Paula Keeps Coming Up

The entire Fat Chef concept would have been a far better path for Paula to take than the one she did. If she had carried us along on her journey to health and wellness, her countless fans would have cheered and encouraged her. 

Wouldn't everyone have watched a reality show about Paula NOT using a stick of butter on a slice of toast or training to enter a 3K race? (Is there such a thing?) But she’s been made so defensive by the reaction to her news, and especially her Big Pharma contract, that who knows what her next steps will be. Should she just keep on keeping on? That’s probably not the greatest option. She couldn’t even eat a hamburger on her recent fan cruise without being pilloried. It IS hard to watch the “old” Paula knowing that the inevitable shoe has dropped.

Bravo’s Andy Cohen, now that he has a nightly “Watch What Happens Live” show to fill up every night, is found of asking the food pros (often from Top Chef) what they think of the whole Paula issue. Gail Simmons had this to say. Last night, Tom Colicchio said he was far more disturbed by her connection to Smithfield Ham than he was by the drug company contract. He suggested we all read a 2006 article from Rolling Stone, “Bosshog”, about the questionable practices of the Smithfield company. The article is only available to subscribers of Rolling Stone in their archives, but here’s a wrapup.

The Smithfield company was also featured in a Pulitzer prize-winning article in 2000 for National Reporting as part of the New York Times series, How Race Is Lived In America. The article, “At a Slaughterhouse, Some Things Never Die” is pretty heavy stuff and one would hope that a decade has brought changes to the way both the workers AND the animals are treated.

BTW, this was the Smithfield company’s response to the Rolling Stone article. AND I suppose Paula could criticize Tom for selling Diet Coke. Here are some other surprising endorsements by famous chefs. (I had no idea about the Rick Bayless one.) 

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