You’ll be as shocked as I was to learn that she has Type 2 diabetes:
There’s no doubt that fans would be upset to learn that Deen had been keeping such a major disease, and a major consequence of heavy eating, from their knowledge. It would certainly cast an alarming pall over the reckless abandon with which she endorses delicacies like turducken. And it would lend support to rival Anthony Bourdain’s much-ballyhooed critique of Deen’s culinary style.
It’s worth noting, though, that in the past nine months, Deen has diversified her activities away from her old monomaniacal focus on fatty foods.
Nutritional ignorance. You don’t get diabetes from fatty foods, or the Inuit, who traditionally lived on whale blubber and seal fat, would all be diabetic. Well, actually they are now, but they never were until they started eating flour and sugar, which is the problem with Paula Deen’s cooking as well.
Yeah, the problem is definitely not the butter, but all of that sugar and white flour she uses. But of course, don’t expect the press to report the true culprits or else they’d have to backtrack on their decades-long demonization of dietary fat.
She was injected with diabetes by the CIA after she bad mouthed Meechelle.
Her health is nobody’s goddam business but her own.
I think Mayor Bloomberg and Michelle Obama disagree. But I do wonder why they think it should be their business.
And it would lend support to rival Anthony Bourdain’s much-ballyhooed critique of Deen’s culinary style.
Let me get this straight. Anthony Bordain, a heavy user of alcohol, tobacco, and occasionally other drugs (cocaine, heroin, LSD, etc.) is lecturing people on healthy cooking?
To be fair, Anthony Bourdain has never used his books or television shows to suggest to anyone that drug or alcohol abuse is a good idea. Whereas a cooking show definitely seems to be a suggestion to people to try those recipes for themselves.
Anthony Bourdain has never used his books or television shows to suggest to anyone that drug or alcohol abuse is a good idea.
Really? I’ve only caught bits and pieces of a few shows, but the one on Vegas certainly seemed to glamorize drinking and gambling. On another show, he was in France gushing about how wonderful it was that employees at a butcher shop were allowed to drink alcohol on the job during breaks before going back to work at a dangerous occupation that uses sharp knives.
From the promos I’ve seen for other shows, that doesn’t seem atypical. He revels in the Hollywood “bad boy” image.
He loves bread, too, which would put him on the opposite side from most of the people here.
Correction — deaths from falling off horses were extremely rare in the New World until the Spanish introduced sugar, flour, and (most significantly) horses.
Read Gary Taubes Why We get Fat, it’s an eye opener.
Started eating a high fat/high protein no sugar/no starch diet similar to Atkins right before Christmas, was suggested at the end of his book.
The results are amazing.
I’ve dropped weight without starving, from 216 on 12/19 to 208 on 1/13.
I sleep through the night where before I didn’t, and I’m very alert during the day.
Like the post says, it’s not the fat, it’s the flour and sugar which our ancestors never had to deal with in their diet.
Societies that have been studied, hunter gather, American Indian at contact, had almost no cases of cancer, diabetes, or heart disease.
IT was only after they adopted a Western Diet high in sugar and processed flour products that theses diseases started to show up in their populations.
After feeling so much better I will never go back to eating the old way again.
Societies that have been studied, hunter gather, American Indian at contact, had almost no cases of cancer, diabetes, or heart disease.
No cases, or no recorded cases? What diagnostic tests did American Indians use for cancer, diabetes, and heart disease? What was their method of storing medical records?
IT was only after they adopted a Western Diet high in sugar and processed flour products that theses diseases started to show up in their populations.
So, what was the life expectancy pre-1492 compared to today?
Do you know the difference between causation and correlation?
You’re talking about diseases commonly associated with old age — and a primitive society where the average life expectancy was less than 30.
On the other hand, deaths from falling off horses and being trampled by buffalo were far more common than they are today — for reasons that have nothing to do with sugar or flour.
Don’t be so dismissive; have you done the research? There are reasonably well-done studies that back up what Jeff says about hunter-gatherers. Life expectancy was poor in the early years, but once you got through all of the so-called childhood diseases, the primary cause of death was accident or violence for men, and childbirth for women.
