Paula Deen, Diabetes, and Restaurants

Paula Deen was recently identified as having Type II diabetes. Prior to this breaking news, she was basically an unknown to me. Evidently she owns and operates The Lady & Sons restaurant and has published five cookbooks and lives in Savannah Georgia. The exploding coverage over her cooking style caused me to think about restaurants and diabetics. Basically, diabetics are provided with minimal information by some restaurants concerning their menu options. At restaurants the menu, in many cases has calories and fats listed, but not carbohydrates. Time to add a carbohydrate column to the menu. (Some fast food places do have nutrition guides posted on the wall, which is very helpful.)  Of course most diabetics, after being diagnosed, should be well aware of what they are able to eat.

Many restaurants menus also suggest certain "healthy food" choices in terms of low calories and low fat, but these choices are not necessarily diabetic friendly choices. Time for restaurants to consider adding low carbohydrate foods to the "healthy foods" list on the menu.

According to the Washington Post "More than 25 million Americans — more than 8 percent of the population — are believed to have diabetes." According to Wikipedia "Rates of diabetes have increased markedly over the last 50 years in parallel with obesity."