When Gwyneth Paltrow is criticized, she usually doubles-down. Like, she can’t even believe that the peasantry has the audacity to question her about ANYTHING, so she goes overboard in justifying or explaining herself. But not this time. Gwyneth has literally done the least amount of work involved with the Food Bank Challenge or the SNAP Challenge or whatever we’re calling it. She proudly posted a photo of what $29 worth of food stamps would get you at the grocery store (so many limes!) and… that was it. She posted that photo on April 9th. She abandoned the challenge within days (if not hours). She went out to lunch with friends over the weekend, and now People reports that Gwyneth and her boyfriend went out for a romantic dinner of veal tongue and rabbit legs (?????).

Gwyneth Paltrow and producer Brad Falchuk took their romance tableside on Tuesday. The actress, 42, and the Glee co-creator, 44, dined at the L.A. restaurant Animal, which featured a barbecue-themed menu on Tuesday of pig ears, veal tongue and fried rabbit legs.

“They were sitting together, very cozy and romantic,” says the observer at the eatery. “He was totally rapt by everything she was saying. They were totally on a date.”

The dinner followed Paltrow’s announcement on April 9 that she had accepted the Food Bank for New York City challenge to bring attention to the struggles faced by families that live on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, which Congress has slashed twice during the past 18 months. It’s unclear whether Paltrow is still participating in the campaign, which involves living off a $29 food-stamp budget for a week, or $1.38 per meal.

[From People]

It’s not “unclear”. Gwyneth is not doing the challenge, if she ever was. And that truly surprises me – I figured Gwyneth would devote a Goop-post to her “challenge” and tell us all how she managed to make some lovely lime-soaked rice (or something) and it was amazing and obviously that means she’s so much better at all of this than the (fat) peasants. Instead, she gave up and just phoned it in. “Darling, just take a photo of some limes, I’m going to lunch with my lover.”

After I wrote that ^^ Page Six published their version of the same story, only they got Goop’s rep to say: “She already finished the challenge last week but only got around to posting the photo of the groceries on [Thursday].” So, basically, it’s what I said – Gwyneth only posted a photo of what she thought $29 worth of food looked like and then went on with her life. Page Six also noted that at this fancy BBQ event, it didn’t even seem like Gwyneth ate anything, despite the fact that she likely spent $85 just to attend.

Meanwhile, Gwyneth got HEAPS of criticism for even deigning to pay lip service to this challenge. The NY Post had a scathing essay about Gwyneth pretending to be poor, like she’s Marie Antoinette. Even Time Magazine called it “poverty tourism” and declared the whole Gooptastrophe to be “gross.”

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.