Certainly diet is dramatically more complex than the food pyramid would lead you to believe, and there is a large body of evidence that the food pyramid was much more harmful than helpful.
once you got through all of the so-called childhood diseases, the primary cause of death was accident or violence for men, and childbirth for women.
Then, by the same logic (correlation implies causation), those deaths must be caused by lack of sugar and flour in the diet?
A more logical conclusion would be that people who died early from violence, accidents, and childbirth never had a chance to develop diseases of old age (unless you believe they were fighting wars and having children at age 90). That would largely explain the supposed lack of cancer and heart disease.
In addition to the causes you mention, native accounts show a large number of deaths from witchcraft and evil spirits — which almost never show up on modern death certificates. Is it possible some of those deaths were actually cases of cancer and heart disease, diseases which weren’t absent but simply misdiagnosed? Again, that seems more logical than assuming there was an epidemic of witchcraft and evil spirts caused by the lack of sugar and flour.
Certainly diet is dramatically more complex than the food pyramid
Do you think the only two options are believing in the food pyramid and believing in Rousseauian state of nature, where everyone ate an optimal diet (rather than whatever foods happened to be available) and diseases like cancer and heart disease didn’t exist?
Even if you believe the latter, there are a lot of complexities you are overlooking. The American Indian diet varied greatly from one geographic region to another. Which tribe represents the Rousseauian ideal diet? Flour and sugar weren’t the only differences, either. The average tribal diet was lower in dairy and Vitamin C, especially in winter, but higher in insects and reptiles. Have you had snake on the menu recently? (When people ate snakes and grasshoppers, cancer didn’t exist!)
No one is proposing that we return to a Rousseauian state of nature, just that we would be healthier eating the sort of diet for which we are evolved.
the sort of diet for which we are evolved.
I’m still waiting for some actual evidence that humans evolved for the specific diet that happened to be available in the Eastern Woodlands in 1491. Or is that the Central Plains? Or the Pacific Northwest? Those were very different diets.
I know that vitamin C was unavailable in most of those areas for much of the year. So, if evolution optimized humans for that diet, we should not require Vitamin C for months at a time. Yet, we do.
A few years ago, the big fad was the Biblical Diet. We were all supposed to eat the foods that were available in the Middle East around Jesus’s time, based on similar arguments. Now it’s caveman or American Indian. Next year it might be Early Mongolian or Ancient Egyptian.
In reality, evolution is a process that takes place over time and space. It will very rarely produce a point design that is fully optimal for a given particular time and place.
I’m still waiting for some actual evidence that humans evolved for the specific diet that happened to be available in the Eastern Woodlands in 1491. Or is that the Central Plains? Or the Pacific Northwest? Those were very different diets.
You’re being obtuse with this straw man. I’m awaiting some evidence that anyone has claimed that we evolved to any historical Siberian-American diet.
The diet to which we evolved is a pre-agricultural one.
Edward, you seem to be willfully misunderstanding what the other commenters are saying. The key thing is that humans definitely did NOT evolve to eat cereal grasses or refined sugar as primary components of their diet. Animal protein and fat, low density plant carbohydrates, nuts, etc., yes; wheat and sugar, no.
Sure there are lots of different types of paleolithic diets, but they all have in common an almost total lack of cereal grains and refined sugar.
I’m awaiting some evidence that anyone has claimed that we evolved to any historical Siberian-American diet.
Okay, here ya go: Societies that have been studied, hunter gather, American Indian at contact, had almost no cases of cancer, diabetes, or heart disease.
The diet to which we evolved is a pre-agricultural one
So you say. Other people have said it was the Biblical diet.
You imagine that evolution stopped the day the first seed was planted? Okay. You still have to decide which pre-agricultural diet was the magic optimal point design. There was more than one.
You imagine that evolution stopped the day the first seed was planted?
There isn’t any evolutionary pressure to prevent old age or accompanying diseases. The agricultural revolution was good for building civilizations, but that doesn’t mean that it was good for the long-term health of individuals.
You still have to decide which pre-agricultural diet was the magic optimal point design. There was more than one.
