Opinions of a Wolf

Hello my lovely readers!  Today I want to talk about something that’s been all over the American news this week.  Paula Deen has announced she’s been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

I know a lot of my readers are not Americans and thus may have no clue who Paula Deen is.  Paula Deen (always referred to with both names) was one of the first cooking stars on the Food Network.  She’s known for her traditional southern fare, heavy accent, and mothering personality.  She has a couple of restaurants that she runs with her sons.  Now, since she does TRADITIONAL southern cooking, her food is about as far from healthy fare as you can get.  She is well-known (and teased) in the US for adding copious amounts of butter and cheese and heavy cream to everything.

I was the first generation to grow up with the Food Network.  Cooking is a hobby I share with my dad, and I would hang out with him in the garage while he built things and watch the shows.  I distinctly remember the first time I saw Paula Deen’s show.  She was making hamburgers and she took a wad of blue cheese mixed with something and wrapped the meat around it, thereby making a hollow of melty cheese when it came time to eat.  Naturally, middle school aged pre-vegetarian Amanda’s mind was blown.

It was only when I became older and a healthy America advocate that I realized how incredibly unhealthy all of Paula Deen’s food is.  People have joked about it for years, but her announcement of having type 2 diabetes brings back the stark reality of the standard American method of treating the sickness and not the cause does to people.

The backlash against Paula Deen has been incredibly loud and surprisingly harsh this week.  Some vegans and vegetarians I respect have been almost gleeful at this woman’s illness.  Don’t get me wrong. Paula Deen made herself sick, and yes, her diagnosis is proof positive that we healthy food advocates are RIGHT in what we say.  But celebrating another person’s illness is wrong too.

Now the backlash that I do agree with includes everyone from vegans to diabetes experts.  Paula Deen has announced that she will not change her diet or lifestyle AT ALL.  In spite of the fact that diet changes and increased exercise have been proven the MOST effective treatment for type 2 diabetes.  Instead she has signed on to be a spokesperson for Novo Nordisk, the pharmaceutical company that supplies her diabetes medication.

So here we have a famous American woman diagnosed with a PREVENTABLE disease and instead of treating the CAUSE she is treating the SYMPTOMS.  That right there is everything that is wrong with the current American approach to health.  That is not health.  That is sickness and death walking.

What is far worse in my opinion is this:

Not everybody can afford to pay $58 for prime rib or $650 for a bottle of wine. My friends and I cook for regular families who worry about feeding their kids and paying the bills. –Paula Deen

First, the examples she gives are not even HEALTHY FOOD.  You can get a bag of lentils–aka healthy protein–for around $2 with around 12 servings in that one bag.  Healthy food is NOT expensive.  Time and again healthy food advocates have proven this.  The problem is that “regular families” don’t know how to cook from scratch, how to wisely shop, how to plan ahead for days when they’re busy.  These are lost skills that are no longer taught in school or at home.  And, for the record, dairy is EXPENSIVE and something Paula Deen adds to pretty much every single recipe she makes.

What is absolutely hypocritical in this quote, thought, is that Paula Deen is claiming regular people can’t afford healthy food (false) but also advocating medicating type 2 diabetes instead of treating the cause with a medication that costs $500 a month!

What we have here is a stubborn woman refusing to admit that her lifestyle caused her disease, refusing to change, and refusing to do anything about the negative impact she’s had on her loyal American fans.

Honey, I’m your cook, not your doctor. You are going to have to be responsible for yourself. –Paula Deen

You know, there’s a saying in the fitness world.  Fitness is 80% food and 20% exercise.  Notice how neither of those percentages are the DOCTOR but 80% of fitness is directly related to YOUR COOK.

Paula Deen is a woman who has made a FORTUNE selling high-fat, high-sugar, unhealthy food to the American people and then turns around and says well, health is up to these people’s doctors.  I’m not responsible for my fans at all.  Quite the person to respect, eh?

I can tell you right now what this all boils down to.  Paula Deen’s fortune rests on being the queen of butter.  If she changes her tune this late in the game, she thinks she’s going to lose it all.  Or at the very least stop raking in the cash.  She doesn’t care about doing what’s right for her own body, let alone for America.  She is a woman diseased by far more than type 2 diabetes.  She is a woman diseased with greed.