NATCHEZ —The Southern tradition of rich, not always fancy, and decadent food has undoubtedly contributed the state’s obesity epidemic — but some just don’t care.

For evidence of that look no further than the stuffed potato at E&T’s Bar-B-Que Heaven.

First of all don’t think of this as a normal potato, it looks more like a small football than an average potato.

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One of E&T’s cooks, Lataija Hurts, said it’s one of the restaurants most popular items.

Hurts lathers the potato in butter, then adds chicken and ham, then smothers it in sour cream and three kinds of cheese before a spin in the microwave.

When it comes out it looks like the incarnation of arterial sclerosis and it’s borderline debaucherous — and it comes with buttered toast.

Hurts said on an average day the restaurant sells about 10 to 15 of the potatoes but 25 to 30 is not uncommon.

Hurts said most people she encounters in the restaurant are more worried about taste than health.

“They like what’s not good for them,” she said.

Across town at Soul Heaven, a soul food restaurant, owner Alisha Wilson said she has never had a customer ask her a question about the amount of fat or calories in her food.

Wilson’s bestseller — fried pork chops with brown gravy.

“Most people want to come in and sit down to eat,” she said. “They’re not worried about the other stuff.”

Both Wilson and E&T’s owner Ellen Earls said simply being from the south is a contributing factor to eating habits.

“It might not be good for them,” Wilson said of southern diners. “But it’s the food they were raised on and they love it.”

Wilson said she can remember her family slaughtering a hog and making roasts, chitterlings and cracklings.

“That’s just how we ate,” she said.

And while both women said most patrons are more apt to dine for taste than health, neither are oblivious to the risks associated with their craft.

Earls and Wilson have both made reforms in their cooking and eating habits.

Wilson has made the switch from ham and salt pork to smoked turkey in dishes like greens and beans.

And Earls said she offers grilled options, instead of fried, for her patrons.

Earls said while much of her clientele does not ask many health related questions about the food, some do and she wants to accommodate them.

“We want to have healthy options for them,” she said.

Less than an hour after E&T’s opened on Friday afternoon customers had already began putting in lunch orders for hamburgers and fried shrimp.

And while the eating habits of Mississippians won’t change overnight Hurts also acknowledge the hereditary nature of dining habits.

“I think it’s in the taste buds,” she said. “It’s just their Southern heritage.”