Before I go on, I have to say that I love the Food Network. I watch at least one segment every day, and I go to the website to peruse recipes and ideas. One of my favorite shows is the cake competitions because I love to see all that creativity under pressure, not to mention that this girl loves to have her cake and eat it too. But, holey bajeebies, the amount of sugars used in all that cake decorating is off the chart.
Watching FN with a health conscious perspective
However, as much as I love the Food Network, the health conscious part of me is continually aghast at the number of dishes I see that are just heart attack, obesity, and high cholesterol contributors. I'll still watch a show if it's an interesting dish, but in my head, I'm always thinking of how I can slimmify the dish or make it either gluten free, dairy free, low fat, low sugar, or less on the products I know are packed with artificial ingredients and additives. Again, my whole thing is that if you can clean up your food, you can clean up a whole slew of health issues.
Examples of heart attack city
Here are some examples that make me wonder if the Food Network is trying to make us fat and unhealthy. The other day Rachel Ray was making Smoky Beer Burgers with a creamy mustard sauce which sounds delicious. But what got me is that she made just four burgers using 2lbs of meat and 1/3lb of Gouda cheese. Yikes! You could get at least 8-9 palm size burgers from that 2lbs of meat or make nearly a dozen and a half of sliders. And really, you don't need to add sour cream to the mustard. Mustard alone is fine with less calories and fat.
Serious Eats did this series of posts contemplating, "Paula Deen is trying to kill us." Paula Deen is one of my favorite personalities on the FN. I do love my Paula, but I agree, some of her dishes make me feel like she's trying to fatten me up. Serious Eats points out some of Paula's recipes that are truly obesity on a plate like Fried Butter Balls and this All Purpose Cheese Spread which uses jar cheese spread (no better than Velveeta in my opinion), cream cheese, mayo, and butter. Seriously, you won't need the Lipitor if you just stop eating this kind of stuff.
Then we have the Neelys. I love barbecue and southern cooking but holey moley, the suppers these two make are overly jam packed with fat, carbs, and sugars. For example, the other day, they prepared this "Sunday Supper" which consisted of BBQ spaghetti, beef and pork ribs, coleslaw, and Strawberry Shortcut Cake. The only vegetable was coleslaw which had lots of mayo. And the amount of sugar used to make the BBQ sauces was enough to bake a cake. I would have remade this ribs supper using far less sugar in the BBQ sauce and adding collard greens, baked spicy steak fries, and a home made strawberry ice cream. You'd still get some comfort goodness but far less fat, sugar, and salt.
Can we get more healthy eating?
But all is not a total aghast, there is the healthy eating with Ellie Krieger who is a schooled dietician. Although, I have noticed on the FN website, that a big bulk of the healthy eating recipes come from Eating Well magazine. Why can't FN just hire more Ellie like personas? Popular Bobby Flay actually uses as much natural ingredients as possible that are far lower in sugar and fats. The nice thing about grilling is that you don't have to use oils like in frying. Although, Bobby is pretty generous with slathering on the evoo.
I'd love to see a show about how to cook Spa like food or have someone go visit all the kitchens at spas around the country. Oh, my dream job!!! Ever notice that every time you eat at a spa the dishes are always light, vibrant, and make you feel healthy. Overall, I think the Food Network should take a harder look at the bigger picture and see how their network is contributing to the growing obesity problem our nation faces. People go to the FN to learn about cooking and food, so the FN has a huge influence. I'd surely enjoy seeing far more healthier cooking. What do you think?
