<p>Food moralism has gotten out of control. People used to cook with butter and lard constantly but we weren’t, as a nation, so fat until TV and computers and child-supervision paranoia came along. Paula Deen’s recipes have nothing to do with our obesity epidemic. Judgmentalism over people’s eating habits has now replaced judgmentalism over their sex lives.</p>
<p>^ You are right. My grandparents weren’t overweight and grandma cooked with lard all the time. Plus they lived to their mid 90’s. However they didn’t sit around all day watching tv or playing on the computer. Really we are overweight because of lack of physical activity.</p>
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<p>Smoking is just as old fashioned as Southern cooking; it goes back centuries. And the tobacco industry employs a lot more people than Paula Deen ever did or ever will. So using those two arguments to draw distinctions between pushing an unhealthful diet and pushing unhealthful cigarettes doesn’t cut it. Either way they are knowingly promoting the adoption of an unhealthy lifestyle.</p>
<p>It’s certainly true that people in general used to cook with butter and lard a lot more in the past than many currently do, but, in another parallel with smoking, we know better now.</p>
<p>True, MichiganGeorgia – And they didn’t snack constantly, or drink loads of soft drinks. Candy and chips weren’t available everywhere. Fast food places didn’t really exist. My grandparents were overweight, though. I guess you could say they got fat the old fashioned way. My grandfather was very active, but he also overate. Not everyone of that generation was thin. However, I have noticed that not only are more people overweight these days, including, sadly, young kids, but it is no longer rare to see people weighing 300/400 pounds.</p>
<p>Yes I agree. I to think the kids today have a tendency to be overweight. When we first started going to football games at my sons high school my husband was in shock. He couldn’t believe how much heavier a lot of the kids were than when we were in high school.</p>
<p>What especially makes PD responsible for Americas health woes? Her alone? Next you’re going to jump on Guy Fieri, who takes you right to the diner to watch them batter and fry and happy gorging customers with those giant burgers and bacon and cheese? It’s PD’s fault? Guy’s?<br>
I’m all for educated healthy eating. I don’t think overweight kids got there because they’re watching PD. Or that their parents are so helplessly mesmerized by Food TV. Do they get menu ideas from Paula on Honey Boo Boo’s show?</p>
<p>Again, this is a woman who found her “thing”—you may not agree with or like her “thing”, but many, many people do and her recipes can indeed be enjoyed, in moderation, by many. She is an entrepreneur who has been very successful in creating various profitable ventures (TV shows, restaurant, books, etc) around her “thing”. Her “thing” happens to be old fashioned, southern cooking. It’s a bit over the top and nobody eats like that all the time, these days. And Paula Deen was never out there forcing anyone to do so. </p>
<p>She was honest and admitted to doing wrong. I am the first person to turn away from someone who is overtly prejudiced, but if they earnestly try to change their ways, I am all about extending forgiveness. I grew up in the South in the height of the civil rights movement and witnessed first hand many examples of shameless prejudice based on years of exposure to this being “normal”. Anyone who grew up in that environment and yet managed to never, ever absorb any of that perspective is a remarkable individual. Anyone who grew up in that environment, absorbed and adopted that perspective and then chooses to acknowledge that it was WRONG and then attempts to change their ways has my utmost respect. That is no easy task!!</p>
<p>After skimming through this thread, I googled up gooey butter cake. Yikes. I’d never heard of it before, now I’m tempted to try it. This thread is a bad influence, LOL.</p>
<p>Mstee, I keep searching for the “like” button. If we had one I’d use it for your post, 255. A little gooey butter cake in your life will not harm you. Only make you smile. 
