Why I Love Paula Deen

Paula Deen's Thanksgiving, photographed by Alan Richardson for Ladies' Home Journal

I’ve been stewing about the scorn heaped on Paula Deen this week, after her announcement that she has Type 2 diabetes, and that she is working as spokesperson for a particular drug that treats the disease. The response of some within the food business has been scorn, indignation, a gleeful satisfaction. “Serves her right!” it seems, for foisting butter and fried chicken and doughnut-creations on an unsuspecting public all these years. A lot of it is just plain mean.

Her sins according to detractors include keeping her medical condition private, eating herself into a case of Type 2 diabetes, cooking naughty fatty foods on TV, and failing to prevent the obesity crisis that just showed up in America about fifteen minutes ago, thanks to Ms. Deen’s bad behavior alone. How dare she keep her personal medical condition private? How could she praise cheese grits and proffer fried chicken, knowing that America depends on her and her alone to teach us how to lead healthy lives? Has anyone watching her not already figured out that doughnuts are fattening? I think people watch her because she is happy, and generous of spirit, and she has a good time in the kitchen. Cooking shows aren’t culinary school and they are not educational television. They are entertainment, diversion, on the Food Network, not the Health Network, and we have programs like hers them because companies want to advertise their wares, which are often nutritionless-food items, whether Ms. Deen is the host or not. We don’t robotically go cook and eat what she shows us, anymore than we go suit up in helmet and shoulder pads and tackle our friends after watching Monday night football.

I love Paula Deen. She has created an amazing career in the food world, starting from scratch and creating monumental business success on her own despite more challenges than I have ever faced. She went through a divorce, becoming a single mother of two boys; she overcame agoraphobia, turned her home cooking into a income source, and built up an amazing family business on her own. She is Southern, she’s a grandmother, she’s a home cook who made her place in the food world. She loves food and cooking and she loves her family and friends. I think people watch her because she makes them feel good; she entertains them; she radiates “Yes!” and “Come on in!” and “Let’s have a good time with people we love!”

If her show were called “Paula Deen’s Nutrition Kitchen”, I would expect her to deliver health messages and cook in a healthful way. But she’s on the Food Network, and she earned her place in the world of wildly successful food stars by being herself, communicating with people through cooking the food she wants to cook the way she likes to cook it. What amazes me is the notion that Paula Deen should have been delivering messages about healthful eating all along, instead of celebrating fried foods, butter, and cheesey treats; that she alone, amongst the food-celebrity pantheon, is obligated to promote healthy nutritious food habits since she has our attention on the subject of food. Really? Should “Top Chef” and “Chopped” censor their ingredients so that the competing chefs can present healthful choices to us out here in TV land? Should Guy Fieri seek out healthy diners, drive-ins, and dives, instead of taking us into those dens of iniquity, those naughty joints that serve up hashbrowns, chili dogs and milkshakes? Should Anthony Bourdain check the sanitation ratings of every places he visits, so we don’t learn to risk our health and get germs? And Cake Boss? All those cakes, frosted and filled, sugar eggs and butter; and not even one salad, ever!

I don’t know what Ms. Deen eats, how much she eats, what time, how often, or where. I don’t know why she has gotten diabetes, and neither does anybody else. I know that health and illness in this world do not reflect “Fair”. I don’t know why I have not gotten diabetes. I eat rich, fattening foods and too much of them; I pay for a gym I haven’t been using, and I carry around pounds that are doing my joints no favors and taxing my heart. Meanwhile, my dear friend contracted Type 2 diabetes several years ago, even though he has always taken much better care of his health in terms of eating, weight, and activity than I have.

I do not love the fact that she is endorsing a medication, but then I don’t love the fact that medicines are advertised on television and promoted to doctors the way they are. That is how we do it here in the USA, and there’s no secret here. It’s a business relationship up front, and people can consider that fact as they evaluate her position on the drug.

I can’t imagine why she as an entertainer should disclose her medical condition to the public. Given the hostile response from so many, I can see why most of us tend to keep these things private. I can see not liking her, her style or her food. What bothers me is blaming her personally for the immense health problem of obesity that has been “on our plates” for many years and for many reasons. She alone amongst all the food-stars is accountable, bad and wrong. Even worse is the attitude that contracting diabetes is somehow a punishment she deserves. That’s not right.

I think what Paula Deen has been promoting for so many years is the pleasure of cooking and eating. She encourages people to cook, have fun, and make time to be at the table with people who matter to you. You don’t have to be Southern to know that that is good medicine; it’s especially good for the heart.