Rants Dept.: Deen’s Diabetes

Generally, anything that I discuss about health issues is published on my other blog, Centaurica. But this information has me so steamed and fried it deserves to be posted here.

Cartoon by Kevin Siers

You might have heard about this on the news recently and wondered how low an individual could sink because Paula Deen, the Goddess of Killing Comfort Food, the women Chef Anthony Bourdain has described as “the most dangerous person in America” has realized an incredibly gross pig-wallowing-in-feces-filled-mud new low. It is hard for me to imagine anyone’s integrity to have gone missing to this degree, but then I have paid attention to the Republican candidates for President lately (always good for hearty laughs and bouts of incredulity) and realize that it might be seen as totally acceptable behavior to those miscreants.

Just so you know what I am going on about: Paula Dean is a television celebrity cook who loves Southern- style down-home deep-fried everything-smothered-in-fat-filled-gravy cooking. I have no argument with how delicious the food she prepares is, my argument rests with the fact the lady found out her diet gave her Diabetes three fucking years ago and only now that she has signed a lucrative contract with a pharmaceutical company, Novo Nordisk, to promote their diabetes drug has she come out publicly about the illness. 

Diabetes is directly linked to poor diet and low fitness levels. A person can be cured of the disease (Type 2) without pharmaceutical treatment whatsoever. However, there is plenty to be gained by the medical community by denying this fact. Just as there is plenty to be gained by Ms. Deen by not hurting her brand and sitting on this damning information for the last 36 months.

This is infuriating. I would love to serve the woman a heaping helping of poisoned pan gravy, but there is a bit of satisfaction in knowing her addiction to killer comfort food and money is killing her as well. 

What is particularly galling is how she has the audacity to say it took her all this time from diagnosis to laying down with the Satan of Big Pharma to realize how she could serve others; To bring something of value to the table, so to speak. What a concept when she’s never managed to do that before. As another blogger stated, it took him 20 seconds to come up with a plan to serve his public.

Here, let me do it for you Paula:

1) Announce your condition on your TV show, etc.

2) Tell your audience you are turning a new leaf and hope that they will join you on your journey of discovery, education, better health, and sure-fire tasty food that won’t kill your fat ass.

3) Change your recipes and overhaul you kitchen.

4) Show folks how to cook great food that doesn’t damage their health and how to transition from full-bore hog heaven to something that won’t put them and you through diabetic hell. (Or bring on cancers, heart disease, etc.)

5) Educate your audience to taking responsibility for their health. Invite on guest cooks and educators and go on other shows showing the progress that you are making.

6) Help others to help themselves before making sure your bank account isn’t being filled with a heaping helping of Big Pharma blood money.

7) Get healthy and become a shining example, a role model for everyone who suffers from diabetes or will soon be suffering from it because they follow your fat-assed bonanza cooking style.

8) And start the whole thing off by contacting Dr. Gabriel Cousens who will show you how it is done.

But then I am expecting Paula Deen to have integrity and just like good old-fashioned common sense it is something she is sorely lacking.

I truly understand food addictions. I have suffered from food-related issues all my life. My issues contributed mightily to my Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) diagnosis. CHF is terminal. There is no known cure. Once the heart muscle has been damaged it can never fully repair.

Diabetes doesn’t have to be terminal. It can be cured. People can get healthy and be free of the burden and horrors attached to it. I can readily sympathize and empathize with obese people everywhere and people who are now suffering from diseases that came from that obesity and their own food issues. Food addictions are a frightening burden that can alter your life negatively on every level. People believe kicking Alcoholism is near impossible. They don’t know the half of it.

However, Paula Deen is not just an addict. She is a pusher of the lowest sort. Her high-on-the-hog life style is predicated on others cooking the delicious and health damaging cooking she promotes. She owes all of her audience, all those folks who love what she does and are ignorant to her hidden agenda, a huge apology.

This is no joking matter. Diabetes is the fastest rising disease in America. It is a horrible drain on the economy and now children are developing it at earlier ages every year. Sure pills and insulin injections and constant life-intruding monitoring and doctor’s appointments can control the disease. But overhauling your nutrition can make it go away. Which is easier? Lots of people will say the medical treatment because they don’t want to be challenged. Which will make your life worth living? Change your diet and start exercising. Do it or die. Or first face the horrible prospects of amputations, heart disease, strokes . . .  

Abandon all hope ye who follow the lead of Paula Deen (and her dunder-headed sons), a true American travesty.

She melts like butta! Cartoon by Chris Britt.