Contributed by guest blogger: Robert Rosenthal, Short Order Dad
Paula Deen is a hero to millions. With restaurants, books, magazines, TV shows and more, Deen is both an icon and an industry.
So many people really seem to love her, understandably. She is lively, gregarious, charming and fun. And she cooks the kind of Southern fried favorites that people dream of, doing it with joy in her heart.
But hers is also the kind of food that can bring you some trouble over the long term if you eat too much of it too often. As evidenced now by Paula Deen herself. Hey, I like fried chicken as much as the next guy, but I don't make a steady diet of it.
So when it was announced this week on the Today Show that Paula was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, it was as surprising as an alcoholic waking up with a hangover and tremors.
The real surprise surfaced when she revealed that she was diagnosed three years ago. She has known about her condition for three years. Al Roker rightly inquired as to why she waited until now to say anything at all about it.
Because, she said, she had "nothing to bring to the table."
Except that she did.
For three whole years, she continued to bring to the American table a steady diet of the very same death-defying food that brought her Type II diabetes. Her belated claims of having preached moderation would be laughable if they weren't so transparent.
What finally brought Paula out of the pantry was her announcement that she is now being paid as a spokesperson for a big drug company that sells diabetes medicine. She had the opportunity to do the right thing without having to be compensated. Instead, whether one views hers as a savvy business maneuver or distasteful, disingenuous hypocrisy is up for discussion. As is her legacy.
She had the prerogative not to say a word, but how many others have been similarly diagnosed during her three-year silence? She has to live with her coverup.
As of now, the Paula Deen message is that you can eat as much of whatever you want as you'd like without regard or worry because there's a drug for that.
But she still has the opportunity to do the right thing and turn this into what they call a "teachable moment."
Let us know how you feel about the way Paula handled the situation.
Robert Rosenthal is the Short Order Dad®, making food fun for parents. On Twitter @shortorderdad or facebook.com/ShortOrderDad
Paula Deen wants money and fame. Simple. She rode the gravy train that is the Food Network. Time for her to go. She'd had her 15 minutes of fame. Time to rotate in another food network "star" and let her join Rachel Ray, and Emeril Lagasse,and Bobby Flay and Jamie Oliver....etc.
Give me another Julia.
Julia Child- "You can have some butter, you can have some olive oil. It all comes down to moderation, variety, exercise and use your head."
I think it is appalling that she didn't go public with her diagnosis right away and still doesn't seem to have any plans of changing what she teaches on her show. She and all these other overweight TV chefs should start setting an example; obesity is an epidemic in this country. TV chefs and restaurants are partly to blame with their emphasis on decadence and quantity (Golden Corral, Old Country Buffet, 10 cent wing nights...).
Health class in many school districts is a joke and classes in home-ec have been eliminated as well. Schools are outsourcing lunch to vendors who sell crap and the traditional USDA school meal plans are horrendous too. We have kids who never see their parents prepare a healthy meal and never are told directly what is healthy. Sure the information is out there if you want to look, but why look for info on healthy cooking if what is on Food Network looks so yummy and you can get all you can eat ribs at Golden Corral for $10?
Soda and junk snacks are the things that got me. Meals were fairly healthy in my house. In my mid-30's I am paying the price for a 20+ year soda, cookies, ice cream and chips & dip addiction. I know what I should eat, thanks to home-ec including nutrition when I was in school (home-ec was an elective; I like to cook, so I took it), my mother being a pretty good cook and my decision to look for the information; but I am still struggling with limiting my old favorites to small amounts as a treat.
Something has to be done by our society as a whole, otherwise kids growing up now are going to have a lower life expectancy than my grandparents generation did. It is not cool that we have people being cut out of their houses because they cannot walk or be lifted onto a stretcher because they are over 800lbs. It is very bad that the smallest contestants on "The Biggest Loser" need to lose over a 1/3 of their body weight. It is not okay that I need to lose about 1/4 of my body weight and I am one of the "small ones" of my group of friends. It is not good that there are enough dangerously overweight chefs to have a show called "Fat Chef", but at least that means that someone sees the problem.
Both of my grandparents ate the same vegetarian diet the 63 years that they were married. My grandmother died at age 82. When she died she was a type 2 diabetic. My grandfather went on to live to age 98, a non-diabetic. He died of complications of a broken hip. Again, they shared the exact same diet. While strict ova-lacto vegetarians, they did enjoy homemade deserts on weekends.
I'm not going to freak out about Paula Dean's having let down the American public. We are, supposedly, adults. Actually her use of butter on her cooking show is vastly preferable to the easily oxidized vegetable oils we rather stupid Americans are so very fond of cooking with. The push for Canola (Canada Oil/GMO rapeseed oil) use is really all about money..not health. If I'm correct, Paula used both butter and vegetable oil on her show. Frying food in vegetable oil is plain old deadly. It's infinitely better for the health to use lard.
Anyway, my point is that there are more variables than just traditional Southern cooking that enter into acquiring type 2 diabetes! I'm not about to go all self righteous on poor Paula Dean, thank you. She has difficulty enough, now, figuring out how to live and eat with diabetes.
Both of my grandparents ate the same vegetarian diet the 63 years that they were married. My grandmother died at age 82. When she died she was a type 2 diabetic. My grandfather went on to live to age 98, a non-diabetic. He died of complications of a broken hip. Again, they shared the exact same diet. While strict ovo-lacto vegetarians, they did enjoy homemade deserts on weekends.
I'm not going to freak out about Paula Dean's having let down the American public. We are, supposedly, adults. Actually her use of butter on her cooking show is vastly preferable to the easily oxidized vegetable oils we rather stupid Americans are so very fond of cooking with. The push for Canola (Canada Oil/GMO rapeseed oil) use is really all about money..not health. If I'm correct, Paula used both butter and vegetable oil on her cooking show. Vegetable oil is plain old deadly for cooking with. Due to the fact that it's polyunsaturated it oxidizes horribly. Actually, true old fashioned Southern cooking would utilize lard. Lard is infinitely more healthy than vegetable oil. By the way, as I write this my cholesterol is "excellent" according to my doctor. My hdl ldl ratio is 2.8.
Anyway, my point is that there are more variables than just traditional Southern cooking that enter into acquiring type 2 diabetes and I'm not about to go all self righteous on poor Paula Dean, thank you. She has difficulty enough, now, figuring out how to live and eat with diabetes. If any entity is to be called out for it's blatant propaganda it's the FDA not some old lady with a cooking show.
i heard may times about Paula Deen from TV, electronic media and even radio. she is really famous and success