So Paula Deen has Type 2 diabetes.

[Crafter_Man]

I don't know what she eats or weighs, but if she routinely consumes the dishes described in her recipes then I guess I'm not surprised.

Here are her Fried Butter Balls, for example. And her Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches.

Mmmm, scrumptious!

I am guessing Paula's latest culinary masterpiece will be Deep Fried Grease-Battered Grease Balls. I am salivating at just the thought of devouring a bucket full. They are to die for!

[Skammer]

I think the glee (and I don't mean the OP) over her condition is pretty distasteful.

How funny! Serves her right for cooking with all that butter! Ha Ha!

Maybe it's just because she reminds me of my grandmother. Anyway, I hope she does what is necessary to control it. If she adds a couple healthy menu items to her next cookbook, all the better.

[Ogre]

Yeah, with the modern cooking show's decided bent toward healthy, light items, I'm glad there's at least one out there that revels in full-fat, full-sugar straight up deliciousness.

Best to Paula Deen.

[randomface]

I know obesity and sugar/carbohydrates are linked to diabetes, but I didn't think butter or other fats were directly linked to it. Can anyone provide me some citation for that idea?

[Ferret Herder]

She claims that she's never advocated that you should go ahead and eat like that all the time, but hell if I could tell from her show. A stick of butter is not a common ingredient in tomato-based pasta sauce.

I'm not gleeful about this. Her shape reminds me of a grandma who struggled with type 2 diabetes for decades, as did my mother-in-law. It just doesn't surprise me.

What does surprise me is that she's known for 3 years and it's only coming out now.

[LavenderBlue]

Being happy because another person has an awful disease is even tackier than Ms. Deen's irritating persona and over the top food excesses.

[Marley23]

Originally Posted by Ferret Herder

What does surprise me is that she's known for 3 years and it's only coming out now.

There's a very good reason for that: until now nobody was paying her to talk about it. Now she's participating in a campaign to promote diabetes awareness (which might have the incidental effect of increasing sales of a diabetes medication made by the company that is paying her).

[Ferret Herder]

Originally Posted by randomface

I know obesity and sugar/carbohydrates are linked to diabetes, but I didn't think butter or other fats were directly linked to it. Can anyone provide me some citation for that idea?

As far as I know, sugar/simple carbs do not cause diabetes. They are harmful to good blood sugar control for diabetics.

Type 2 diabetes is related to obesity, age, and family history, last I read up on it. Paula has carried some extra weight for as long as I can remember.

[Harborwolf]

Originally Posted by Marley23

There's a very good reason for that: until now nobody was paying her to talk about it. Now she's participating in a campaign to promote diabetes awareness (which might have the incidental effect of increasing sales of a diabetes medication made by the company that is paying her).

This. This woman made herself rich off of selling deep fried garbage and is now using her condition to sell drugs.

I'm not experiencing glee, but I won't express sympathy until somebody starts paying me to do so. I think Paula herself would understand.

[joebuck20]

You can put this in the "saw it coming from a mile away" column.

Here's the story:


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/di...s.html?_r=1&hp

PAULA DEEN, the self-crowned “Queen of Southern cuisine,” said Tuesday morning on the “Today” show on NBC that she has Type 2 diabetes, a diagnosis she received three years ago. Ms. Deen also confirmed that she is being paid to promote Victoza, a noninsulin injectable medication made by Novo Nordisk, a Danish pharmaceutical company.

Ms. Deen, 64, ran a restaurant in Savannah, Ga., for years before she became nationally known through her cooking shows on the Food Network, reveling in dishes like deep-fried macaroni and cheese and Krispy Kreme doughnut bread pudding. But she said in an interview with the “Today” co-host Al Roker, “I’ve always encouraged moderation.”

My wife is a big fan of hers, and I will say that her pumpkin ooey-gooey cake is heavenly, but yeah that's pretty much a once a year treat for me.

Anyway, a lot of the commenters on that story are also pretty upset that she's taking this as an opportunity to shill for a drug company.

[Shakes]

<-----Shocked

[Tim R. Mortiss]

Dayum!!

[SeaDragonTattoo]

[Gomer Pyle]

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

[/Gomer Pyle]

[not what you'd expect]

Not at all surprised, of course. Anthony Bourdain has been very vocal about Paula. And not in a good way.

