susan komen kfc

Don't consider an advocacy group's partnership with a corporation to be a blanket endorsement of the corporation's products.

Does giving money to a good cause offset the unhealthy effects of fast food?

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Elizabeth Kucinich, wife of Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and public affairs director of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), has asked the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation to stop raising money by asking people to buy Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The “Buckets for the Cure” partnership, a major national campaign, is designed to reach thousands of communities served by KFC restaurants and raise a minimum of $1 million for the breast cancer group—and perhaps as much as 8 million.

No matter whether you consider the PCRM, which preaches a vegan diet, an animal-rights activist group or a "PETA-connected organization"—some of the many descriptions from critics—Kucinich, who, along with her husband, is a vegan, raises a valid a point. Should an organization that wants to help women learn about breast cancer, and help them learn how to reduce their chances of getting it by eating healthfully and maintaining a healthy weight, give its seal of approval to a company that sells the kind of food that may well contribute to the development of breast and other forms of cancer?

Is it OK for Susan G. Komen for the Cure to get money from KFC?Market Research

THE DETAILS: Fried chicken is filled with unhealthy fats; grilled chicken sounds like a sensible alternative, but grilling meats and poultry produces carcinogenic compounds called heterocyclic amines (HCAs). (See the end of this article for some anti-HCA grilling tips.)

Last week Kucinich sent a letter to Nancy Brinker, founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. She did not mince words. “Selling chicken in a pink bucket to raise money for breast cancer research is like selling pink cigarettes to benefit lung cancer or selling pink bottles of liquor to support Alcoholics Anonymous. It is outrageous,” she wrote. Pink, as many people know, is the color associated with Susan G. Komen. Promotional spots that KFC is running show pink buckets filled with chicken.

In an interview, Kucinich, who has many family members who have had breast cancer, told Rodale.com: “Anyone wanting to promote health needs to take great consideration and care in what they promote. There is nothing more antithetical to a woman’s health than consumption of fatty food.”

A spokesperson for the Komen organization, Andrea Rader, says the group's collaboration with KFC is a way to bring information about breast health to women they couldn't reach any other way. “They’re free to eat the grilled chicken or the vegetable sides, or not eat anything at all," she says. Asked why the Komen organization would associate itself with a version of chicken that contains cancer-causing agents, Rader did not answer the question directly, but said the same was true of all meats, not just chicken. She referred to the findings of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) that in all muscle meats, from beef, pork, and fowl to fish “HCAs form when amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and creatine (a chemical found in muscles) react at high cooking temperatures. Researchers have identified 17 different HCAs resulting from the cooking of muscle meats that may pose human cancer risk." NCI also says that a maximum daily intake of HCAs in food has not been established.

WHAT IT MEANS: What the Komen Foundation is doing is not unique. It's hardly a new strategy for nonprofit groups needing to raise serious funds to hook up with a company that is more than happy to help a worthy organization in order to improve its own not-so-positive image. For example, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry has accepted money from Coca-Cola, a tooth rotter if there ever was one. And funders of the America Diabetic Association include the jam maker Smucker's and Archway Cookies. Who knew that sweets were the perfect foods for diabetics?