Paula Deen Confirms She Has Diabetes
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Michael N. Todaro/Getty Images(ATLANTA) — Television chef Paula Deen has confirmed to USA Today that she has type 2 diabetes. Deen, who has made a career out of whipping up high-fat, high-sugar down-home Southern cooking, tells USA Today she found out she had the disease three years ago.
“I made the choice at the time to keep it close to me, to keep it close to my chest. I felt like I had nothing to offer anybody other than the announcement. I wasn’t armed with enough knowledge. I knew when it was time it would be in God’s time,” she said.
Deen was set to announce Tuesday her role in a new campaign, Diabetes in a New Light, in partnership with Novo Nordisk, which produces diabetes medications.
The TV chef says she has no plans to change the focus of her cooking shows because of the disease, explaining, “I suspect I’ll stick to my roots but will say a little louder, ‘Eat this in moderation.’”
Deen says she knows she’ll be facing criticism for a career that focused on high-fat foods, adding, “If they make jokes about me, I’ll laugh because they’ll probably be funny.”
Chef and cooking personality Anthony Bourdain recently flamed Deen as the, “most dangerous person in America” for plying her fatty foods on an already obese nation. Upon hearing the news about Deen’s condition, Bourdain told the website Eater.com, “When your signature dish is hamburger in between a doughnut, and you’ve been cheerfully selling this stuff knowing all along that you’ve got type 2 diabetes, it’s bad taste if nothing else.”
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