There is only one if you define it as one lacking grains and refined sugar.
humans definitely did NOT evolve to eat cereal grasses
That word “evolution” does not mean what think it means. It’s a continuous process, not a point design. It didn’t begin with the first caveman and end with the invention of agriculture. It includes both the paleolithic period *and* the Biblical period and is still going on today.
Sure there are lots of different types of paleolithic diets, but they all have in common an almost total lack of cereal grains
Have you ever heard of maize culture? The American Indians who Jeff cites as one of his inspirations had a diet consisting largely of cornmeal. (They were not immune to cancer, though.)
There isn’t any evolutionary pressure to prevent old age or accompanying diseases.
Bingo. Yet, people imagine they can ward off diseases of old age by returning to a mythical golden-age diet which humans allegedly evolved for in the past.
What’s wrong with that picture?
There is only one if you define it as one lacking grains and refined sugar.
Yes, and if you define CO2 as the only variable in climate models —
Yet, people imagine they can ward off diseases of old age by returning to a mythical golden-age diet which humans allegedly evolved for in the past.
There is an abundance of empirical evidence that they can, to some degree. But keep ignoring the science. Modern diets often make us sick when young.
The “life expectancy” argument is utter fallacy. It was 30 only because so many died in childbirth or as children. If you lived to 20, you stood a very good chance of living into your 70s. That’s been true throughout most of human history.
Take the butter and mix it with flour, sugar, and chocolate chips and you have the perfect food (though not a healthy one), chocolate chip cookie dough. ^_^
That’s right 😀 If the butter is good and the flour bad, then just double the butter, huzzah!
A bad diet, being overweight, being over 40, etc, increase the risk of typeII diabetes, but it can happen without those risk factors too.
All my life, even as a child, I disliked sweet stuff, such as candy, frosted cake, etc. I didn’t consume much sugar. I’m not at all fond of white flour, for taste reasons (I despise white bread). So, my sugar and flour intake was far less than normal.
I’m a type II diabetic, and started showing symptoms at the age of 19, and I wasn’t overweight. I was, however, roughly 15 pounds overweight by the time I developed full blown T2 in my early 30’s. My type is rather rare, MODY (Mature onset diabetes of the young) but it’s classed as type 2, as the presentation and treatment is pretty much the same. Basically, a normal pancreas both produces and stores insulin; the stored insulin is kept in a special type of beta cell. So, when you eat something with carbs in it, your pancrease has a phase one response (sudden release of some stored insulin) and a phase II; ongoing release of insulin it’s making. It’s the phase 1 that handles having a sugary soda, etc, and prevents a massive spike in blood glucose from it. Basically, unlike most type IIs, my pancreas is just fine on the production side, but lacks (and probably has since birth) the phase I response – the ability to store and release.
I went low carb on my first day out of the hospital. Basically, Atkins but without the saturated fats (my cholesterol was already on the high side of normal, though still barely in the acceptable range). I’d always thought highly of low carb (though never tried it) though I did believe the claim that it lowers cholesterol to be bunk.
I was wrong; not only did it stabilize my blood sugar (my HB1AC, a measure of long-term blood glucose levels, is currently 5.4, which is within the normal reference range (4.3 to 5.7) for a non-diabetic. It dropped my cholesterol a lot, and gave me a great HDL to LDL ratio as well. My doctor did suggest I lose 5 pounds of the extra 15 I was carrying, so I lost ten to start with (within a month) and the remaining 5 over a couple of months.
I’ve since expended my diet to include things like cheese, and my diet is heavier in meat than normal, and my cholesterol levels remain excellent.
Would I eat a Turducken? Sure!!! I’d probably add a bit of bacon, too.
Due to high carb foods such as potatoes, bread, rice, and pasta being excluded from my diet, my meal choices (especially when not at home) are a bit limited, but oh well. I love whole grain bread, but even that I can only handle in small doses. So, lots of low carb vegetables, eggs, tofu, and meat make up the overwhelming bulk of my diet. I found low-carb soft tortillas (sandwich wraps) which help a ton, and learned to make some low carb bread and other low carb dishes.
I do believe that diets high in fast carbs (fruit, flour, sugar, etc) are causing a big increase in diabetes rates, though. I think the “war on fat” helped make people fatter and sicker than they would be without it. Your tax dollars at work.
