When A Food Network Chef Gets Type 2 Diabetes

January 20, 2012 93 Comments

Paula Deen is a celebrity chef on the Food Network who makes mind-blowingly fatty food. I saw her deep fry a macaroni and cheese casserole with bacon in it.

She is famous for a sandwich called a "heart attack" which is 2 glazed donuts, a hamburger, a fried egg, and bacon.

One of my personal Paula Deen favorites is when she deep fried cheesecake. See here:

OMG, she really did that! And then she ate it (and lots of similar stuff) and developed Type 2 diabetes. This story alone isn't that interesting until you hear what she did next.

After three years of keeping her diabetes to herself, she has become a paid spokesperson for a diabetes drug from Novo Nordisc. She is making money because of her poor dietary choices. Wow, what a role model!!

She is like a smoker who promotes cigarettes, who caught lung cancer, and is getting paid by her chemo company to hawk the drug cocktail. Goes down good, does it Paula? How about the side effects - should we talk about those?

(actually she is also a smoker - but I'm not going to touch that).

Now, I will stop being frustrated with her and show compassion. I want to like Paula Deen. Hey, I do LIKE Paula Deen, but when you get a wake-up call like Type 2 diabetes the party is over.

Just think of the impact she could make if she had decided to change her lifestyle and adopt healthier eating habits. In three years maybe she could have lost 60 pounds and told us of her new love of kale chips. She would be a GREAT role model.

Maybe she is too scared to change. I think her fans would love her whatever she does - but it would be hard to give up those signature dishes.

So, if YOU have Type 2 diabetes (or your blood sugar levels are going up) - I am going to offer you another chef who actually is a role model. Mark Bittman tells us in his book "Food Matters" that at 57 years old he was overweight, his blood sugar and cholesterol levels were rising, and he had developed sleep apnea.

And, what did he do? Go out and hawk a sleep apnea drug? No, he changed his diet (less meat more vegetables) and lost weight. He started eating a diet that was "vegan until six" and found that the weight just melted off of him.

Then, he hawked TWO books (see below) - one about his transformation and another a cookbook to help the rest of us. If you haven't looked at these, you should.

Mark Bittman is way too grumpy for the Food Network, which is too bad because we could all use his show.

What do you think of the Paula Deen controversy?

photo of Paula Deen provided by Sophie Wilcox in support of Civitan International's work for the developmentally disabled