Just don’t eat it every day!</p>
<p>After all I’ve said about Paula Deen I have to admit that I do make her Hummingbird cake every time I have a birthday party. It is the only PD’s recipe I’ve ever liked. I do believe we have not heard the last of PD. In a few years she will start a foundation and go to Africa and the world will forgive her. They always do.</p>
<p>I don’t hold her recipes against her. My mom certainly had a bucket of lard handy at all times when I was younger but she stopped cooking like that long before Paula did. We had hogs and made our own lard. </p>
<p>Even more offensive to me than dropping the “n” word was the video in which she described her employee as “black as this board” and told him to come out from in front of it so they could see him. The “black as …” comments were also heard a lot growing up and I just can’t imagine not recognizing it as offensive.</p>
<p>Cartera, yes!!!</p>
<p>That video speaks VOLUMES about ingrained attitudes much more so than the unfortunate “slip” that she admits to when she used the n word.</p>
<p>I said this in an earlier post. It illustrates a level of bigotry that is still very much alive in our society. She is not the only one but she is an example, IMO.</p>
<p>The comments she made about her grandfather’s suicide when he couldn’t cope with the lack of labor when slavery was abolished…I mean, c’mon…
Even if you think about that in a sympathetic way, common sense should step in and tell you not to express those thoughts.</p>
<p>She is indeed an example of a culture and an attitude that is, thankfully, passing away. But if you lived in this area (the deep south), maybe you’d understand that she is (or seems to be) changing for the better. I have lived in areas other than this one I consider “home”, and I will tell you that assumptions about others based upon their skin color or their culture are not unique to the South. Prejudice abounds regardless of your geographic location. </p>
<p>Why Paula Deen is seen as utterly awful when so many other public figures are given a virtual “pass” for more hurtful behavior is the puzzle for me. I have had older relatives as well as friends who are, in fact, younger than I am, say things that are worse than or at least as bad as what Paula Deen admitted to have said. I HATE when that happens and I immediately think less of the person who has said it to me. BUT if they later admit they were wrong and that they have some work to do on their own selves, I admire them for that. That shows character and class, IMO.</p>
<p>Sadly, that does not happen that often, so I think it’s great that Paula Deen is setting that positive example.</p>
<p>Oh, it would be a mistake to think that her recipes and health “disaster” contributions are at the heart of her problems. The Food Network and her sponsors would have been happy to keep her even if she added tons of sugar and lard to her cakes. </p>
<p>The reality is that they “glossed” over her hypocrisy on the diabetes’ issue, but seized this opportunity to softly let her go when she got “caught” in the racial scandal, and failed to offer any kind of CREDIBLE contrition. </p>
<p>You can track her recent “demise” directlty to that shameful performance with Matt Lauer. That is the time when her sponsors understood that her image was hopelessly shattered, as she was simply no longer believable. Well, safe and except the small army of hard-core fans who like her despite the recent stories, and perhaps agree with her (now) known positions.</p>
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Shameful is right. She should’ve composed herself instead bawling invisible tears.</p>
<p>If anyone is interested in hearing first hand about how people are treated NOW by Paula Deen…this is from the Facebook page of a current “black” employee of Paula Deen’s. It was posted by a friend of mine who lives in Savannah and who also knows Ms. Deen personally: </p>
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<p>There are quite a few comments following the entry with responses from the poster that shed even more light on the situation.</p>
<p>So all those who are casting stones and are NOT personal witnesses to any of this need to just step back, in my never-to-be-humble-opinion.</p>
<p>“The comments she made about her grandfather’s suicide when he couldn’t cope with the lack of labor when slavery was abolished…I mean, c’mon…
Even if you think about that in a sympathetic way, common sense should step in and tell you not to express those thoughts.”</p>
<p>This lack of public articulation of common decency is why “Paula Deen” is no longer a viable brand. I’m sure grandpa did indeed go through his own private hell. Really, I do. But how many slaves died to keep him comfortable all those years. How many Black women did he rape to increase his “capital”? How many children did he sell into the slave market?</p>
<p>But we were all personal witnesses to her insensitivity in the video. I have no doubt that Ms Deen has been and will continue to show kindness to many people, but that doesn’t mean that others do not and should not find her attitude offensive. My grandmother was incredibly generous and outwardly kind to everyone, including the black men and women who worked on her farm and in her house. That didn’t mean she wasn’t racist. She was because she had a very clear sense of what she believed to be her place and their place. I have not spent too much time worrying about Paula Deen or wondering whether her actions and comments are indicative of a deep seated racism or just ignorant and insensitive, but I think it is reasonable for people to come down on the side of either choice.</p>
<p>Mini, it drives me crazy when you bring up Jefferson like this. :p</p>
<p>Stay on topic.</p>
<p>Sorry mini, but a number of White, Liberals have said and done a variety of awful things and the traditional, liberal media have given them a pass. As a 60+ y/o Black woman, I have experienced in-your-face-bigotry and the soft bigotry of low expectations PD is being destroyed by the media because as zoosermon said upstream, It is politically correct to sharpen their claws on someone who got above her station. </p>
<p>Also, Lisa Jackson, who brought this law suit is White and as far as I know none of PDs Black employees joined in the suit.</p>