As many people are now aware, Southern chef and multi-millionaire Paula Deen announced in mid-January of this year that she’d been diagnosed with type II diabetes (that’s the really lousy kind). But, in what would almost seem an overt effort to pre-empt a sympathetic reaction from the world at large, Ms. Deen also confessed that she’d known about her condition for about three years.
So, we’re sort of in the middle here, right? We’ve got a well-known TV chef, (in)famous for offering up recipes and concoctions that even in moderation would be tough to incorporate into any normal human diet without seeing some physical pudging up; she announces that she’s got a chronic disease, based on her high-sugar, high-fat culinary regimen.
America: Oh, you poor thing.
Paula Deen: Hey, incidentally—are the cameras still on? Never mind, no big deal. Just wanted to mention that I’ve known about this for the last three years. Anyways, thanks for coming—tune in next week!
America: Wait. Three years?
Now, we here at PEDA are as sympathetic as the next person. Which means that when it comes to sympathizing with someone who’s making a pretty lucrative living by promoting to a massive audience the very diet that is, as the cameras roll, literally destroying her own body and health, well, we kind of cross our fingers and hope that the “next person” is, oh… Oprah? Or someone’s senile great-grandpa, maybe? Basically, anyone with an above-average capacity for the old knee-pat and “There, there” combo.
With all that in mind, we’ve run up a list of things Paula Deen might have been doing, during the three years she was keeping quiet about having type II diabetes, that kept her from getting around to spilling the (honey-glazed ham and) beans:
• Using her many years of culinary experience to develop healthier recipes that will help offset the physical effects of her previous recommendations on her millions of fans—and that, thanks to her tireless trial-and-error efforts, will still offer her fans many of the same flavors and ingredients they love.
• Conducting extensive experiments on the efficacy of injecting insulin into butter.
• Training for a marathon.
• Training for Iron Man.
• Training for Burning Man.
• Training for walking with a cane.
• Updating her conscience-soothing caveat to something with a little more humility and a little less buck-passing than “Honey, I’m your cook, not your doctor.”
• Deciding to take a chance on alienating her fan base and her advertisers by publicly admitting that she was wrong in advocating such unhealthy eating habits, dramatically changing her diet and hiring a nutritionist to participate in her show; waking up the next morning and chuckling to herself at the very idea.
• Lock down endorsement deal with pharmaceutical company that makes the diabetes treatment drug she uses.
• Eat donut-bacon-egg-cheeseburger. Check blood sugar. (Repeat until levels start to peak, then switch to standard burger.)
We at PEDA are all about finding common ground with our philosophical opposites; in that context, we’re on board with most of Anthony Bourdain’s comments about Paula Deen’s condition.
So we’ll continue to take with a grain of (finely ground sea) salt his comments about vegetarians/vegans; not only because we happen to agree with him in certain ways (mainly regarding the fancy-pants disdain and the coddle-my-needs attitude so often displayed by our plant-centric friends), but also in the spirit of speaking out against bad eating habits as a good idea in general.
We look forward to getting together with Mr. Bourdain over drinks, to explore further potential areas of overlap.
P.E.D.A. 