I am not generally one to comment that someone’s an idiot if they want to subsist on food-like substances sold by the golden arches fuckersons, or to eat sugar-coated sugar. And let’s face it, I haven’t had cable for 6 yrs now which makes me slightly more immune than many to the glut of fetishized food viewing on the likes of the Food Twitwork.
We went hungry when I was a wee sprout, a number of times. But you know, we came out of it fine, and I don’t hoard edibles in the house as a result of that. Maybe I should, but it has never seemed a good idea given how shifty the food supply is in terms of safety and nutritional content. The only things I hoard are dry beans, organic rices, winter squashes, and then chicken parts from our meat flock. Oh, and eggs. We always have around a dozen in the fridge. Not because we’re saving them either. Just slowness in consumption, which is a golden mean in many ways. It ensures I can scramble Lucy an egg this morning, which Pancho will “help” her eat when he comes inside to refill his weewee tank, and his poopoo tank (he’s outside emptying both of those right now, as well as casing the yard to check on his chickens, and chasing off strange cats we don’t know.)
Food issues….
I like to stock this up to having been raised and fed by survival cooks, for the most part. But I’ve never been one to walk into a grocery store, and do a happy dance that I can get donuts on sale. Or that I can get a vat of ice cream as opposed to a 2 quart freezer container. My rationale is mostly of expense on these things, be that expense right now, or expense years later due to insulin shots. Just because those donuts are on sale doesn’t make them viable food. Or Food with a capitalized “F”. Diabetes runs in the dood’s family, so he watches his sugar intake. It doesn’t run in mine, but weight certainly does, which I chalk up to us being solid farm stock on both sides of the family, which thrives on hard physical work as well as basic nutrition. The dood’s got a certain amount of this in his ancestry, too.
Then one sees the culinary output of the likes of Paula Deen, observes that she has a show on Food Twitwork, and even a magazine at the grocery store checkout stand. It’s not culinary output, let’s be honest. The burger stuffed into a sliced Krispy Kreme donut is not rational. I see it on a par with that Double Down food-like dreck from KFC. Just because someone produced this doesn’t deem it fit to eat; never mind the bad juju of consuming animals raised in deplorable conditions (I wrote letters to the assholians at Carl’s Jr over their turkey burgers, for example.)
Anyway, since I’ve been sick and coughing at the drop of a hat, I caught Al Roker’s interview w/ Deen last week. And have been trying to sanitize my synapses ever since. He was so direct with her. And she was so evasive. There’s no simpler question than, “How are you eating since you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes?” and she kept trying to totally dodge the question, having recently adopted the word “moderation” like it was some lexicon holy grail for epicurean practice. And lest any of us could be fooled, in her words she is not our doctor, but our cook. Oh please. This woman should be no one’s cook, much less their dietary adviser, e.g. “This is all about moderation! Don’t overdo this food!” Okay, lady.
What angers me at the end of all this, is that she waited to profit from her partnership with a diabetes drug company, before being honest with the country about her diagnosis, her gross inadequacy as a ‘cook’, and her unwillingness to cease enabling her fans to eating themselves into illness.
(And I am ending this tirade for now.)
6 Responses to “food issues, taken to extremes”
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Yeah, there is something just a teensy bit depraved about someone who has made a lot of bucks off pimping deep-fried everything–even has a built-in deep frier in her kitchen–then tells everyone that now that she has had diabetes for the past three years, moderation is key. I know that when I think of moderation, I think of having a built-in deep frier. And I don’t suppose she will be changing her diet much, because the way I understand it, the biggest attraction of diabetes drugs is that they allow you to keep on eating as you were. The drug she is pimping costs $500/mo, so as much as she has said that organic, healthy food is elitist, in Paula Deen’s universe, nothing is elitist about $500/mo for a drug. I am not a big fat hater, but I don’t think there is anything the least bit natural about deep frying. I AM a food hoarder, though. I have tons of stuff stored and hope to store more. Eventually, I would like to have six months’ worth of food stored. It just makes me feel better to have it.
Ayup. Harry, I don’t consider you a food hoarder at all, btw. You’re working on perfecting preparation, to my way of thinking. At which point I need to mention that I happily spooned my way through the strawberries with black pepper
Hoarding was my grandmother’s shtick. Have a dozen containers of saved scraps in the fridge “just in case”, and move them to the freezer and leave ‘em there a year or more. Well, she went hungry during the Depression so I can see that. Then my nana was prepping for the end of the world with her Catholic shelves of home-canned foods; she went hungry, too, as a child – but I never saw her work as hoarding so much as common sense during harvesting times.
Paula Deen…. she’s got a lot to answer for. Deep frying has its place, but holy cow, having a fryer built into the kitchen. And this from me, who rendered duck fat to cook with after Thanksgiving.
I have never been attracted to Paul Deen. I look at her eyes & see nothing but a profit margin. She reminds me of one of my favorite mind-candy-authors, who, when her publisher asked her if she knew anyone who could write a mystery series involving needlework volunteered herself as she has an aunt who used a needle&floss. The difference being the author is upfront & explains how hard she researched & adapted the characters, whereas Deen is more a liar than delusional. My favorite part of her publicizing her diagnosis was where it was (briefly) mentioned that a son has a new show out ‘Not my mothers’ recipes’, where he trims the fats & sugars away.
Yep, I found it interesting that one of her sons has come up with recipes that work at undoing the damage of her recipes.
This kind of thing gets ugly sooooo fast. We went to Winco and middle-aged soccer moms were practically in a screaming match over how we all need to leave Paula Deen the hell alone, because food is a personal choice. Well, that was the screamer’s opinion. The non-screamer kept asking why people have come to feel entitled to eat as crappy as they wish to.
you dont think food is a personal choice?
Food is a personal choice, but I have a really hard time embracing that thought when I see how most of the population has little interest in maintaining health, or has a list of excuses for obesity that is longer than the Gettysburg Address. That is not a life lived, at all. That is a lot of whining, a real lack of self-awareness, and a tacit refusal to do the right thing when it comes to food choices. And I say that as a woman who grew up fat, was a fat persecuted kid in school, and is working to drop poundage, again.