Okay, is this just completely reprehensible? I mean, you could argue that raising money is good, but selling regular sugary treats! Seriously?!
Couldn’t they raise money some other way?
is this akin to selling cigarettes to raise money for lung cancer? I’ll be out eating bacon coated with sea salt to keep my blood pressure down.
Cigarettes cause lung caner. Poor diet and salt contribute to heart disease. Juvenile Diabetes is caused by a lot of things, but eating sugar ain’t one of them.
I’d have no more of a problem with this than I would with a 5k for cerebral palsy or Parkinson’s research.
So, if there isn’t cause and effect, it’s acceptable?
Juvenile diabetes is an autoimmune disorder unrelated to sugar consumption. People with Juvenile (or Type 1) diabetes can eat sugar, they just have to plan it into their carbohydrate counts for the day, or dose for it.
The comparison with lung cancer and cigarettes is invalid.
My kid has Type 1- today he had jellybeans and Reese’s Pieces as a reward for something he did. I just count them into his daily carb amount. It’s perfectly okay to have sugar.
This is because nobody ever buys your Rice Krispie treats, isn’t it?
Wasn’t your wrongly perceived link between cause and effect what caused your outrage over a bake sale for DM1? Or did you have some other reason to bring up the link between cigarettes/lung cancer and salt/HBP?
They aren’t selling it to juvenile diabetes patients, you know. I mean, I assume. That would be a hilarious fundraiser. “Eat the cookie for the cure! Take one for the team!”
Diabetic here, the kind the OP’s coworker’s are raising money for.
Yes, diabetics can eat sugar. No, sugar does not cause diabetes.
But still, I gotta say, if I were having a fundraiser for diabetes, I’d be thinking something along the lines of a 5K walk/run or car/dog wash or something that doesn’t promote eating stuff that should be eaten only sparingly (for everyone, not just diabetics). An unhealthy diet is unhealthy for everyone, and it’s even more important for those of us who have chronic diseases. Wouldn’t it be even better to have a fundraiser that promoted healthy living?
On a related note, a few month’s ago a local group had a spaghetti dinner to raise money for a local diabetes education center. Given that the center is something like 90% skewed towards Type 2 (which is even more related to diet/exercise) I found that even more ironic than a bake sale for Type 1.
No, but at the same time, it’s not completely unreasonable to assume there’d be some diabetics at the fundraiser. Lots of us are pretty vocal about our disease and want to take part in fundraisers and other such events. It’d be nice to go there and not be surrounded by temptation. (For the record, I do eat sweets, but if I eat more than a moderate amount, I spend the rest of the day chasing blood sugars. Not fun. So yeah, spending more than a few minutes at a bake sale is not really my favorite use of time.)
If it’s bad to have a bake sale for juvenile diabetes, then I imagine the OP would also be offended if someone had a 5k to support research into paralysis or heart disease, since patients either can’t do them or can only do them in some limited capacity too, right? The comparison to cigarettes isn’t fair, because those are dangerous to everyone and have a direct causal link to lung cancer.
Sure, I think there’s perhaps a lack of consideration for the audience there. However, bake sales are also relatively easy fundraisers to set up, and can be relatively successful (in terms of effort invested compared to money raised) for even a small number of participants, whereas something like a 5k takes a lot of work to advertise, schedule, get sponsors, and a lot of participants to be of any real use, otherwise one ends up investing a lot of time and effort and getting a poor return where he could have raised more funds in another way.
So, yeah, maybe a little weird, but as the alternative was probably no fundraiser at all. Besides, maybe they’ll have some sugar-free baked goods, made with splenda or something, so that people who need to watch their sugar can still particpate. Hell, you don’t even need to actually buy anything, you can just give them money toward the cause.
You know, you can bake diabetic friendly treats with ease, right? I make them for my mom all the time.
What do you make? I find it’s pretty hard to do baked goods that aren’t high carb. Flour is just as bad as sugar, at least for my body.
(and once again, that’s not to say I don’t eat them, in moderation. But my days of sitting and eating half a loaf of fresh-baked bread straight from the oven are long over.)
Type-2 diabetic checking in here. It never would have crossed my mind to think anything was wrong with this. Sugar is not 100% evil. Most people manage just fine having sugar in their diets in moderation. Selling food with sugar in it to those people is fine, and is ESPECIALLY fine if doing so raises money for a good cause.
Would I like to see a few sugar-free options in the bake sale, too? Sure. But I wouldn’t be offended if that weren’t the case, nor do I even remotely think that everything on the menu should be sugar-free.
Date squares, banana bread, zucchini bread, po’e, etc. None of them are particularly sweet and mom certainly doesn’t eat half a loaf; however, a slice of zucchini bread is a pretty reasonable snack for most people, including a diabetic.
I don’t make sex in a pan, or maple fudge, or that type of thing.
I make a lot of stuff with almond flour and agave nectar – a little pricey, but well worth it!
What’s po’e?
StG
Probably you don’t want to come to Seattle at Christmas and see the Juvenile Diabetes Gingerbread Houses competitions. Here are some images from last couples of years.
I think it is cool. Architect and local hotel pastry chefs get together and create gingerbread houses using their imagination and candy. I did it one year and it was a blast, some of the creations are quite elaborate.
I can see how someone might see it as ironic but than as everyone has pointed out the sugar isn’t the issue. It is a good cause–support them!
I voted “other” because when you consider the time value of money, it would generally be a lot cheaper just to donate money than to volunteer your time, regardless of what they’re selling.
Oh, I don’t put value on “feeling good selling stuff,” or rather, I put the more value on “feeling good donating in 10 seconds” than I do on “feeling good working pointlessly for eight hours.”
Are the posters here ignoring the issues around type 2 diabetes, which is associated with obesity, sugar, etc? This was formerly known as adult-onset diabetes, but the increasing girth among youngsters is a leading suspect in the cause.
When diabetes strikes during childhood, it is routinely assumed to be type 1, or juvenile-onset diabetes. However, in the last 2 decades, type 2 diabetes (formerly known as adult-onset diabetes) has been on the rise in children.
Not saying this would change the vote or opinions… after all, this is the SDMB.
.
Working for a not for profit (not JDRF), I have to say…we’re pretty much happy with whatever the public wants to do to raise money. Sure, it’d be better if you just opened your wallet George-Jetson style and handed us all of it except for a dollar, but since we can’t get you to do that, fundraising events are needed. So if you’re in an office or location where selling treats will go over well and make a buck, GO FOR IT!
The JDRF however is an organization devoted to finding a cure for Type 1 diabetes. It says so, right on the front page of their website.
Also, there is thought to be a rather strong genetic component with T2, so its not just “obesity and sugar” that contributes (and let’s not get started on the fact that its carbohydrates as a whole and not just “sugar” that screws all diabetics over). And there’s an increasing number of adults who are diagnosed with T1 too. T1 has nothing to do with obesity or diet – its autoimmune and can strike at any time.
As a type 1, who was diagnosed in adulthood, I don’t find a bake sale to raise money for type 1 diabetes research particularly offensive. Sure, there are other things that would possibly be better (for example, the American Diabetes Association runs sponsored walks), but I see nothing wrong with a bake sale as part of a fundraising drive.