I should promise never to write about mac and cheese again.
But I won't.
Sorry, I refuse to play food police. Believe me, I looked at Delilah Winder's recipe - which was seriously flawed as readers discovered (a perfect example that not everyone can write a recipe) - and shook my head at the ingredients.
But if Oprah Winfrey proclaims a mac and cheese dish as the best in America - in America! - I think it's interesting to see what the make-up is.
At the same time, I'm not holding a fork to someone's mouth and forcing them to eat it.
Read the recipe, laugh and toss it aside. Or read it and get cooking. The choice is up to you.
(And please, who in their right mind is going to eat this fat laden mac and cheese more than once a year, at best???)
I completely understand about the concerns about obesity in America - I spent months interviewing doctors and patients for a two-day News Journal series on gastric bypass surgery. Everyone knows that we should be eating smaller portions, choosing lower fat options and exercising more frequently.
But it's up to the individual to chose their own path.
I strongly believe in Julia Child's mantra of everything in moderation. And, of course, more exercise is never going to hurt anyone.
But I won't shy away from a recipe just because it has heavy cream or butter. If that were the case, you could forget about ever seeing any French dish in our section again. What's next? No recipes for bread or muffins? No birthday cakes? No pasta?
Not going to happen. Not on my watch.
What I will do is try to balance the coverage in Wednesday's Life section - traditionally our "food day" - and include healthy dishes along the way.
OK, that was my daily rant.
Here's an email I got this morning from Nancy Breslin - thanks for writing Nancy - who makes some interesting points:
Hi Patricia Talorico,
I was glad to see the follow up story on the macaroni and cheese recipe. I
missed the original story but saw the "corrected" recipe, and was going to
write but didn't know who the author was. I looked up the fat and calories
of the ingredients of the recipe and, excluding the macaroni, I estimated
that each of 8 servings would contain 1068 calories, 94 grams of fat (daily
suggestion is 64) and a whopping 59 grams of saturated fat (triple the
recommended 20).
I find many of the recipes published in the News Journal to be
unconscionably unhealthy. You would never publish an article on rolling
your own cigarettes, or on the pleasure of baking in the sun without
sunscreen. There was a time when nobody thought of these things (I never
wore a bike helmet as a child, and my Mom held me in her lap as a toddler
when my Dad drove the car), but as new information is available, the media
should be educating people about safer alternatives, rather than advocating
comfortable but unhealthy practices.
It doesn't all have to be tofu and whole wheat (although, personally, I'm a
vegetarian), but the food folks at the News Journal should either skip the
disgustingly high fat recipes, or include calorie and fat info for each
recipe (not that hard to calculate). Scores of Delaware families probably
ate that Mac and Cheese last week, when they might have been tempted instead
by a tasty but lower fat version.
And soon we'll read another article on the increasing obesity epidemic.
Sincerely,
Nancy Breslin
But I won't.
Sorry, I refuse to play food police. Believe me, I looked at Delilah Winder's recipe - which was seriously flawed as readers discovered (a perfect example that not everyone can write a recipe) - and shook my head at the ingredients.
But if Oprah Winfrey proclaims a mac and cheese dish as the best in America - in America! - I think it's interesting to see what the make-up is.
At the same time, I'm not holding a fork to someone's mouth and forcing them to eat it.
Read the recipe, laugh and toss it aside. Or read it and get cooking. The choice is up to you.
(And please, who in their right mind is going to eat this fat laden mac and cheese more than once a year, at best???)
I completely understand about the concerns about obesity in America - I spent months interviewing doctors and patients for a two-day News Journal series on gastric bypass surgery. Everyone knows that we should be eating smaller portions, choosing lower fat options and exercising more frequently.
But it's up to the individual to chose their own path.
I strongly believe in Julia Child's mantra of everything in moderation. And, of course, more exercise is never going to hurt anyone.
But I won't shy away from a recipe just because it has heavy cream or butter. If that were the case, you could forget about ever seeing any French dish in our section again. What's next? No recipes for bread or muffins? No birthday cakes? No pasta?
Not going to happen. Not on my watch.
What I will do is try to balance the coverage in Wednesday's Life section - traditionally our "food day" - and include healthy dishes along the way.
OK, that was my daily rant.
Here's an email I got this morning from Nancy Breslin - thanks for writing Nancy - who makes some interesting points:
Hi Patricia Talorico,
I was glad to see the follow up story on the macaroni and cheese recipe. I
missed the original story but saw the "corrected" recipe, and was going to
write but didn't know who the author was. I looked up the fat and calories
of the ingredients of the recipe and, excluding the macaroni, I estimated
that each of 8 servings would contain 1068 calories, 94 grams of fat (daily
suggestion is 64) and a whopping 59 grams of saturated fat (triple the
recommended 20).
I find many of the recipes published in the News Journal to be
unconscionably unhealthy. You would never publish an article on rolling
your own cigarettes, or on the pleasure of baking in the sun without
sunscreen. There was a time when nobody thought of these things (I never
wore a bike helmet as a child, and my Mom held me in her lap as a toddler
when my Dad drove the car), but as new information is available, the media
should be educating people about safer alternatives, rather than advocating
comfortable but unhealthy practices.
It doesn't all have to be tofu and whole wheat (although, personally, I'm a
vegetarian), but the food folks at the News Journal should either skip the
disgustingly high fat recipes, or include calorie and fat info for each
recipe (not that hard to calculate). Scores of Delaware families probably
ate that Mac and Cheese last week, when they might have been tempted instead
by a tasty but lower fat version.
And soon we'll read another article on the increasing obesity epidemic.
Sincerely,
Nancy Breslin
3 comments:
I'm with you on this one, Patty. I don't think it is too much to expect people to exersize some judgement as to what goes in their mouth.
Keep up the great writing and blogging!
You can eat good food in moderation. If those families at the mac n cheese that was "fatty" then maybe they need to work out a little. It is called checks and balances. It bugs me that everyone thinks they have only eat one thing and not the other. If you eat some stuff high in fat, then lay off some other fatty things and maybe walk an extra mile on your walk that you take every day. What?????? You mean you didn't exercise today? or younever take a walk or maybe do something to get your blood pumping? It is called common sense. Every needs to use their own brains and decipher out what is good and bad for them! Keep bloggin
Don't eat anything fatty or high in calories. That way you can live a couple extra year even if you have to do without anything that tastes good. For me, I'd rather have a nice thick steak, a baked potato loaded up with sour cream, all the bad stuff, and die happy. Who wants to live an extra 5 years when those years are spent in diapers in a home? Give me cardiac arrest with a hunk of strip steak in my mouth! :)
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