Limited Edition Foods

Today we have a guest post from Karen Lynch, a great writer and a two time breast cancer survivor.  Karen writes for DiscussingBreastCancer.com where she frequently blogs about the limited edition products that are introduced to promote breast cancer awareness.  Today she contemplates why other worthy causes are not honored with limited editions, and wishes that major corporations would share their wealth and creativity with a rainbow of causes.

I’ve been suffering from withdrawal. Pink product withdrawal. There’s nothing philanthropic on the shelves at my local grocery store anymore. There’s no mention of a portion of any proceeds going to anyone. Whatever happened to all those charitable intentions?

When October comes around, good comes with a vengeance. Everyone gets in on the pink ribbon bandwagon. In fact, I’m hard pressed to find a company doesn’t put a pink ribbon on their products during the tenth month of the year.

But once the calendar page turns and the holidays descend upon us … pink is replaced with silver and blue or red and green. Come January, the shelves have lost all color.

It’s sad, really. As a two-time breast cancer survivor, I love seeing all those ribbons and learning about all those proceeds being shared with various breast cancer related charities.

But there are other causes … there are other ribbons … and other reasons to give.

November was lung and pancreatic cancer awareness month – where were all the clear and purple ribbons?

January is National Cervical Cancer Screening Month – that’s a teal and silver ribbon. Did you see any of those?

March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month … I saw no dark blue ribbons.

Melanoma Monday is in May (black ribbon).

September is ovarian cancer (teal), prostate cancer (light blue), leukemia (orange) and lymphoma (lime) and childhood cancer (gold) awareness month.

No ribbons. None.

There are other causes, too. Domestic violence (where are all the purple products?). Child abuse (blue). AIDS (red). There’s a cause for every color under the rainbow.

But we only get pink ribbons in October.

The main reason I like the pink ribbons I see in October is obvious – I’m a breast cancer survivor and the more money raised for the cause, the more research dollars there will be, the more likely it will be that there will one day be a cure. That matters to me, greatly.

But the other reason I like to see the pink products? They prove to me that most major corporations share their wealth at least a little bit. Sure, I wish they kicked up their charitable contributions all year round, not just in October. Heck, maybe some do and they don’t publicize that fact.

But it makes me feel a whole lot better when I see proof of their philanthropic acts on the shelves of my grocery store.   Besides … women are diagnosed with breast cancer all 12 months of the year. It would help them to know they have year ‘round support."