[rocking chair]

if she had to under go immediate bypass, then blame the butter.

i don't remember her using pounds of sugar the few times i saw the show.

[Marley23]

Threads on this topic were started in Cafe Society and MPSIMS. I've merged them and put the combined thread in Cafe Society.

[Chefguy]

Originally Posted by Ferret Herder

As far as I know, sugar/simple carbs do not cause diabetes. They are harmful to good blood sugar control for diabetics.

Type 2 diabetes is related to obesity, age, and family history, last I read up on it. Paula has carried some extra weight for as long as I can remember.

Pretty much. Also a sedentary lifestyle coupled with those things. Exercise and weight loss can actually bring down your numbers to the point where you can get off the meds, but there's no cure. It doesn't look like she's tried very hard to take the pounds off.

Chefguy: Type 2 diabetic.

[Morgyn]

Originally Posted by Ogre

Yeah, with the modern cooking show's decided bent toward healthy, light items, I'm glad there's at least one out there that revels in full-fat, full-sugar straight up deliciousness.

You have obviously never watched Two Fat Ladies.

Originally Posted by Ferret Herder

She claims that she's never advocated that you should go ahead and eat like that all the time, but hell if I could tell from her show. A stick of butter is not a common ingredient in tomato-based pasta sauce.

She puts BUTTER in SPAGHETTI SAUCE? Please, tell me you're joking. Butter does not belong in spaghetti sauce. It only belongs near it, when it's used to make delicious, buttery garlic bread ....

[Roderick Femm]

I remember once where she was cooking a dish for her sons, and the big deal was that there were vegetables in it. She had to hide them under cheese or pasta or something.

Meaning no offense, but she looks like a walking heart attack. If I had a celebrity death list, she'd be on it for about 2015.

I saw part of the interview, and she was sure weaseling about why she waited three years to announce her condition. She is so transparent - of course she waited until she could make money out of it.

I also loved (read: hated) the way she said Al's name - it sounded like "Aooww". I think there's a post in another thread that suggests an updated Pygmalion set in the US, and I think her accent would be the perfect "before" accent. I can hear her in the second scene now:

"Professuh, no cookin' show wull hahr me unless I kin taowk without gawglin' in the back o' mah throat, y'all."


Roddy

[Guinastasia]

I once saw a video of her drinking a cup of melted butter. *gag* If anything, her recipes kill my appetite.


(To be fair though, you don't have to be obese to have Type 2 diabetes. My grandmother has it, and she's probably about 100lbs soaking wet. Her diet, however, has always been terrible, and she's 93. Of course, obesity does play a part. But don't think that just because someone's skinny they're safe.)

[Greg Charles]

Originally Posted by joebuck20

Anyway, a lot of the commenters on that story are also pretty upset that she's taking this as an opportunity to shill for a drug company.

I'm not sure I get that. I mean I don't really support celebrities endorsing prescriptions drugs in the first place, but if it happens, I'd rather it be a celebrity that was actually using the drug.

I do believe she practices (if not counsels) moderation, because if she didn't, based on the foods she shows off, she'd be enormous. Still, all that sugar must have been a factor in the diabetes, no?

Disclaimer: Paula charmed Peter and the panel as a guest on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me", so that makes me predisposed to like her.

[aceplace57]

I'm not convinced Paula's food directly caused her diabetes.

There's other lifestyle factors too. Exercise being the most important. Moderation in what you eat is another. You can have the mashed potatoes and fried chicken once in awhile. Just not too often.

Heredity is another big factor with diabetes and there's not a darn thing you can do except exercise and eat in moderation. Then hope for the best.

[Shalmanese]

Originally Posted by Morgyn

She puts BUTTER in SPAGHETTI SAUCE? Please, tell me you're joking. Butter does not belong in spaghetti sauce. It only belongs near it, when it's used to make delicious, buttery garlic bread ....

No less influential figure than Marcella Hazan uses butter in her tomato sauce.

I personally find it odious that Paula Deen knew she had diabetes and yet continued advocating the exact same style of food she always had.

[Dangerosa]

Originally Posted by Guinastasia

I once saw a video of her drinking a cup of melted butter. *gag* If anything, her recipes kill my appetite.


