This week, TV “Chef” Paula Deen announced that she has been a diabetic for over 3 years, all the while cooking high-calorie, sugar and butter-laden dishes on her popular Food Network show “Paula’s Best Dishes”. Why did she wait so long to make this public?

Pay attention…

She has just  begun a lucrative parnership with a pharmaceutical company, promoting diabetes drugs. Is it just me, or is this reeeeeal ly convenient that she announces this, starts selling diabetes drugs, yet continues to cook the unhealthiest food on the planet?

 

Here are some her greatest hit:

• Deep Fried Cheese Cake
• Lady’s brunch Burger (bacon cheeseburger with egg, placed between 2 glazed donuts)
• Broccoli Salad (made with 8 slices of bacon, a cup of mayo, 8 oz cheese, and a quarter cup of sugar)
• Twinkie Pie
• Cheesy ham and banana cassarole (a nasty combination of ham, bananas, bacon, cheese, and potato chips between layers of white bread)

Last year she declared butter is still her “must-have” ingredient and her favorite kitchen gadget is a deep-fryer. In fact, she urged other cooks out there who might be remodeling their kitchens to have a deep-fryer installed while they’re at it.  Also last year, her “Paula Deen‘s Southern Cooking Bible” was named one of the Five Worst Cookbooks of 2011 by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The group reserved special mention for her hot buffalo wings — 910 calories and 85 grams of fat in a single serving — and noted that diets heavy in meat raise the risk of obesity.

And obesity, as we know, is a prime risk factor for Type 2 diabetes.

When she announced her condition on the “Today” show Tuesday, Deen explained she kept the diagnosis quiet because she needed time to “figure out things in my own head.”

100% BS

She needed to figure how to spin the info into $$$, pure and simple. Paula Deen is not responsible for her audience’s eating habits, however, she does have a responsibility to BE responsible with her product. This is especially true considering she is diabetic, and has been hiding it for 3 years!

She also has a responsibility to the Southern people she represents. Southern states are the fattest, and least healthy of all the states in the union, and if what she cooks truly is “Southern Food”, I understand why.

Ultimately, we all choose our own nutrition paths. Paula Deen can cook whatever she wants, and you can eat what you want. However, when you have a platform of influence the size and reach of Deen’s, you must bear responsibility for what you put out to the universe. Hiding a diabetic condition when you could easily be a force for change, and selling medication over lifestyle change  is disingenuous, and gets you put in the same fraud file as Jillian Michaels and the people who created the “Shake Weight”.