The Gourmet's Dilemma

To some it's a dream job--eating gourmet meals for free and then writing about them. But for some food critics, their eyes aren't the only thing that gets wide when they contemplate yet another feast.

Karen Fernau, a food writer for The Arizona Republic, said when she first started her job she began to gain weight. "I always looked forward to lunch before this job, then all of a sudden lunch was all day every day. Eventually I realized that if I continued to carry on eating for work and then eating outside of work, too, I wasn't going to fit in my cubicle," she says. Nine years later, keeping her weight steady and her health intact is a daily battle.

"When I'm not working I have to eat like a rabbit and exercise like a crazy person," she says. If she knows she will be going to a tasting at a bakery or eating a four-course meal, she usually eats fruit or salads throughout the day. "What people don't realize is that as a food critic or writer, you're not writing about health--you're celebrating food. And these chefs don't try to make it healthy, they try to make it incredible, and a lot of butter and fats go into that mission."

Fernau discovered that she had to learn the difference between tasting and gorging. "I started to realize that I couldn't eat the entire treat, even if it was delicious. I just couldn't," she says. "It's all about proportions now. That and being extremely cautious off the job. On the job, I can't not taste something. It's my livelihood and something I must deal with."

Although Fernau always considered herself a health-conscious person, she never realized the importance of counting calories. Now she is always keeping track of nutritional information that she says most people don't even look at or consider. At one tasting session alone, she says, upward of 1,000 calories is often added to her day. That's about half of the recommended total calories per day for the average adult. "As a food critic or writer you will eat more calories in one sitting than most people eat in an entire day," she says.

But even though she's devised an eating method that keeps her on track, Fernau says sticking to it is a daily battle. And food editors, writers and critics across the country couldn't agree more.