Say no to pinkwashing, Part II

I know, I know, back-to-back posts about why I hate the pink ribbon campaign.

But after writing this post, which included a story by an acquaintance whose mother died of cancer, I decided to hit the grocery stores and see if I could visually demonstrate my point (as well as hers). BINGO, I found it, so this is a show-and-tell of sorts.

See, one of the things Sharon talks about in her post is the fact that the companies raising money for various cancer charities are producing many of the products that cause or accelerate cancer.

And she's correct. Here's what I found on the shelves of just one store.

[caption id="attachment_646" align="aligncenter" width="300"] One of three products I found on the shelf that's helping in the fight against breast cancer[/caption]

So, I decided to take a look at the ingredients list on the side panel and here's what it shows.

[caption id="attachment_650" align="alignright" width="1024"] Ingredient list[/caption]

Sugar appears a few times there. Let's look at what Dr. Fuhrman has to say about sugar and cancer, shall we?

"Although different transport mechanisms are used to get fructose and glucose into cells, their metabolism is thought to be similar once they enter cells.  However, these scientists found that in human pancreatic tumor cells, metabolism of fructose and glucose occurs via different pathways, both leading to cell proliferation.  Keep in mind that both sugars led to increased cell proliferation at similar rates - that is, this study did not show that fructose is "worse" than glucose, just that they stimulate proliferation by different mechanisms.  Glucose was used by the cancer cells for energy production, whereas fructose was used to generate nucleic acids (DNA and RNA).  This study was the first to show that cancer cells could differentiate between fructose and glucose, and that they could use fructose as efficiently as glucose to fuel cell growth." -- from a piece he wrote for VegSource.

You don't have to take his word for it, he lists the studies at the end of the article.

Here's another product that's fighting the good fight

And, its ingredients



And, finally, off the store shelf, let's not leave out the BPA-lined canned goods



And, there's THIS information from the Breast Cancer Fund, which actually seems interested in PREVENTION.

Finally, what I was looking for was delivered straight to my mailbox, in the form of a grocery store ad with a pullout section promoting the products that are in it to win it in the fight against breast cancer

What do we see in the ad? Well, fake food. Products with sugar (or high fructose corn syrup, which the corn lobby would like you to call corn sugar thank you very much), as well as dairy, which has been linked to cancer.

So, there you have it. My little experiment has taught me that if I want to contribute to any cancer charity, the Breast Cancer Fund may just be that charity because they are focusing on environmental causes and as their little tagline says "Prevention Starts Here." OH, and to stay out of the center aisles of the grocery store.