(To be fair though, you don't have to be obese to have Type 2 diabetes. My grandmother has it, and she's probably about 100lbs soaking wet. Her diet, however, has always been terrible, and she's 93. Of course, obesity does play a part. But don't think that just because someone's skinny they're safe.)

My Dad does - it runs on both sides of his family. He's never been overweight in his life, and has always been big on exercise. He DID drink far too much in terms of sugared pop and fruit juice and eat far too much in terms of white flour pre-diagnosis.

He now gets MORE exercise and eats whole grains and skips the soda.

[Chimera]

8 days since diagnosed with Type II. Still learning the ropes of what I can eat and not eat.

For me it appears to be all the pop I drink/drank. My blood sugar plummeted by over 50% in just two days of not drinking sugar water. I say that with great sadness, because I loves my soda (Cherry Coke Fiend) and diet soda just doesn't taste as good.

Yesterday I had chili (both beef and turkey, black and red beans) with cheese over the top scooped up with corn chips for lunch, with diet pop and an Edy's (no sugar added) fruit bar for desert and my blood sugar level was actually lower 3 hours afterward than when I woke up in the morning.

Of course, I'm still experimenting. Today I had a Taco Bell Grilled Stuffed Burrito with water to drink and it raised my blood sugar by 100 points 2 hours after eating.

[Snarky_Kong]

No way!

[SeaDragonTattoo]

Just to be clear, because I've seen a couple mentions in here of being diabetic because of eating sugar:

Eating excess sugar doesn't cause diabetes. Excess sugar is the aftermath once diabetes has happened, and excess sugar in the body is what has to be controlled once a person is diabetic. The typical mechanism of Type 2 diabetes is - insulin resistance - caused, usually but not exclusively, by excess fat in the body. Whether that person got fat by eating too many calories from sugar or fat or both, doesn't matter. Heredity can matter, because that can factor in to how the body handles fat stores and how much they cause insulin resistance. It's the long-term fatness and/or the pancreas eventual inability to keep up with insulin production that causes Type 2. Of course there are exceptions, but that's the majority.

[Chronos]

OK, I just did an image search for her, and yes, she could stand to lose a few pounds, but she's far from obese. In fact, she looks pretty typical for an American. Either she burns a ton of Calories, or she really doesn't eat the things she shows on TV all the time.

[Guinastasia]

Here's the video I was talking about Paula Deen drinks butter

*gag*


(Sorry, most of her recipes look absolutely disgusting)

[lavenderviolet]

Yeah, sugar doesn't cause diabetes. However, excess calories of any source cause obesity. Obesity does increase the risk of diabetes and make it far harder to control. In addition to the obesity-diabetes links, it's also worth noting that diabetics are at a significantly higher risk of cardiovascular disease, which is another reason that it is pretty irresponsible for Paula Deen to continue to advocate the unhealthy food she is famous for.
Some type 2 diabetics are able to control their disease purely by watching their diet. If she were to focus on eating healthier and losing weight she might not even NEED the diabetes medication she is now peddling. I don't know if she's just so clueless that she is in denial of that reality or choosing not to acknowledge it so she can keep making money.

[Inner Stickler]

Originally Posted by Guinastasia

Here's the video I was talking about Paula Deen drinks butter

*gag*


(Sorry, most of her recipes look absolutely disgusting)

Can I just take a moment to rage about something that irritates me? It's bad enough when a video is someone pointing a camera at their TV, but for the love of something, could people please not interject their own comments over the top of the audio? Jesus, people piss me off.

[Sampiro]

Deen was pretty much a penniless single mom until well into middle age. Her fame only started in the late 1990s, and I think she was determined to rake in as much money as possible while the sun was shining.

I grew up on Deen-style cooking: if it stands still fry it, preferably in bacon grease- and I seriously doubt she converted anybody to that lifestyle but basically just gave the taste of childhood back for a few dishes. I'll even go so far to say that if anybody out there doesn't know that "fried in fat with lots of butter on top is bad for you" or if anybody says "Well Paula Deen says this is good and she's the healthiest woman on TV and a doctor!" then I just can't have much sympathy for them; they were probably on the fast track to be killed the first stranger to offer them jellybeans to get into their blacked out van anyway.

