Paula Deen has been in the news as of late with the headlines being she now has the disease Diabetes. You may have heard of Paul Deen. She’s the chef on the food channel that loves her southern cooking, deep fried everything and don’t forget the stick of butter. Ok, so excuse me if I was not surprised to learn about her recent findings during her last trip to the doctor. Did she really not know she was headed down this path every time she added more food into the deep-fryer?
Look, personally I really like Paula Deen. I admire her for being a single mother, overcoming her personal problems in her life and re-building her career all on a passion for cooking food. Many people should be so lucky. She even sells her own line of fancy dancy cookware with her name on it. It’s just that when I also found out that Paula Dean was also making a profit from her new found diagnosis that’s when I began to wonder: Should you profit from being FAT?
I should really say, should you live a life that you know is unhealthy, teach other people to cook using unhealthy techniques and ingredients all the while smiling as you sell your books and sign your autographs. Was she intentionally trying to hurt people all of these years, no probably not. Is it just her southern upbringing and style of cooking that gave her this diagnosis? Did Paula sell out or is she truly trying to help other people now?
So now Paula will work with a pharmaceutical company to endorse a Diabetes drug to help people who are similarly afflicted. She is certainly not the first celebrity to take Big Pharma money, nor will she be the last. However, I do think the timing was unfortunate. If she had announced her illness 6 months ago, and announced that she had developed a lifestyle plan with a drug company today, I don't think so many people would be so angry with her. I can only blame her or most probably a PR executive for a case of bad timing. As for encouraging bad behavior, well we're responsible for putting food into our own mouths. Nobody is as harsh on McDonald's as they are on Paula.
So when Paula goes running to the bank to cash those big checks, will you still use her recipes? If you get Diabetes you won’t get a big fat payday, all you’ll get is a disease.
