Hahaha!

So, probably not a good idea for him to eat a donut hole. But I'd place it on the wise/foolish continuum, not the moral/immoral continuum.

I'd place it in the "none of your business" column. (Not you specifically, Fred. Just people generally speaking who are not him.)

Seriously. If I eat a donut hole, I am well fucking aware of what it will do to my innards, and I might still decide to eat it anyway. I don't need a co-worker or my mom or Tim to say "That has gluten in it! It's bad for you!" Yeah, no shit. But I'm the boss of me, and if I decide that I want to make a stupid decision, then it's on me. I get to make that decision, and it's no one else's business.

(That said, if I deliberately eat gluten -- as opposed to eating something that I didn't know had gluten in it -- and get sick, that's on me. I don't expect sympathy -- nor do I ask for it -- for my own deliberate choice to eat something that I knew would likely make me ill.)

My mother's oldest friend - a courtesy aunt to my sister and me - went on a rampage cutting back sugar and fat. Until the time she made a carrot cake with NO SUGAR AT ALL. It was, as you might imagine, inedible. She got a bit more reasonable about it after that.

he New Orleans people stared at her like she was from Mars. She whipped up something "delish"--thank god, not Rachel Ray--and the hosts tasted it and all frowned. "It's OK, but some butter would have been better." "Cream sauce," the other host said, "that'd be perfect." "Oh, yeah, cream sauce."

MAH PEEPS!

Truly - people after my own heart.

Aside from the diabetes diagnosis, seemingly I'm doing pretty well. My cholesterol is excellent, my blood pressure ranges from good to excellent. And on my no-sugar no simple and very few complex carb diet I seem to have lost 10 pounds.

On the recommendation of ... Daniel? someone on the board, I bought Dr. Bernstein's book. The diet advice is good, although I'm a little wary of his advocacy of fat rather than carbs. I'm attending an educational class next week, so I'm hoping to get more information for my particular case.

Which book is that?

Is it anyone's place, ever, once you've reached majority, to say "That's not good for you?" In any arena?

Maybe if you're on your fourth or fifth shot.

sumi, if you're asking me, it's "Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution". The first half seems to be a summary of his own tribulations dealing with diabetes (he's Type I) and how he came up with his solution and how well it's worked out for him and then stories from others who've tried it with success. Later on he gets to specific dietary recommendations, with recipes towards the back.

Is it anyone's place, ever, once you've reached majority, to say "That's not good for you?" In any arena?

Besides a doctor or an intervention, I'd say no. Adults either already know the alcohol/sugar/cocaine isn't good for them and they're doing it anyway, or they're in denial and they'll ignore you anyway.

Do interventions ever actually work?