The Pie-Loving President and his Crust Master-in-Chief

July 2, 2010 -- There's nothing more American than apple pie on the 4th of July. But around the White House, pies have a good and bad reputation.

President Obama loves pie. He really loves pie.

On the 2008 presidential campaign trail he stopped in multiple diners, and swooned about the tasty treat during campaign speeches.

"I got coconut crème pie," Obama said in Ohio in October during the campaign, "I'll take a crème pie I don't mind. I like all kind of pie."

Along with his new home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC came one addition: his own pastry chef.

"The pastry chef here makes the best pie I've ever tasted, and that is causing big problems for Michelle and myself," President Obama told the Associated Press last summer.

Provided with an endless supplies of pies on hand, the president has been showing that he loves pie maybe a little too much.

"Some of you heard that my cholesterol had gone up. It's because of pie," Obama said at a town hall in Ottumwa, Iowa in April, "The White House, along with that Air Force One, they have really good pie at the White House."

In the last two years the president's cholesterol has jumped significantly.

The president's routine exam at the National Naval Medical Center concluded that the 48-year-old president is "fit for duty" and in "excellent health," though doctors recommended a change to his diet so as to lower his LDL (so-called "bad cholesterol") which registered at 138 milligrams per deciliter of blood (mg/dl)

The American Heart Association rates an LDL level of 130 to 159 mg/dl as "Borderline High."

That level marks an increase from two years ago. In 2008, a letter from the then-Senator's personal physician, Dr. David L. Schneider, reported that in 2007 the president's LDL level was 96 mg/dl.

Pie was to blame.

"Those guys make good desserts over there," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said shortly after the president's physical exam records were released, " And I think he's on more than one occasion sampled more than he needed to."

Bill Yosses, the White House pastry chef, is the culprit – but he's just doing his job as the White House pastry chef.