My Next Volunteer Gig…The Food Police?

One of my many volunteer activities is serving on the board of directors of a local cancer survivor’s group. The group offers many programs and services to local cancer survivors including support groups, yoga classes and an annual conference. All of these activities are free. Pretty cool, huh?

The annual conference lasts all day, so we provide food for a couple of meals and snacks. (This is going somewhere, I promise!) One of the speakers at this year’s event stressed healthy eating habits which is good. A reminder everyone, cancer survivor or not, needs to hear. Feeding 300 people at an event is challenging and more so when you have people who are undergoing cancer treatment as there can be significant dietary needs and restrictions.

So, as the board was looking at conference evaluations, several comments regarding the food led to a spirited discussion about what food should be offered at our events. There was an impassioned speech challenging our group to set the example of what healthy survivorship looks like and in this person’s eyes that would be food consisting of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, etc. All great things, for sure. They went on to say items such as cookies and bagels made from white flour are bad as are white potatoes and we should never offer them. This annoyed me a great deal.

Before you flood me with emails to tell me your theory about cancer and sugar, cancer and potatoes, cancer and fill-in-the-blank, let me state my case. I do not want to be the food police. If you want to end your lunch with a cookie, I feel like that should be your decision. I am much more interested in helping cancer survivors find a way to eat real food in the real world than I am in limiting their choices to foods that I think are appropriate.

Here is another way of looking at this. People who have an ostomy (ileostomy or colostomy) have very strict dietary guidelines. They cannot eat nuts and berries, literally. Those sorts of items can cause a blockage in their intestines and are a big problem. Recent colon resection patients are on low residue diets. This means no whole grains, very limited fresh fruits and vegetables—you get the idea. This diet can be in place for up to 6 weeks following surgery. If the only food options at our events consist of nuts, fruit, whole grains (which contain small seeds or raisins in many cases) and the like, what are we saying to people who cannot eat those things?

So here is the question of the day: which view is right? Of course, there might be a third option and if you feel that way, state your case. I would love to have a discussion of many viewpoints on this.