Diabetes is an international concern but the U.S. is leading the way in number of cases and attention to the problem. The CDC estimates that almost 21 million Americans are diabetic. Increasingly the diagnosis is Type II diabetes that has more behavioral causes, as opposed to Type I diabetes, in which patients have more of a genetic predisposition to the disease. In addition, many more people have high blood sugar that is a precursor to diabetes. Doctors and the public are alarmed it seems.
The New York Times has a recent series on the subject, and two of these articles are listed in the 5 "most e-mailed" articles in the past 24 hours. First there is "Bad Blood: Diabetes and Its Awful Toll Quietly Emerge as a Crisis". Next, "Bad Blood: Living at an Epicenter of Diabetes, Defiance and Despair." The gravely titled articles describe the ravages of the epidemic disease. The usual suspects are to blame for the "crisis", such as fast food, aversion to exercise, poverty, television and calorie-rich eating.
However perhaps despair's not your cup of tea so early in the year. In that case you can gobble up 2 of the 5 "most e-mailed articles" of the past 7 days : "Recipe: Crusty Macaroni and Cheese" or "The Winter Cook: Macaroni and Lots of Cheese". These are also part of a series, that includes "Recipe: Creamy Macaroni and Cheese". A few weeks ago the paper also featured "Mac and Cheese That Thinks Outside the Box". That piece described macaroni and cheese, "sold frozen in generous 9-by-13-inch pans...[a] single pan is $65 including shipping". This is evidently for those who are not on a budget, but who still eshew vegetables in favor of carbs and fat in a plain, leaden and lumpy extravaganza. 'Live richly', as they say.
In "...Macaroni and Lots of Cheese", we learn the recipe's secret in the final line; "[t]he moral of the story: [w]hen in doubt, add more cheese". Perfect. More cheese means less carbs, proportionally speaking that is. That must make the dish a candidate for some Atkins-derivative diet? From the e-mail statistics, readers evidently like to be alarmed, but at the same time don't deign from lapping up "comfort food". Rest assured that in the diabetes stories the word "moral" was nowhere to be found.
It's not all futile of course, this leads naturally to the next series, probably something like: "Cardiovascular Disease Silently, Stealthily Stalks".
