Paula Deen and Diabetes – Anthony Bourdain Turns Up the Heat

Thursday, January 19th, 2012 at 4:48 am

Paula Deen and Diabetes – Round 2

After yesterday’s news that Paula Deen, the renowned Southern Cooking TV personality announced that she is a Diabetic, the topic entered a new phase today as Anthony Bourdain, also a celebrity chef, blasted her with his opinion of her actions. As quoted by Eater Monday, Bourdain said:

“When your signature dish is hamburger in between a doughnut, and you’ve been cheerfully selling this stuff knowing all along that you’ve got Type 2 Diabetes. … It’s in bad taste if nothing else.”

First, some background information… Paula Deen has known she was a Type 2 Diabetic for 3 years and waited until now to make this information public, apparently (in her words) so she could learn more about it. During the past three years she has continued promoting her high calorie meals, which are to some extent like poison to a Type 2 Diabetic. Type 2 Diabetes is, in very rough terms, an intolerance of sugar and carbohydrates. A typical American diet, consisting of around 65% or more carbs drives a Type 2 Diabetic’s blood sugar high enough to cause a number of debilitating and in the long run life threatening complications. In the early part of the 20^th Century, before drugs like insulin were available for diabetics, doctors routinely placed patients on low carb diets. Those who stuck to their diets avoided altogether the complications of Type 2 Diabetes. The same is true today. Every day patients swear off carbs in their diet, begin exercising, and avoid Type 2 Diabetes.

Modern drugs for Type 2 Diabetics, like insulin, attempt, but do not uniformly succeed in avoiding the long term complications of diabetes. In summary, if you are concerned you are diabetic or becoming so, your best solution is to change your lifestyle with diet and exercise. If you can’t do that, go for the drugs as a second, and not as promising choice. The problem that many of us see in the current TV culture is that some supposed authorities suggest drugs as the best route for diabetics. In reality, drugs haven’t been proven to be a better alternative than lifestyle change, so they shouldn’t be pushed as the best choice. To put it another way, Type 2 Diabetics shouldn’t be told to just eat what they want because drugs will take care of everything. Unfortunately there are several occasions when drugs can cause more harm than good – find more information through drug rehab facilities.

Anthony Bourdain’s issue with Paula Deen was that, since she became fully aware of the danger of high carb foods to diabetics, she shouldn’t have been promoting them for the past 3 years, at least without some mention of the downside. On top of that she has joined in a business relationship with a Diabetic drug company. So, to follow this to its logical conclusion, people who eat her foods too much could well end up becoming Diabetic or more Diabetic, and would then need Diabetic drugs. To use Anthony Boudain’s words:

“Thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, so I can profitably sell crutches later.”

This post is featured on the Modern Paleo Blog.

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Joe Lindley