That said I'm not much of a fan of Deen because I think she's as phony as a $6 Rolex and totally on the make. I'm guessing the Paula Deen Diabetic Cookbook will be announced within the next few weeks.

[oliversarmy]

Don't most chefs recommend butter in recipes over other fats in many cases?

Regardless, are there studies that link butter consumption to diabetes? I honestly don't know.

It seems to me her problem may be more about the intake of calories, despite the source, and lack of exercise. Genetics may also play a role.

[YogSosoth]

Yup that sounds about right

[dropzone]

Originally Posted by Crafter_Man

So Paula Deen has Type 2 diabetes.

As does mine good-wife, recently. Makes preparing dinner a pain in the ass. "But you ate that just the other day. Just what the fuck CAN you eat?"

[Lynn Bodoni]

Originally Posted by SeaDragonTattoo

Just to be clear, because I've seen a couple mentions in here of being diabetic because of eating sugar:

Eating excess sugar doesn't cause diabetes. Excess sugar is the aftermath once diabetes has happened, and excess sugar in the body is what has to be controlled once a person is diabetic. The typical mechanism of Type 2 diabetes is - insulin resistance - caused, usually but not exclusively, by excess fat in the body. Whether that person got fat by eating too many calories from sugar or fat or both, doesn't matter. Heredity can matter, because that can factor in to how the body handles fat stores and how much they cause insulin resistance. It's the long-term fatness and/or the pancreas eventual inability to keep up with insulin production that causes Type 2. Of course there are exceptions, but that's the majority.

In fact, recent studies suggest that a certain family of viruses can trigger diabetes in susceptible patients, both type I and type II. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0305141639.htm http://www.umm.edu/patiented/article...s_000009_2.htm

Of course, some people are going to want to believe that they can prevent diabetes with their diet, which is mostly under their own control. And some people will cackle with glee at the thought that someone they don't like has developed an illness.

Having said that, if Paula Deen came out to shill for a drug company, yeah, that's pretty tacky. Not as tacky as the people who are celebrating the fact that she developed a disease, but tacky.

[dropzone]

Originally Posted by Lynn Bodoni

In fact, recent studies suggest that a certain family of viruses can trigger diabetes in susceptible patients, both type I and type II. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0305141639.htm http://www.umm.edu/patiented/article...s_000009_2.htm

I think that may have happened with us. As in, symptoms, which were laughably (Daughter: She never noticed? I told her YEARS ago!) obvious, disappeared.

[Sigmagirl]

Originally Posted by Shalmanese

No less influential figure than Marcella Hazan uses butter in her tomato sauce.

Have you seen James Beard's hamburger recipe?
Heavy cream.

[Ferret Herder]

James Beard and Marcella Hazan never put on overdone accents and shilled for companies while making burgers in glazed donut buns, deep-frying butter/cream cheese balls and lasagna squares (apparently these days, anything deep-fried counts as Southern home cooking to her), and writing cookbooks for kids that suggested cheesecake as breakfast food. When Barbara Walters interviewed her about the kids cookbook in 2009, she made her "moderation" claim again; she also seems to have known about her diagnosis then, and she should know well that once you get weight on, it's hard to get off - so why write cookbooks full of fattening foods for kids and help start them early on that path like half the other things out there? My guess? It would have hurt her book sales to "come out" then as being diabetic, and she spent the last 3 years finishing up her old book contracts and maybe closing out her sponsorship deals with various companies.

She said, "I made the choice at the time to keep it close to me, to keep it close to my chest. I felt like I had nothing to offer anybody other than the announcement. I wasn't armed with enough knowledge. I knew when it was time, it would be in God's time," or apparently, in Novo Nordisk's time - the company paying her to promote their product.

She's not writing or cooking from the heart. It's from the wallet. It'd be like the Marlboro Man secretly shilling cigs for years after a lung cancer diagnosis (two of them did die of lung cancer, but the actors didn't create the product). Sure, you can get lung cancer in other ways and not all smokers get it, but it sure doesn't help. It smacks of hypocrisy (and worse, in the case of the kid cookbook) to be dishing up all that with a toothy smile.

Diabetes is a bitch of a disease, and I am not happy to hear this diagnosis, at all. People have criticized her over-the-top excesses for years, and it's disappointing that it apparently took not an unfortunate illness but a promotional offer for her to start promoting better eating habits. She's said she's your cook, not your doctor, but I guess she might be your pharmacist if there's money in it.

