MYNIPPON

After making a huge contribution to the obesity epidemic in America, chef Paula Deen tried to profit from her own Type II diabetes by pushing a prescription drug (the pill from Novo Nordisk retails for a whopping $500 and is marketed under the name Victoza).  At the insistence of her doctors, she has now lost some weight and hopefully some of her fans can learn from her.

The reality is that at one time Southern cooking might have been fine — when people actually moved and didn’t sit in a chair all day or lie on a couch watching television pushing a remote while consuming extremely unhealthy processed foods — in this century there is no excuse to even imagine eating fatty foods.

Paula Deen herself made the switch to Mediterranean diet that includes primarily salads and baked fish.  She also makes sure that even these healthy alternatives do not include excess salt and sugar.  I am not sure if she is fully convinced that she should eat healthy and motivate her fans to do the same because rather sheepishly she added, “It took me a couple of years to get to this point…If you make a few small changes, they can add up to big results.”  I totally agree.  Even if you drop just one can of soda from your diet daily, trust me, you will see a difference.  In fact, there is no reason to go crazy trying to figure out a massive change in your diet; all you need to start with a change that you can live with.  Can’t you start off by cutting down one can of sweetened beverage and replace it with simple tap water?