Kurt – Sure. And they might have to backtrack on the decades-long promotion of cereals in the diet, too. The Food Pyramid is utter junk, and the people who put it together know it – but money talks, and the grain agribusiness lobby has a hell of a lot of that.
Rand Write:
“No one is proposing that we return to a Rousseauian state of nature, just that we would be healthier eating the sort of diet for which we are evolved.”
Fair enough.
What I don’t get is why some Paleo-web-pages say to stay away from legumes. I would think Cro-mag would have been happy to eat them if they were handy.
I would think Cro-mag would have been happy to eat them if they were handy.
The problem is that they weren’t “handy” — they’re very difficult to make edible (either in the ability to chew them or in detoxifying them) at a low technology level. You need not just fire, but a pot in which to boil them for hours. They’re not a natural food.
The problem is that they weren’t “handy”
Neither were citrus fruits. Do Cro-mag beliefs require scurvy? If not, you’re being inconsistent.
Neither were citrus fruits.
No, but berries were. Citrus is not the only source for vitamin C. You can also get it from meat. Inuit don’t get scurvy on their traditional diet, though it’s mostly fat and protein.
No, but berries were.
Not in winter time. I don’t recommend limiting your Vitamin C intake to the tiny part of the year when berries are in season.
Inuit don’t get scurvy on their traditional diet, though it’s mostly fat and protein.
Because they eat their meat raw. Since you haven’t mentioned the Raw Food Movement yet, I assume you don’t do that.
Do you have Inuit ancestors, Rand? If not, it’s hard to see how the Inuit diet could have influenced your evolution in any way.
I don’t recommend limiting your Vitamin C intake to the tiny part of the year when berries are in season.
They can be preserved by drying. And you can get vitamin C from cooked meat as well, as long as it’s not overcooked.
They can be preserved by drying.
You mean, they created artificial supplements?
Why would that be necessary? If humans were an optimal point design, they would have stored enough Vitamin C in their own bodies. But again, evolution does not produce point designs.
You mean, they created artificial supplements?
No, fruit can dry naturally. Once discovered, though, then people would do it to be more efficient, with less waste. And it wouldn’t be a “supplement.” It would be part of the diet, just like dried meat.
So, dried meat and dried fruit are “natural” foods? And you don’t find your definitions of “natural” and “artificial” to be the least bit arbitrary?
I’m also bemused by the fact that your “Paleo” diet allows you to drink beer. Which is made from grain. If you believe humans are evolved for a pre-agricultural “natural” diet, how does beer fit in? Did cavemen brew porters and stouts?
I’m also willing to bet that, no matter what you’ve argued here, you probably get your Vitamin C from citrus fruits (developed during the agricultural era) rather than raw walrus liver like your, um, Inuit ancestors. 🙂
Cutting back on sugar and flour might be a good idea but trying to justify it on the basis of evolutionary biology (including spurious claims like “American Indians never got cancer”) is pretty far fetched. I’m sure it sells a lot of diet books, though.
So, dried meat and dried fruit are “natural” foods?
They don’t require much in the way of technology. They were available to paleoliths. You continue to be unable to make a distinction between pre- and post-agriculture. You might want to see a logician about it.
I’m also bemused by the fact that your “Paleo” diet allows you to drink beer.
So, you’re making stuff up again?
Cutting back on sugar and flour might be a good idea but trying to justify it on the basis of evolutionary biology (including spurious claims like “American Indians never got cancer”) is pretty far fetched
Because…?
Ah ok so what you are saying is that a property of legumes is that they MUST be prepped before eating? And prepped in such a way that was beyond pre-aggi chefs?
Yes. Even peanuts are tough to eat raw.
Then again, one could simply look at the archeological evidence.
At present, there are several cases of multiple myeloma in the paleopathological record. In view of the expectation of longevity if antiquity, it might (or might not) be thought that the neoplasm was a rarity in the past. But in prehistoric native American populations, it was not rare at all. — Charlotte Roberts and Keith Manchester, “The Archeology of Disease, 3rd Edition” page 260.
So much for the myth of American Indians who never got cancer.
Cancer is what gets you when heart disease doesn’t… :-/