[Dr. Righteous]

I need to say that I've made the Marcella Hazan sauce and it is heavenly. I never toss out the onion, but cut it up and mix it in with the sauce.

I sure don't make it often, but it's worth trying. Simple and delicious.

[Athena]

Originally Posted by Dr. Righteous

I need to say that I've made the Marcella Hazan sauce and it is heavenly. I never toss out the onion, but cut it up and mix it in with the sauce.

I sure don't make it often, but it's worth trying. Simple and delicious.

If you're talking the butter & tomato sauce where you simmer a stick of butter with a can of tomatoes and a whole onion, I've made that too, and it's divine.

RE: cooking with butter. I'm going to go against the grain and say I don't see an issue with it at all. What I see an issue with is portion size. A 1 or 2-oz (dry) portion of pasta with an appropriate amount of that tomato/butter sauce as a side to a dinner that includes some protein and veggies is absolutely fine and part of a healthy dinner.

I'll go head to head health-wise with that dinner over the much-more-common huge bowl of spaghetti (6-8 oz dry) with a traditional less-fatty tomato sauce.

In most cases, I don't think it's WHAT you eat that's causing health problems; it's how much of it you eat. Even Deen's crazy hamburger-on-a-donut ain't bad if we're talking small portions, or an occasional treat. And even the healthiest dish is going to cause weight gain if you eat too much on a regular basis.

[Roderick Femm]

As always, Don Asmussen has something to say about this in today's Bad Reporter (lower left)

(this link may not work after today, or you might have to go into archives to find today's strip)


Roddy

[Spoke]

Originally Posted by Roderick Femm

I also loved (read: hated) the way she said Al's name - it sounded like "Aooww". I think there's a post in another thread that suggests an updated Pygmalion set in the US, and I think her accent would be the perfect "before" accent. I can hear her in the second scene now:

"Professuh, no cookin' show wull hahr me unless I kin taowk without gawglin' in the back o' mah throat, y'all."

Originally Posted by Ferret Herder

put on overdone accents

Wow. Y'all seem to have some issues that have nothing to do with the woman's diet.

It's a shame her accent offends you so.

[Snow Pea]

Originally Posted by Spoke

Wow. Y'all seem to have some issues that have nothing to do with the woman's diet.

It's a shame her accent offends you so.

I live in the South - and I can say with certainty that she deliberately exaggerates her accent. I can't stand to listen to her.

[Ferret Herder]

Originally Posted by Spoke

Wow. Y'all seem to have some issues that have nothing to do with the woman's diet.

It's a shame her accent offends you so.

No issues. My most-beloved aunt had an accent that was occasionally impenetrable to this Midwesterner without a repeat listen or translation. I've just read stories over the years that Deen's accent is exaggerated for the audience. That offends me less than the stories that the dire situation she pulled herself out of (poverty, agoraphobia) was also exaggerated in its severity for her audience. If that is indeed her true accent or situation, I do apologize. I was speaking to her self-promotion, not her Southerness or anything similar. (The comedian known as "Larry the Cable Guy" also has a wildly exaggerated accent that is part of his act.)

(I'll also note that the ex-mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, was known for his thick Bridgeport accent and his oft-confusing malaprops and misstatements, and I found that just as bewildering at times.)

[Crafter_Man]

She has no one to blame butter herself.

[Spoke]

Originally Posted by Snow Pea

I live in the South - and I can say with certainty that she deliberately exaggerates her accent.

Well, no you can't. I know plenty of people with that accent.

[Ogre]

When I lived in the Nawth, I was known to play up my (really nearly nonexistent) Southern accent.

[slm2955]

I don't find this case to be funny at all, diabetes is serious business...

[Wile E]

Giada DiLaurentis over-exaggerates her pronunciation of Italian words. Every American with Hispanic roots I've seen on TV, either the cooking channel or elsewhere, over-exaggerates the pronunciation of Spanish words. So I don't think Paula is any different in that regard except she actually sticks to the accent for everything she says which I actually find less annoying than using an accent for one word while over-enunciating every syllable.

Also, I've known a lot of people with Southern accents and it always gets thicker when they're around a lot of people or people who aren't Southern, bless their hearts.