eating regime made her feel better.
In the cook book, the actress also reveals the scare prompted her and her family to undergo food allergy testing, which revealed: "everyone in my house is intolerant of gluten, dairy, chickens' eggs, among many other surprising foods".
Paltrow has two children with her rocker husband Chris Martin.